Unnecessary closures

February 15, 2010

Dear Sir,

Would you please publish this letter regarding my views on the Causeway controversy? After hearing the Department of Works and Engineering's assurances regarding the Causeway I am even more perplexed than before. If the Bailey Bridges and the Causeway are safe and are routinely monitored for structural integrity before and after all storms, as one would expect, then why the need to close it when the wind reaches 55 knots no matter the wind direction? The Causeway was washed out and not blown out during Hurricane Fabian. If that is the safety criteria, fine, but why is it safe to drive across every other road in Bermuda even during Hurricane force winds of 100 knots or more and not the Causeway? Sections of Harbour Road and North Shore Road are just as exposed as the Causeway; surely accidents due high winds would have been happening for years if that be the case. I must have missed all of those accident reports on the news and in the press not to mention I have obviously led the life a charmed driver in my nearly 30 years as a rider and driver on our roads.

I do not want to downplay the reasons for the closures, namely the tragic deaths of the four persons on the Causeway during Hurricane Fabian., but what is happening now is nearer to paranoia in my opinion. Fabian was a category four to five Hurricane with a ten- to 20-foot storm surge with waves being pushed across the exposed Castle Harbour by winds of 140 mph plus. We all realise that in those conditions, no attempt should be made to cross even if it were still open. Clearly defined parameters should be in place for the Causeway and other roads around the island when high winds and hurricanes necessitate it. Bikes, pedestrians and high-sided vehicles should be barred from the Causeway and all roads during these storms and/or the traffic on the Causeway should be restricted to a single lane using the Police to monitor and direct it.

There could be occasions when closures would be warranted during adverse conditions but surely not because of winds of 55 knots and a bit of salt spray. On Saturday, when the Causeway was reopened, it has been claimed that the conditions where just as bad then as when it had been kept closed. Surely this makes a mockery of the Minister, Works and Engineering and the EMO's reasons for closure. I have tried not to ridicule the persons who make these decisions. It just seems the reasons given are inconsistent as I have pointed out albeit unscientifically. I have attempted to offer solutions as well; and hopefully this will go some way to minimising unnecessary closures in the future.

GILBERT PITCHER

Smith's

Subliminal message

February 19, 2010

Dear Sir,

Has anyone else noticed that the lights on the statue of Johnny Barnes are now much brighter than the ones on Johnny himself? Are they trying to tell him something?

ANDREW LAING

Paget

Ignoring the obvious

February 19, 2010

Dear Sir,

Why have we become so accepting of the millions of dollars that are wasted and spent without any sign of control by the PLP? Why do we simply accept as "the norm" the spending of millions of dollars of our money on things that produce no result and seem to benefit no one but the spender?

We walk around with our eyes wide open and our noses held tightly closed and we absolutely, categorically know what's going on in Bermuda. We talk about it every day. We all say the same old things. The same people get the contracts; bidding is not fair; money gets spent on overseas service providers and we all, to a person, know exactly what's going on. And we seem to simply go through life saying: "Well, this is the way it is ..."

At best we justify this by telling ourselves there's really not a damn thing we can do about it. If you're PLP and don't like it (or even if you do)... you still say "It's our turn. " or "the UBP did it. " or 'This is the way we diversify wealth when we don't want to actually work for it. " Even in the black community, people know it's all wrong but seem powerless to change things, even if they want to.

Blacks and whites and PLP and UBP and BDA and everybody in Bermuda knows that the amount of money that's been spent with no accountability; with incredible frivolity for no return; could have been spent on education, tourism promotion, the control of crime, the betterment of our health care facilities, the provision of insurance to people who are elderly and don't have coverage and it all could have been spent in Bermuda – not overseas.

We don't seem to care that the Dockyard pier cost three times what it should; the emission control centre was a waste of money and cost far too much; that the PLP want to spend $800,000 to get someone else to tell them that they should take over Hamilton; they spend $150,000 on a Love Festival to attract 98 people here, half of whom couldn't get here because of the weather. Berkeley, the new Police and Court building, Port Royal, the Premier's entourage and his travel expenses and his household staff and bodyguards, his empty but private office in Washington, DC ... all of this we just sit back and suck up ... and the numbers are huge ... money just gone!

We have become a nation of lazy, armchair critics. We tout the popularity of the Minister of Finance who seems to be the most highly thought of person in the land despite the fact that she has stated publicly that she has abrogated her responsibility to control the flow of funds (her argument is that she doesn't think she has any control!).

We hear the old Auditor General and the new one and its like soft music in the background – it's there but who cares? We have a representative of the Queen who seemingly, if the Turks and Caicos is anything to go by, is the only person who has any authority to investigate this abysmal, incompetent and non-existent control of the public purse but doesn't seem to have the guts or other anatomical strong parts to do anything. Does anybody care? Millions have vanished and we all are pretty sure where they might have gone. Does anyone out there give a flying flipper? Anybody?

WAITING FOR THE BDA

Southampton

Bridging the gap

February 24, 2010

Dear Sir,

The Mayor's comments at the unveiling of the Enterprize memorial were, in the words of the Premier, "powerful". Indeed they were. Very. Recently there have been a number of events acknowledging our painful past and its continuing legacy. Yet our Government, essentially a "black" Government has failed to design a consistent policy to address the widespread economic disparity that was inevitably established in 1834 when white masters who owned everything were paid for their newly freed slaves while the freed slaves owned nothing. The fact that many blacks have escaped the worst of the curse of that disparity has merely increased the pain of the gap between the "haves and the have nots". Yet at no point in our history since 1834 has there been any attempt to establish a policy that would address this obvious and continuing economic disparity.

The recent, often dishonest, discussion of the continuing salary gap between blacks and whites is a discussion about the least significant aspect of this very real problem. It is the working homeless and those who are literally disenfranchised because of their economic circumstances who really tell the story. The fact that too many of our black politicians choose to ignore this legacy and encourage the younger generation to do the same means that they have ensured that the younger generation have been denied the opportunity "to choose" to continue the struggle for a more economically just society, even while too many of those who profess to represent the black community continue to show more concern about improving their own comfortable economic circumstances and a desire to manifest all of the signs, symbols and pretensions of the much maligned "colonial masters".

We need a government policy that will address the long standing economic disparity between the black and white communities which has been with us since 1834, no matter how much it has been modified, and which is largely responsible for at least some of that criminal element which feels alienated, disenfranchised and unrepresented.

EVA N. HODGSON

Hamilton Parish

History repeating itself

February 20, 2010

Dear Sir,

Bermuda's support for the suffering in Haiti continues a tradition of generosity. In February 1817, as the second anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo approached, the Committee set up in London to raise donations for the soldiers' families and the wounded announced in The Times that it had received £451,000 from British and Colonial subscribers, a staggering sum bearing in mind that to adjust to today's values we would need to add at least two zeros. Of that, £544 had been donated in Bermuda. Most of the individual donors have familiar names Astwood, Basden, Harvey, Ingham, Lightbourn, Outerbridge, Perot, Trimingham, Trott and Tucker among them. But though we see our "international companies" as a very modern phenomenon, it is interesting that even back then, almost a third of the total came from "Insurers at Hamilton", and a collection at Hamilton Methodist Chapel raised a respectable £17. Yours etc.

HISTORIAN

Smith's

A wiser use of money?

February 12, 2010.

This was sent to Premier Ewart F. Brown, and copied to The Royal Gazette.

Dear Premier,

In thinking of the plight of those Bermudians and guest workers who reside in St. David's, St. George's and Ferry Reach, stranded by the closure of the Causeway, I wonder whether it would have been a wiser and higher priority to have used the $800,000 earmarked for a review of the Municipalities of Hamilton and St. George's for a feasibility study to build a bridge connecting Ferry Reach to Duck's Puddle to be used when the Causeway cannot. I believe this would be money well spent.

LAWSON E. MAPP

City of Hamilton

Help save the bluebird

February 17, 2010.

Dear Sir,

After viewing the renovated Port Royal Golf Course and seeing the amount of space in it, I would suggest that the golf course put up bluebird boxes. Since bluebirds are in short supply, this would increase them in numbers, and make Bermuda more eco-friendly. If you were to put bluebird boxes on a PVC pole (one foot in a hole of cement) and have the pole six feet above the ground. Place the bluebird box towards the East, as bluebirds like the morning sun, as it is cooler, not facing the West where it would be hotter.

Eastern bluebirds are a migratory bird, that's how they got to Bermuda in the first place, just like the grey heron, white egret, and the frigate bird. Further to the suggestion of bluebird boxes being placed on the Port Royal Golf Course, other golf courses could follow this idea. I would like to see bluebird boxes be placed on the perimeter fences surrounding our Airport, as you can always see bluebirds on the perimeter fence at the Eastern end of our airport fence.

PETER BROMBY SR.

Paget