Archive for June, 2011
Imparato presses on with port
(CNS): Despite meeting considerable opposition to his proposed port development, Joseph Imparato revealed that he intends to submit formal plans to the government today (10 June) along with the findings of the EIA. Calling on the people not to march or demonstrate with trucks against it, he said there had been a lot of misinformation that he had come to East End to correct. At the first open public meeting held by the developer in the district more than 200 people attended, and when the local MLA asked for a show of hands for and against the proposal only two people offered their support. Following a short video presentation and a more than hour-long walk through of theEIA, the people made it clear they did not welcome the development. (Photo Dennie Warren Jr)
The presentation was met with considerable scepticism by the audience, which packed the district's civic centre as speakers pointed out the many contradictions. Imparato and his team heard the concerns that the people had over the water lens, potential flooding, the dive sites, the natural environment, the impact on the community and the future costs to the people to complete the cargo port and supporting infrastructure once Imparato had dug the hole.
Several speakers, including people from East End, West Bay, North Side and George Town, told the developer that there was little support for the project across the island and asked him not to press ahead.
In the audience were representatives from the local business community, quarry operators, the dive industry, and the wider tourism sector, as well as political representatives.
Arden McLean, the MLA for East End, said that the people of his district did not support the development as he said his constituents viewed it as an invasion of their lives from which they would not benefit.
“Your project is not welcome in this community,” McLean said. “And when people are not welcome they should not try to impose themselves.” He also said that the developer had shown a lack of respect to the East End people when he had undertaken a massive advertising campaign to try and persuade people to support the project but had placed only a small ad in the notices section of the paper when it came to announcing his intention to come to the district. “The people should not be treated merely as an obstacle that you have to overcome,” McLean added.
A number of questions were raised by the audience about the marl and whether that would be sold here or exported, the nature of the proposed agreement with government for the development zone and the exemption from taxes and duties, how much of the project Imparato would actually develop and what joint venture partners he had with other investors for the various proposed elements of the facility, such as the oil storage, the transshipment and cruise home port and yacht marina.
Pressed by North Side MLA Ezzard Miller about how the project would be developed, Imperato said that down the line he would be seeking investors in joint ventures to partner with him. He said, however, that there were no plans to partner with government for the cargo facility as that would be up to the Port Authority to decide what to do. He also said he would be responsible for the ring road around the project, but government would pay for the east-west arterial to link the facility to the rest of the island.
He revealed that there is, as yet, no deal in place with government and that he had been asked to complete the EIA and the economic assessment before it would begin discussions.
Despite the level of opposition and the crowded hall, the people remained calm, and while there was a police presence, there were no angry exchanges. Several speakers articulated the opposition to the project and the reasons why and asked the developer to consider using his land for other projects. Woody DaCosta spoke of the very real and widespread fears of the threat posed by the development to the water lens, which were not alleviate by the comments of the author of the EIA, who said it could be prevented.
Bo Miller spoke about the wider environmental risk being too great when the project was not needed or wanted. “Thank you for your presentation but it’s a risk we don’t need to take,” he added.
Opposing the project from a very different prospective, local attorney Sammy Jackson, who was representing the quarry operators, pointed out that his clients were very uncomfortable about the arrangements between government and the developer if the project was approved. He said his clients had to follow an onerous legal process in order to quarry at all and they were faced with the biggest every quarry in the islands' history and it appeared as though the developer would be allowed to completely by-pass the usual rules, creating exceptionally unfair competition.
Billy Adam, a veteran environmentalist and campaigner for good governance, pointed out that the Cayman Islands had been warned about over development back in 1999 in a study that Imparato was himself a party too. He also reminded Pilar Bush, whose company is representing the public affairs element of the project, of her role in the Go East campaign when she was director of tourism and the goal to ensure sustainable development in the eastern districts and to learn the lessons from over development on the rest of the island. Bush answered that she believed the East End Sea Port proposal would have a tourism benefit and help boost the sector.
Rounding up his comments about the dangers of the project, Adam also noted that the right to demonstrate and march was a very important democratic right utilized the world over by the people to show their opposition.
Following the meeting, Bush told CNS on behalf of the developer that the opposition encountered in East End would not derail the process which the developer had started and still intended to follow. While acknowledging the not unexpected opposition at the meeting, she said that the developer had received considerable support across the community for the proposal. In the end the project will be down to the decision of government.
After the meeting last night the two district MLAs have confirmed that they will be posting bill boards on Tuesday afternoon on the piece of crown land at High Rock that the developer will need to use in order to begin his project. They will be hosting a fish-fry to raise support for the opposition campaign.
Robbers attempt home invasion in GT
(CNS): Two masked men believed to be armed with handguns attempted to rob the occupant of a house on Greenwood Drive, George Town, as they arrived home with shopping on Thursday evening. According to the police report, which did not state whether the victim was a man or a woman or the exact time, the men approached the person as they entered their home. The suspects shouted at the victim, “Open the door give us themoney!” but the occupant slammed the door and said they were going to call the police. When the victim went into the kitchen, one of the suspects pointed what appeared to be a firearm at the occupant through the window and threatened to shoot.
The occupant then rang the police and the suspects disappeared. No shots were fired and no one was injured.
Police said the would-be home invaders were wearing black long sleeved shirts, were dark skinned, slim build, around 5’ 10” tall and both spoke with Jamaican accent. One was wearing a white mask and the other a black mask.
Anyone with information should contact SDC Howard Campbell at 525-9923 or the confidential Crime Stoppers number 800-8477 (TIPS).
Budget delayed until 6:30
(CNS): Updated Friday 2:50pm — The budget presentation has been delayed a few more hours and the premier will be now be delivering the 2011/12 Budget in the Legislative Assembly at 6:30 this evening, officials have announced. As a result of needing to get UK approval, time is ticking for government, which must have all of the appropriations approved by Finance Committee before the end of this month. The start time, however, is outside of the regular hours of the House and will require a suspension of Standing Orders. The late sitting has raised concerns from Ezzard Miller, the MLA for North Side, who says he has written to the speaker to complain about the unorthodox start time and the lack of notice.
Government was forced to delay delivering the actual budget presentation following the Throne Speech by the governor last month as it waited for the FCO to approve the document, which, as a result of the levels of spending on civil service personnel, had raised concerns, the premier has said.
It is not clear what government has had to do to gain the UK’s approval but officials said government had spoken with the FCO representatives yesterday morning.
The Legislative Assembly sent out notice on Thursday evening that the country’s parliament would be sitting Friday afternoon in order for the premier, in his role as finance minister, to deliver the long awaited annual government spending plans for the next financial year.
Government is expected to deliver a plan with a small deficit, despite the three year plan calling for a $10 milllion surplus, with an aproximate 7% cut in spending on civil service costs.
In the wake of the news that the House would be reconvening at 4:30 pm on the eve of a public holiday weekend, Miller wrote immediately to the speaker, boycotting the sitting in protest.
Noting that as he is not a member of the business committee, he said he was not informed of the meeting until 6:14 pm Thursday when he received an email from the deputy clerk on behalf of the speaker.
“I find this notice to be totally unacceptable, both in the period of notice given and the time of 4:30 when it is scheduled to begin,” Miller said.
He pointed out that the House had been adjourned for longer than seven days and the meeting to deal with the Budget had been postponed on four separate occasions. This suggested that while the budget presentaiotn might be in the public interest, it could not be urgent.
“I will not be attending in protest to the disrespect being shown to the minority in the House,” he added.
It is understood that the premier will present the budget but the meeting will be adjourned before the debate begins, giving the opposition members time to consider the documents before offering their position.
EE port a risk to 20 dive sites
(CNS):A local dive expert has revealed that at least twenty dive sites will be at risk if the proposed commercial seaport is allowed to go ahead in East End. Steve Broadbelt, the owner of Ocean Frontiers and CITA board director, has raised a number of concerns about the EIA completed on behalf of Joe Imparato's proposed project as he says the dive industry was not consulted. He warned that not only would at least two important dive sites be completely destroyed, another seven, which are the only sites accessible at certain times of year, are also under threat if the project goes ahead. Broadbelt said the risk to the sites and how that will impact the islands’ dive product has not been considered in the EIA.
He warned that twenty sites are within three miles of the proposed location and they could all be negatively affected or have thier access undermined if the port were to become a reality. Seven of the sites are located in the Half Moon Bay area within less than 800 yards of the proposed port entrance.
“If the EI consultants had consulted with local boat operators in the district, and in particular dive operators, they would have discovered that the seven sites which will be directly impacted by the dredging activities and subsequent commercial activities are the only dive sites that can be accessed at certain times of the year,” Broadbelt said following his review of the EIA.
He explained that when the wind direction is directly from the east with wind speeds in excess of 14 knots, safe diving conditions are confined to the seven sites in the lee of Half Moon Bay. These important dive sites enable local operators to offer year round dive trips.
“Without these sites, dive operators would not be able to offer divers the assurances needed to travel thousands of miles to experience what East End diving has to offer,” the dive expert warned.
Broadbelt pointed out that aside from the complete destruction of two important sites as a direct result of dredging, the other sites would be in jeopardy as currents and tidal flows may well result in silt and sediment reaching the sites during and after the work.
“The coral reefs are already under significant stress and are experiencing significant difficulty adapting,” he stated. “This has been documented by the Department of Environment by demonstrating a reduction in coral coverage due to impact from coral bleaching, coral disease and water run-off.”
The EIA states that additional new dive sites will be added east of impacted dive sites, but Broadbelt pointed out that there is no reef there, which seriously undermines the quality of the assessment which was commissioned by the East End Sea Port developer.
“If the consultants had conducted test dives in the proposed area to the East between the proposed port and the Blow Holes, they would have discovered that there is no reef formation or topography of interest to create a shallow reef dive site,” he said.
“The area east of Iron Shore Gardens (the most easterly impacted site) to the Blow Holes consists of flat 'Hard Pan' substrate which is of little interest for divers. Natural reefs cannot be created by man and take millennia to form, and the notion that the shallow reefs that are suitable for scuba divers are simply continuous and uniform along the entire coastline demonstrates how uninformed the recommendations are.”
The former Cayman Islands Tourism Association president added that the importance of East End diving to the overall tourism product was simply not properly considered in the EIA.
Broadbelt said that East End accounts for fourteen percent of the Licensed Tourism Room Stock and the district supports a significant amount of Grand Cayman’s car rental business. He noted that Cayman has traditionally attracted relatively high volumes of divers and has been particularly popular with affluent divers.
“In the 1990s, Cousteau estimated there to be 240,000 divers visiting the reefs, doing on average ten dives per person — 2.4 million dives per annum. Previous surveys also suggest that divers stay longer on island than other visitors and therefore spend slightly more than average. Diving remains an important tourism driver,” he said.
Broadbelt pointed out that government’s National Tourism Management Policy 2009-2013 had identified a range of excellent natural resources, particularly on the Sister Islands and in the Eastern Districts, which offer the opportunity to diversify the local tourism product but need to be protected.
While it spoke about some development in the Eastern Districts, any development had to be well planned, of high quality and in the context of a new environmental code. It also spoke about being of distinctive Caymanian character and sensitive to the environmental constraints of the site and its terrestrial and marine surroundings.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7:30pm at the East End Civic Centre.
Hedge funds accused of African land grab
(CNS): Hedge funds are behind "land grabs" in Africa to boost their profits in the food and biofuel sectors, a US think-tank says. In a report, the Oakland Institute said hedge funds and other foreign firms had acquired large swathes of African land, often without proper contracts. It said the acquisitions had displaced millions of small farmers. Foreign firms farm the land to consolidate their hold over global food markets, the report said. They also use land to "make room" for export commodities such as biofuels and cut flowers. "This is creating insecurity in the global food system that could be a much bigger threat than terrorism," the report said.
The Oakland Institute said it released its findings after studying land deals in Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Mali and Mozambique.
It said hedge funds and other speculators had, in 2009 alone, bought or leased nearly 60m hectares of land in Africa – an area the size of France.
“The same financial firms that drove us into a global recession by inflating the real estate bubble through risky financial manoeuvres are now doing the same with the world's food supply," the report said. It added that some firms obtained land after deals with gullible traditional leadersor corrupt government officials.
Teenage son suffers dad’s year long pranks
(San Francisco Chronicle): Dale Price has officially been labeled the "world's most embarrassing dad." The stay-at-home father of three from American Fork, Utah, dressed up in weird and wacky get-ups to wave goodbye to his 16-year-old son's school bus every morning. For the entire school year, he wore some 170 different costumes, dressing up as everyone from King Triton to Princess Leia. Why? It was Dale's way of showing his love for his son. Rain Price was initially horrified when he looked outside the school bus window passing his house and saw his dad, Dale, donning a scarecrow costume and waving goodbye. It was the first day of his sophomore year–and terribly embarrassing.
On the second day, his dad showed up sporting a San Diego Chargers helmet and jersey. Day three came along and his dad was dressed as Anakin Skywalker.
At first the costumes were simple and modest, but they progressively became crazy…Batgirl, Chiquita Banana, Little Mermaid. Over the course of the year, he dressed up as every Wizard of Oz Character.
Luckily, Rain has a sense of humor and realized that his dad was just having fun, and friends found Rain's father hilarious.
Kids exposed to trauma have higher health risks
(HealthNewsDigest): New research has shown that children’s risk for learning, behaviour problems and obesity rises in correlation to their level of trauma exposure, says the psychiatrist at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital who oversaw the study. The study examined children living in a violent, low-income neighbourhood and documented an unexpectedly strong link between abuse, trauma and neglect and the children’s mental and physical health. It reported that children experiencing four types oftrauma were 30 times more likely to have behaviour and learning problems than those not exposed to trauma.
“In communities where there is violence, where children are exposed to events such as shootings in their neighbourhoods, kids experience a constant environmental threat,” said senior author Victor Carrion, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford. “Contrary to some people’s belief, these children don’t get used to trauma. These events remain stressful and impact children’s physiology.”
Teen’s account of shooting ‘implausible’ says crown
(CNS): The director of public prosecutions has invited a judge to reject the account given by defendant Jordon Manderson (18) of the night Marcus Duran was killed and find him guilty of murder. Wrapping up her case on Wednesday against the teen who stands accused of killing the numbers man in March last year, Cheryl Richards QC told Justice Charles Quin that Manderson's evidence was “implausible” and “plainly untruthful”. With no eye witnesses, the crown has based its case on circumstantial and forensic evidence but she said that it had demonstrated that Manderson was at the scene, that he had the opportunity, was motivated by financial gain as part of a joint enterprise to rob the victim and had lied to the police to cover up his guilt.
Manderson is accused of shooting Duran at Maliwinas Way in West Bay during what the prosecution say was a robbery gone wrong that was masterminded by Raziel Jeffers. The crown’s case is that Jeffers knew that several numbers men were frequent visitors to the apartment outside of which Duran was shot, and had planned the crime with Manderson and Craig Johnson as the getaway driver. The three men were linked by phone records and all in the area at the time of the shooting, which Richards said was not a chance event but an orchestrated and precisely timed crime.
Richards told thejudge that Manderson’s account from the witness stand of how he was shot by Andy Barnes or possibly Damion Ming does not fit the forensic evidence and was improbable. The teen defendant claimed to be on the stairs, having run into the lighted area and crouched down, when he said the two gunmen ran towards him. She said his explanations “strained credibility” and did not make sense but were attempts to cover his guilty conduct.
“No person running from a gunman runs into the light and crouches down in full view of that gunman,” the DPP argued in her closing speech. “It is an instinctive reaction to run out of the way.” The bullet which is believed to be the one that hit Manderson during the night’s events was found, not on the stairs or the ground, but up the stairs on the balcony close to the body of the victim. She dismissed the possibility of contamination of the scene, saying that it would be impossible to believe that it was the only piece of evidence that was moved.
A hat which contained both the DNA of Manderson and the deceased was also found at the top of the stairs, pointing to the teen’s presence on the balcony, where during the trial the teen said he had never been.
She pointed to the many lies that Manderson had told the police, starting with his first claim that he had been shot at Birch Tree Hill by Andy Barnes, which he later retracted when his DNA was found at the scene. Richards described this as more than a transfer of what happened at Maliwinas Wayto a different location but a complete concoction. The crown counsel also said that Manderson had insisted he had been picked up by a man in a grey van that he didn’t know but was later forced to admit it was Chris Johnson in a white car when again his blood was found in that vehicle.
She also said that phone records and witnesses all place Barnes well away from Maliwinas Way that night. By contrast, however, Manderson, Johnson and Jeffers were, according to phone records, all in the same cell site area at the time of the crime. Furthermore, Richards pointed to evidence given to the court that Jeffers had been the one to suggest blaming the "Logswood Boys", meaning Barnes and Ming, among others.
Richards said that Manderson had also told the police that he had heard Duran had been robbed of some $9,000 — a very specific figure that the police never had in evidence but which she said indicated further specific knowledge of the crime. She said the accused teen was “clearly deceptive” and guilty of the crime, which was a triangular joint enterprise with Jeffers at the top of the triangle as the one who orchestrated the plan to rob Duran.
David Fisher QC, defence counsel for Manderson, will begin his submissions to the judge Thursday morning before Justice Quin retires to consider his verdict on the murder charge.
Politics of learning
The current minister of education can probably expect to earn some ‘love from the people’ for his recent moves to begin the much needed redevelopment of local primary schools. And why not? After all, who doesn’t love a minister who spends on learning? Oh hold on — of course one that spends on high school learning.
Recent comments by Rolston Anglin over his primary school project have been delivered without the slightest hint of irony, and while he is absolutely correct that primary school kids are in environments not conducive to learning, that modular classrooms are horrid and expensive, that schools are cramped, we all know where we heard similar comments before.
The minister’s goal to improve the facilities at primary schools is to be welcomed. However, what undermines this laudable goal to redevelop the primary schools is that, while the current minister’s plan is a marvellous and brilliant step towards transforming education, his predecessor’s plan to transform secondary education was – apparently –nothing but a foolish endeavour to build monuments to himself .
The kids at the John Gray High School are plagued by all of the same problems that younger children attending primary school face. Their learning environment challenges are compounded by the fact they have a building site on their school campus in a state of limbo and the kids who are now allocated to Clifton Hunter don’t even have a school to go to. These are kids that are facing their exams and at an age when anti-social behaviour is more challenging to deal with and more likely to escalate. They are at an age, too, when learning difficulties are far trickier to address and when kids are less likely to endure adversity and still excel.
The issue that everyone sees and which the minister seems to be hoping they will ignore is that this is all a lot more about politics and lot less about learning. Anglin, like all politicians, is looking for his own monuments to his time in office. After all, politicians who lose their seats or step down from the political fray, as history reveals, soon disappear from the public space unless they can tie their names to enduring projects.
Anglin could have used the $10 million he is spending on primary schools to hurry along the secondary school projects. However, had he made that choice he would have not only faced the pressure from parents regarding the desperate need for primary school expansions but at the same time he would have helped to secure another politician’s place in the history books, while risking his own immortalization.
A tough call no doubt.
The issue is that both projects are worthy, desperately needed and very positive ways of spending public money. Around the world politicians are vilified and criticised for over spending on countless infrastructure projects, but schools are rarely on the list. Education ministers that don’t build schools or that cut spending on anything to do with education are far more likely to suffer the wrath of the voters.
Here in Cayman, the vilification of Alden McLaughlin, not least by the current education minister, for choosing to build state-of-the-art schools and making a real effort to turn around the way in which children have been taught in the Cayman Island, which was demonstratively failing, has been nothing short of astonishing.
Now, however, the minister who time and time again said that children can learn anywhere if the teaching is good enough is suddenly the flag bearer for better learning environments. With his tongue far away from his cheek, Anglin has spoken widely in recent weeks about the need to improve learning environments and about how difficult it is for children to learn in cramped conditions. He is right.
No matter how often the myth is blogged on CNS, it is not possible for children to succeed in the modern world if they are taught under coconut trees. If that were the case, we would not have the appalling low achievement levels that we record year after year. Nor is it just new classrooms that will produce successful students.
Modern learning is not just about encouraging children to study and look at the blackboard in a new clean more spacious classroom. It is about making them yearn for and be enthusiastic about learning, about understanding science and technology, dealing with emotional intelligence, being equipped to compete on a global jobs market, and so many more complex elements that traditional methods ignore.
It is even more significant here in Cayman where achievement is particularly low and where traditional classroom teaching has failed many many students, who in more innovative environments may have excelled.
Anglin himself has noted that in the local school system even children capable of high achievement have failed. This probably is down to myriad reasons, including a cultural disconnect with education, or poor parenting and low standards of teaching, but it is also down to the physical structure of the learning environment.
The high school projects were intended to be new, modern, dynamic and exciting learning spaces that would have given local students new hope and transformed the way they were taught. How much the delays and changes to the design to revert them back to more traditional classroom spaces will undermine the hopes for a revolution in local education remains to be seen as the completion dates still seem a long way off.
What everyone must be able to see by now, however, is that the secondary schools must be finished as soon as possible and that learning should not be sacrificed on the altar of politics. Anglin is right to want to get the primary projects underway but he needs to be as equally enthusiastic about the high schools. His war of words with his predecessor is becoming tired. The high schools will always be associated with McLaughlin, no matter what Anglin does.
What he should do, which could endear him to the wider public even if it doesn’t secure him a place in the history books, is to take the moral high ground, to forget the point scoring and openly acknowledge the pressing need to get the high schools finished.
The problem, of course, is that the words ‘moral high ground’ and ‘politicians’ rarely seem to make comfortable bed fellows.
Imparato to face East Enders
(CNS): The man who has proposed excavating a 4 million sq.ft. basin and 60 foot deep channel in the picturesque High Rock area of East End, which he claims will become a commercial sea port, is entering the proverbial lion’s den tomorrow evening (Thursday 9 June) to face the people of East End in an open public forum for what is understood to be the first time. Joe Imparato will be heading into the district where the majority of the people have expressed their unequivocal opposition to the proposal. Imparato will also be accompanied by the authors of the recently published environmental impact assessment which has caused considerable concern.
This meeting comes on the heels of a recent meeting in the district held by local MLA Arden McLean, who has vowed to take civil action to stop the project, where a considerable number of local people made it very clear that they opposed the project and would support McLean in whatever endeavour he chose to ensure the development would be stopped.
Both McLean and his legislative colleague from North Side, Ezzard Miller, say that if the development, which they believe is no more than a quarry, were to go ahead, it would destroy their communities. The two district representatives have confirmed that they will be attending the meeting to hear what the developer has to say and to pose a list or questions to the developer.
McLean and Miller, along with a significant number of people in the district, are fundamentally opposed to the project for a myriad of reasons, not least the potential devastating environmental destruction the project would pose.
Many people are now also convinced that the proposed commercial port project, which has been dubbed the “big hole”, is nothing more than a smoke screen to enable the developer to extract a significant and valuable amount of rock from the land he owns in the district. In short, the proposal, if approved by government, would allow him to circumvent the usual planning laws and spend some three to four years excavating high quality marl from the earmarked project zone with no guarantees that he would complete a port to be handed over to the Cayman people.
A significant body of opposition to the proposed plans from across the islands has emerged and many people question the developers real intent to ever develop the port and now believe his goal is merely to extract the fill. This position has been fuelled by the developer’s refusal to enter into a bond guarantee about the port element of the project.
The recent EIA has also raised far more questions than it has answered, with local tour operators and environmental experts shocked at the results and the suggested mitigating action in response to the significant damage that the project proposes.
Given the scale of the proposal and the potentially devastating consequences were the developer to be given the green light by government, both local MLAs and other activists are calling on as many people as possible to attend the meeting to show their opposition.
Last week the premier denied that he had offered official government support for the project to commence this financial year. However, in the Throne Speech delivered in the Legislative Assembly last month, as a preamble to the delayed budget, the governor singled out the East End commercial port as the one infrastructure project that government planned to get underway during this financial year.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7:30pm at the EastEnd Civic Centre.