‘Global warming is a fact’

| 09/04/2009

(CNS): As a candidate for the Sister Islands in 2005, Maxine McCoy-Moore had used her two minute spot on Radio Cayman to say that the Cayman Islands must be prepared for an increase in hurricanes, she told supporters at a meeting Tuesday night, and said the three hurricanes that hit the Sister Islands last year – Gustav, Ike and Paloma – proved her right. “Global warming is a fact,” she said. “Six months every year is Hurricane season. Paloma is a drop in the bucket of what can happen.”

Speaking to a small crowd at Scotts Dock in the West End of Cayman Brac, McCoy-Moore warned, “Don’t think that won’t happen again. We need more hurricane shelters and we need a better system for bringing back Brackers living on Grand Cayman that want to come home.”

The independent candidate, who has run three times unsuccessfully, spoke out strongly about environmental issues and the lack of recycling, noting how high the landfill on the south side of Cayman Brac is getting. She said that metal and plastic could be sold to other countries for recycling, and other items such as glass bottles, cans and batteries could also be recycled.

Slamming plans for a new landfill on the Bluff, she noted the disaster around the landfill after Paloma, and asked what would happen if a hurricane came and the garbage dump was on the Bluff – there would be garbage everywhere, she suggested.

“I was told by the head man in Grand Cayman they he could guarantee that the dump would not leak. It would have to be God himself to tell me that before I believe it,” McCoy-Moore said, stressing her fears that having the landfill at that location would destroy the water table.

Turing to Agriculture, she said she would work “hand in hand” with the government to ensure that every farmer, “big or small”, received financial aid. Noting that the Brac was once self-sustaining, she asked why government was only assisting farmers in Grand Cayman and said it should buy more land for agriculture.

“I notice the PWD have no strict supervision. I see 5, 10 12 people with only one working and the rest sitting down getting paid to do nothing when we have a lot of work here that needs to be done,” McCoy-Moore said, adding, “The PWD crew might not like me saying this.” But, she said, “It’s not just Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. I also see this in Grand Cayman,” and thought there was a need for opportunities for these workers to advance themselves.”

Education was a constant theme in the candidate’s address, and she noted that many of the high school graduates had problems filling out a simple application form on their own. “One of the biggest problems is that some teachers are only here for the money. We need to scrutinize teachers and get dedicated teachers like we had years ago,” she said. “The schools are well-equipped but if students don’t want to study the teachers let them do what they want….We have remarkable children but they need training so they know how to live.”

Also on the subject of opportunities for the young, she said she would not tolerate the practice of retiring civil servants and hiring them back into the system, but said she wanted to increase the retirement age to 70, so long as the worker could get a medical certificate to prove that he or she could do the job. “Why should they be forced to retire at 60?” she asked.

Not everyone was given the opportunity to move on to further education, stated McCoy-Moore and said she wanted to set up a vocational training school on the Brac so that every child who graduated from high school would have no reason to move to Grand cayman unless they wanted to. “Most have to go to Grand Cayman to survive, but they do not know how to exist outside Cayman Brac.” She said students that were given full scholarships to overseas colleges “cannot adjust to life in the US or the UK and end up back on the Brac struggling to find work.”

“Everyone talks about the high cost of living in Grand Cayman,” the candidate said, but noted that on the Brac the amount that people pay for goods is double and on Little Cayman it is triple. “This has to be curtailed. The cost of living should not be so high, and is even worse since Paloma.”

On the Sister Islands economy, she said the stamp duty had been cut on the Brac but that didn’t extend to Cayman Brackers living on Little Cayman, and she also proposed that the cuts should be for Caymanians only. She said foreigners buy land cheaply, build a house themselves and then “put up a for sale sign and go home with a pocketful of money.”

The candidate said she has been asking “since Truman Bodden’s day through McKeeva Bush’s day to Kurt Tibbetts’ day” why overseas banks could be located on Cayman Brac, but had still not received an answer. The Bluff is the perfect place for a small financial services centre, she said and pointed out that after Hurricane Ivan the financial services took a downward turn when a lot of workers in the industry went to other jurisdictions

“Every week I see the barge leave fully loaded with aggregate to go to Grand Cayman. So why are Brackers still driving over potholes?” she asked, and wanted to know why the Lighthouse Road was still not paved.

Turning to immigration, she thought the laws “sell out” the three islands. She said that employers spend a lot of money hiring someone, including work permit fees, and sometimes even travel expenses for them to get here. But then, she said, even if that employer finds that the employee is doing something illegal, immigration still allows them to go and work with another employer. She said foreign workers say they have a lot of qualifications – “some do and some don’t”. There are 1500 foreign people in the Cayman Islands that don’t have a job, she said. This breeds crime and they should be sent home, she believed.

All the international marketing for the Cayman Islands portrays “the Cayman Islands” as Grand Cayman, and McCoy-Moore said it should be emphasized that we are three Cayman Islands. Rock climbing should be promoted for the Brac and she also wants to bring the cruise ship industryto the Brac (which has not been very sucessful so far) by either continuing to build the Scotts Dock or extending the Creek Dock.

She proposed improving the airport – there was no reason why Cayman Airways should be the only airline to fly into the Brac, she said. Furthermore, she noted the high prices of travel to the Sister Islands, which could be almost as much as getting to Grand Cayman, even from far away places such as Alaska.

We know from watching CNN and the BBC that US President Barack Obama will be lifting the US travel embargo on Cuba, she said, saying that it was a beautiful island that offered way more than the Cayman Islands – “cheap accommodation, cheap taxis and crime free”.

On the subject of crime, she said, “I do not know why people in Grand Cayman changed and so hate one another. Hate has taken over the people down there. We do not need to extend that to the people up here.”

The two incumbents cannot work together and one of them needed to be changed, McCoy-Moore said, promising, “You will not be getting a ‘yes’ woman. I will stand up for what is right and what is fair for the Sister Islands.”

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Category: Election 2009

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  1. Anonymous says:

    We could do this all day!  Can we just agree that there is a divide?

    http://spagreport.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/31000-scientists-refute-global-warming/

  2. Anonymous says:

    Fine one to talk about too many work permit and complain about immigration when her family business in Little Cayman hires NO Caymanians and the foreigners that they do hire are treated just short of slavery. The problem with them is that after they have treated their foreign workers badly and they complain to Immigration or Labour they expect that they must be SENT off the Island. Typical old time Cayman attitude that they OWN the foreigners that work for them

  3. Anonymous says:

    What’s the hurricane outlook this year?

  4. Where's Gerry? says:

    Where is Gerry?  What’s wrong?  This posting has been up all day without a rant from Cayman’s Don Quixote of global warming, Gerry Miller.  Where is a comment about hockey stick graphs when it is needed most? 

  5. Anonymous says:

    Global warming is not a fact.  The scientific community is split on this topic.  It is wrong for this woman to say this, it may be what she beleives and there are many that might support it as there are as many that do not.

    For a candidate to state their opinion as fact is a candidate that does not get my vote!

  6. Twyla M Vargas says:

    TALKING SENCE

    This woman is talking sence in Cayman Brac, The more women  with a purpose, the more we will get done.   Let us change the pace and see how good we will march in the 21st century.  Blessed