January 14, 2002

Dear Sir,

This letter is being written in response to the many telephone calls and comments we have received expressing concern about the front page article in The Royal Gazette of Wednesday, January 2, 2002 regarding the 200002 New Year's celebration in the Town of St. George's.

The New Year's celebration is a free event organised by the Corporation of St. George's with the cooperation of the St. George's Chamber of Commerce; the Department of Tourism; Spanish Town International; Bermuda Fireworks Company; the Eastern Division of the Police Service; St. George's Fire Brigade; St. John's Ambulance Brigade and the Corporation of Hamilton.

The staff of the St. George's Corporation worked extremely hard in preparing and decorating King's Square and the Town Hall which, for the fourth year in a row, won the Festival of Lights award for the eastern end of the Island. The Corporation staff did a great deal of preparation for the event and also took on the enormous task of cleaning King's Square and the surrounding area after the event was over to ensure that the town was spotless for the New Year's Day Holiday.

Mr. Jonathan Trott of Spanish Town International did a truly outstanding job in ensuring that the food stalls, children's amusement area and entertainment was first class and the bands, Last RitEs, Jahstice and Prestige did a superb job of entertaining such a large and varied audience throughout the evening. The Bermuda Fireworks Company put on a spectacular fireworks show as an ending to the evening. The Police Service responded quickly and professionally to the few disturbances, most of which occurred after the festivities had ended. In fact the majority of the people on the King's Square did not even realise that there had been any trouble until they read the unfortunate article published in The Royal Gazette the next day.

Many of the thousands of Bermudians and visitors who celebrated in the Square and on boats moored in St. George's Harbour and the parents of children who enjoyed the games and train rides on Ordnance Island had a truly delightful evening and many have expressed surprise and disappointment over the way the event was reported in The Royal Gazette. People from all walks of life came together in St. George's, and the fact that so many Bermudians of different ages and backgrounds as well as guest-workers and visitors united to welcome the beginning of a New Year is cause in itself for celebration. It is regrettable indeed that the reporter chose to ignore most of the positive aspects of this superb community celebration and instead chose to highlight the few unfortunate episodes which took place. The headline and the article did a great disservice to all those who worked so hard to make the celebration a success and to the thousands who came to St. George's to be a part of the 200002 New Year's celebration.

The Corporation of St. George's, despite the negative headlines, is extremely pleased with the outcome of the event and would like to thank all those who contributed to making it a success as well as those who came to St. George's to celebrate the 200002 New Year with us.

We also thank the many people who called or stopped us on the street to express their support and concern. We can assure you that the Corporation has every intention of continuing the very popular New Year's celebrations in St. George's in the future.

We take this opportunity to wish all of Bermuda a happy and prosperous new year and we look forward to seeing you all in St. George's for the New Year's celebrations of 2002/2003.

LANCE FURBERT II

Town Manager

St. George's Corporation