December 4, 2013

Dear Sir,

Assuming the author of the item (“A loaded question”) on page 4 of The Royal Gazette today, was indeed you, I do not disagree with your comments but what’s good for the goose, etc.

There are a whole lot of people out here in survey land who might suggest that the way the questions were posed in the RG ordered Mindmaps poll was similarly flawed. The RG obviously wouldn’t agree, as you put the results of that survey all over your front page, but there sure were a lot of people, who are just as intelligent as you, who were a little put off by the questions that were clearly designed to get a particular result.

Frankly, and personally, I wish the OBA would forget about this referendum.

In my opinion, just because they promised something does NOT mean they can’t back off. I wish the OBA would simply state that THEY — the Party that was elected to make the tough decisions — believe that gaming is essential as A (emphasis on the word ‘A’) weapon in the arsenal of the hospitality sector that’s vital if we are going to give investors a decent chance of obtaining a return on investment.

In the same RG edition was an excellent letter from JK Williams.

The OBA is doing an abysmal job of telling people EFFECTIVELY what all this means.

Dodwell will tell you that a hotelier today cannot incur the costs of labour that are imposed on them and get a decent return on investment.

You’d have to charge $500+ a night to have a chance at a return. The ability to raise revenue from gaming is simply a tool that will allow investors to bring capital to Bermuda with some hope of a return.

And capital is what makes jobs, my friends. No capital, no jobs. Go ahead, ask the expert economists at the Bermuda College.

Sincerely

Just making the point