St. Maarten Private Eye

Westin St Maarten - Good neighbors?

More photos at SXM Living blogspot

The Island Government will take all necessary steps to ensure that the new development at the former Dawn Beach Hotel “becomes a success story in terms of the protection of the environment, the beach, public access to the beach, public parking, etcetera,” - (DH - Roy Marlin - 28th April 2005)

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A success story?

The actions of Westin these past few weeks supports the theory that Columbia Sussex has Roy's balls in their pocket. From the very start Westin have shown an arrogant and conceited attitude towards the island and their neighbors, rumor has it that Peyton Cromwell who sold them the property told William Yung that he could 'do whatever he wanted', so he has.

First they destroyed the pond, which has an effect of causing widespread flooding of the property and silt polution of the beach and sea. The current retaining pool and the concrete culvert constructed by Westin is inadequate and every time there is heavy rain, the sea turns brown.

They repeatedly showed ignorance and indifference to pollution and the environment, after heavy rains late last year paint buckets and garbage were seen floating off the beach, washed in from the Westin Property. They pumped black sludge directly into the sea, often at night to cover up their actions and washed cement mixers in the sea too.

They had workers who were unregistered, meaning Westin or their contractors were avoiding tax payments on those workers, . When an inspection took place, workers were seen running off into the bushes, out of 103 workers, only 8 had proper medical insurance and 55 were unknown to SVB. Out of 22 contractors, only one appears to have been fined. This being 2 months after the corner stone had been laid.

Then there were the TelEm cables and the truck accident, pure negligance which could have cost the life of an individual needing medical care. And lets not forget how they treated Joe Miller.

No, these are not what I would call nice people.

Now we have the road, first blocked off by Westin just before xmas, the police intervened and the containers were removed. Now they do it again, upsetting heavy equipment operators into blocking the road themselves. Two communities have now filed an official complaint against Westin Hotel and the Daily Herald Editorial today High Time may be a sign that they are waking up to the disaster that is Westin.

"But the road is not the only problem by any means..."

Very true!

What with Roy ignoring expert advice in pushing for the permits, renting his house to them and Sarah''s daughter getting the job of Human Resources manager, there is plenty more.

Last week two friends visiting the island took a stroll through Westin pretending to be tourists. Out of 10 people they asked, only 2 of the employees were from St. Maarten. A closer look is required of how many jobs Roy claims to have created for the island's youth and what kind of jobs.

And as a reminder of how much the Exco pimped to Westin, go take a look at their Letter of comfort. This to a company that has recently bought some Casinos for a mere $2.1 Billion.

Etcetera, etcetera......

For more on the road issue, go check out the Westin Permit, scroll down to Article 3. Perhaps it's just me, an am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that Westin were exempted from transfering road land to govt under the condition they remain open and maintained by Westin.

I can find no record of Govt promising to fix the road on their private property.

Maybe someone else can.

Oh, and did anyone notice that Govt promised Westin licenses for all businesses at the Resort, with NO LIMITATIONS on the amount of retail outlets or bars the resort can operate. I wonder how many locals benefited from business opportunites there?

Local hero

Updates will be listed below

Win-win agreement reached in Westin/Dawn Beach Road issue - 11th January 2007

Letter - Corporate Citizen Westin, a 5 Star hotel?

TTOL discussion about road closures - 8th January 2007

Letter - Westin, good nieghbors - 8th January 2006

Much much more can be found in the Dawn Beach Thread

Also The Death of Dawn Beach - SXM PE Photo Video

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