ATLANTA - Patrice Hinton Oswalt had something on her mind.

After "many years absence," she wrote to Gov. Sonny Perdue in a late March e-mail, Ms. Oswalt and her husband had visited Jekyll Island. She was dismayed at what she heard about plans to revitalize the island's sagging tourist infrastructure and unconvinced by arguments that traditional limits on how much of the island can be developed would protect "Georgia's Jewel."

"Surely there are other options to enhance island revenues without destroying the delicate ecosystem," Ms. Oswalt wrote. "Maintaining 65 percent of the island undeveloped while overdeveloping the remaining 35 percent is not a viable answer for the future of Jekyll Island, but rather a way to appease greed."

The e-mail is among hundreds of pages of documents on Jekyll Island reviewed by Morris News Service. In a session notable for how little public influence Mr. Perdue exerted on issues other than the budget, the records show a governor's office at times intimately involved in the debate over legislation to extend the Jekyll Island Authority's lease in hopes of luring private developers.

The documents also seem to run counter to Mr. Perdue's public distance on the Jekyll debate while it was going on. Instead, they point to ties between the governor's office and lobbyists for developers interested in Jekyll's profit-making potential.

At least some of those developers are expected to be major players in the redevelopment of the island, though Mr. Perdue's office insists he has no favorites.

House Bill 214, which the governor signed in May, includes protections for the island's ecologically fragile south end and bars the state from selling any of the land on Jekyll.

But the original scope of the bill was different and excluded those safeguards, which were proposed by legislators outside Mr. Perdue's camp.

While the governor didn't include the bill in his news releases or speeches, he did assign one of his key aides to keep an eye on it: Lonice Barrett, the former state commissioner of natural resources.

Mr. Barrett said the governor was intent on looking out for the best interests of Jekyll.

"That was the role that I was asked to play in (the process), among the other things that I was doing," he said. "It was a coordination role; it was a try to keep everybody in the information loop."

Others, though, see a governor trying to push the agenda of wealthy and politically connected developers who coveted Jekyll's natural beauty as a potential playground for the rich.

"This thing was being cooked all along," said Neill Herring, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club who was involved in the political battle over the island's future.

THE DOCUMENTS SHOW Mr. Perdue's office had taken an interest in redeveloping Jekyll Island long before the 2007 legislative session.

Drafts of the authority's plans, and memos referencing meetings between authority officials and Mr. Perdue, stretch back to 2004.

The authority's plans mentioned several possibilities for the island and pushed for a lease extension, more than two years before one would be offered in the General Assembly. Also, parts of the south end were targeted for development.

"The site that is currently occupied by the 4H center and the soccer fields offers a substantial opportunity to increase the residential base of Jekyll Island," a draft plan developed by the authority said. "The combined acreage of the two sites is plus or minus 19 acres. The proposed development would consist largely of single-family lots."

Mr. Herring said he was relieved after hearing about the documents that desires for developing the south end were thwarted in the final version of the lease-extension bill.

THROUGHOUT 2005, meetings were taking place on many fronts, including federal legislation removing parts of Jekyll from a list of protected areas on barrier islands where the government refused to underwrite flood insurance. Mr. Perdue's office was involved in lobbying for the change. Parts of the island were later removed, though some land was also added to the protected areas as a swap.

One item, for example, suggests there might have been an effort to time public discussion of the politically touchy subject of Jekyll's future.

In meeting notes dated Sept. 29, 2005, Mr. Barrett wrote "blanket on redevel. issues till after re-elect."

Mr. Barrett concedes the handwriting on the notes belong to him, but he says he can't remember what the meaning of the line was, though he said the meeting largely involved the federal issues.

"I'm trying to remember whether this was re-election in Georgia or whether, since this was federal legislation, whether there was something on that as well. ... I don't remember the context of that," he said.

Mr. Herring said the possibility the note had to do with federal elections stretches credibility. He adds that U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., who represents Jekyll, always easily wins re-election in a strongly Republican district.

Mr. Perdue, at the time, faced the possibility of a tough 2006 campaign against either the proficient fundraiser, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, or popular Secretary of State Cathy Cox.

"He's talking about the governor's race," Mr. Herring said of Mr. Barrett. "He's trying to keep the issue out of Mark Taylor's hands."

THE DOCUMENTS ALSO show Mr. Barrett and other officials from the governor's office involved in some of the legislative mechanics that led to the passage of the bill and, in some cases, serving as an apparent point of contact for developers interested in the island.

A target of some environmentalists' ire, lobbyist and former Natural Resources Commissioner Joe Tanner, also pops up in the e-mails. He monitored the Jekyll legislation from the beginning and later registered as a lobbyist for the politically connected owners of Reynolds Plantation, a posh resort on Lake Oconee.

Mr. Barrett said the extent of Mr. Tanner's involvement was occasional conversations about Jekyll between two people who had known each other for decades. Mr. Barrett said he backed away after Mr. Tanner registered April 10 as a lobbyist for Southeast Landco, a company owned by the Reynolds group.

James and Harold Reynolds, two officials of Linger Longer, the company that owns the plantation, each contributed to Mr. Perdue's re-election campaign. Harold Reynolds gave $7,000 in 2003 and 2006, while James Reynolds gave $5,000 in 2003 and picked up nearly $1,400 in expenses for a campaign event last year.

"Once that happened, I just, that pretty much I tried to be sure I distanced myself ... for the very reasons that you might suspect," Mr. Barrett said.

Mr. Barrett said Mr. Perdue gave a clear message to the Jekyll Island Authority when he met with them at a signing ceremony for the bill in May.

"You need to understand, I have absolutely no preconceived ideas of where we need to go," Mr. Barrett recalls the governor saying. "'You need to hear me loud and clear,' and I'm quoting him almost verbatim, 'I want you to do what's best for Georgia. I want it to stand up to scrutiny. I want you to make a good business deal. I want you to protect Jekyll Island. I want to see Jekyll Island realize its potential..' "

Reach Brandon Larrabee at (678) 977-3709 or brandon.larrabee@morris.com.