St. Maarten Private Eye

Is EWE headed to the abatoir?

An Opinion by Local Hero

OK, so who out there really believed that the DP ExCo had genuine desires to preserve the Emilio Wilson Estate when it presented a resolution to the Island Council to do so?

Sucker!!

Lets see now, on September 21st the IC council passed a resolution supporting the preservation of the Estate and to look into ways to do so. They said they would hold off on any permits for 60 days and on the 7th October, after 17 of those days, they informed us all they were putting together a committee to explore ways of making it possible.

Almost another two weeks passes and we are told that they are having problems finding a third member for the committee.

On the 1st of November, The Foundation for the Management and Conservation of the Emilio Wilson Estate sent a letter to the Lt. Governor stating that they are open and willing to sit with government or committee members to explore the issue together. Up until this day they had no reply. Those 60 days run out in less than a week don't forget!

Now, looking a little closer the first thing is that it is the island's representative in Holland, Henry Brookson, who "found" the investors. Henry is a proud DP cabal member by the way. The ExCo, backed into a corner by public opinion eventually decided to pass a motion, of course not the NA one because that would look bad, so one of their own saying basically the same thing. What Henry hopes to obtain from his "facilitation" of the deal I don't know, because as a civil servant he is bound by a code, I know, I saw it in a a poster. You all know the one, theres one in the Tax office about how it is a crime for a civil servant to seek personal gain from his work.

Now, to updating a little more, it is rumored that Theo Heyliger met with the representative of the Dutch development company whilst on his recent trip to Holland, at Antillian House. Now why would he do that? Is he a member of the committee that has or might be formed? You can be sure EWE was discussed with Oh Henry! Is Theo after his cut or just "facilitating" the deal in lines with the IC resolution? You decide.

It is also rumored that the representative of the development company here on island requested and got a meeting with the Nature Foundation. The NF had reservations of course and did inform the EWE Foundation before hand. They also asked the representative why they wanted a meeting and why they weren't requesting one with the EWE Foundation instead. The overheard answer was along the lines of "we don't want to deal with them, they are not proffessional or serious, we want to deal with the Nature Foundation."

Note the word "deal". I'm not saying that the NF is into making deals, I'm saying these are the sort of people these "developers" are. It's also very interesting to note that Mathias Voges, acting Lt. Governor and one of the members of the to be formed "committee" was scheduled to speak at the event planned by the EWE Foundation back in early October, his reason was that it would be a conflict because he had accepted a post on the government's committee. Can anyone tell me what conflict this would be?

Anyway, to sum it all up, the DP ExCo has plans to send EWE to the slaughter house and their "60 days" bullshit was just that, Bullshit! They have stalled for time under pressure in order to make their secret "deals" and "facilitations" and it will be very interesting to see the report that they present in less than a week. I can see it now.

Roy:
"We have investigated and found that the overall cost of purchasing the whole estate is out of our reach, therefore we have come to a deal with the new owners to preserve part of it and limit the development of the rest. Also, the developer has kindly offered to build and donate a new Governor's House to the island and to allow government to purchase the land needed for the new Link 7."

"Certain individuals within the community are anti development and have tried to derail this important development which will provide much needed homes and jobs to St. Maarten people. They are doing this for their own secret agenda's. It is important not to let issues like this become emotional and passionate and I warn them all to just back off!"

Laveist:
"It is wonderful that the developer is letting us keep a small part of our heritage intact and giving us a Governors house and land for Link 7 is a very generous action, that's me, Man of Action, my recent culture conferance shows my committment to preserving our heritage. It just shows how St. Maarten is progressing and booming under the DP government, vote me in 2006."

Or someting like that.

So. St. Maartener's, be prepared to stand up and say NO! Or kiss another piece of your heritage goodbye. Oh, and by the way, I hear that plans to carve up the estate have been in exisitance for at least 7 years, well before Emilio died. It's like watching a pack of vultures coming down from the tree to feed.

Local Hero

Local Hero's blog | 10 comments | read more