Dear Editor
I left the town hall meeting about the erosion and road projects which was held on Wednesday, September 4, with mixed feelings. It is without a doubt that the impressive way the strengthening of the cliff under Fort Oranje is being dealt with has received admiration by many of us. The acrobatic work that the workers of a French company with the suitable name of Acrobat X are performing, last weekend even supported by a helicopter, is quite astonishing.
Calling the progress of the roads, in particular the Cherry Tree road project, disappointing seems an understatement. I guess that the call for information to the public to explain as to why the roads in this area have still not been surfaced was actually the main reason why this first town hall meeting in 2019 has been called by the Kingdom Commissioner. The project was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of June. A new completion date in the meantime has been set for March 2020. The reason given for this delay in the newspaper was that materials were not available.
In the town hall meeting it was made known that there was a disagreement between Dutch contractor Koop and the supervisor, consultancy firm Royal Haskoning, about the grade of the cement to be used for the top layer of the roads. On the question why it took about eight months to come to a solution for this issue Mr. Franco explained that it took time to convince the one who pays the bills (which is BZK) of the need for a change. He did not want to reiterate further as that would be crying over spilled milk. This spilled milk, however, is the reason that more than one year and a half after the intervention by The Hague, and the local government has been put aside, there are still no roads built on Statia.
After some inquiries I learned that the supervisor requires UK certified cement as well as other building materials such as steel bars. One can imagine that this grade might be standard in Europe but not easily available in this part of the world. Haskoning, however, insisted as this UK quality was needed to build maintenance-free roads. Their representative was not able to convince the audience in the town hall meeting that such roads really exist.
The need for maintenance-free roads was necessary to make it possible that Statia’s yearly budget of one million dollars for road maintenance can be used for construction of new roads instead, clarified Mr. Franco. According to the director of Infrastructure, Mr. Reid, it is government’s intention that eventually all roads on Statia will be dealt with.
The same company, Royal Haskoning, in a report a few years ago, calculated that for this approximately 50 million dollars is required. Knowing that after the Cherry Tree project and the construction of the Jeems Road the available budget of 5.6 million dollars is about depleted I guess everyone can do the math and figure out how long this process will take if no additional budget becomes available.
During the town hall meeting and also at the end questions were raised by the audience about the choice of drainage system used for the Cherry Tree road project. The only argument brought in for this was that the supervisor, being Haskoning, decided that this is the best solution. Seeing our experience in the past with, among others, the poor job delivered by Dutch construction company MNO with the construction of our public water distribution network, supervised by a German consultancy firm, and the poorly constructed police station, the lesson learned should be not to accept advice of these companies at face value. Therefore also the suggestion by someone in the audience to make more use of local expertise should not be ignored.
Koos Sneek
Dear Editor,
This narrative is not meant to pass any judgment on the developments regarding the “Hapgood” case on Anguilla.
It is meant to state in a neutral manner, I allege just as the aforementioned individual can use a wide network of high profile global public relations, print and mass media organizations to channel and share his version of the incident that happened at his hotel on Anguilla with such headlines as “Vacation Violence”, by the same token Anguillians, their friends and supporters should have the ability to have freedom of expression, to share their views and break the cycle of pain, rather than internalize it.
Truth be told, I allege anyone who viewed those evening news reports and press conferences on the aforementioned incident probably more than likely they came to the conclusion that there was nothing spared, but rather it seemed like an attempt to smear the image of the deceased and the island nation of Anguilla in the court of public opinion ... just saying.
So, being a former youthful freedom fighter, I have become sensitized to any attempts to calm our folk down, when they should be permitted to express themselves peacefully to let it out, rather than to be pummelled to be calmed down by what appear to be some self-righteous gag orders, because someone has an issue with what they may have to say.
And I do believe most folk are well aware and do not need to be reminded that the courts will be the ultimate judge in the abovementioned matter. So, in the meantime, there are two sides to every story, so let our folk peacefully have their say.
Just saying.
Name withheld at author’s request.
Dear Editor,
Allow me some space in your well-read newspaper to address an issue that can be very detrimental to the future development of our students. We are already in our third week of the 2019-2020 school year and I strongly believe that some of the teachers of St. Dominic High School have already started on the wrong foot.
Teachers play an important role in the life of their students. A good teacher helps their students to become a good human being in society and a good citizen of the country. Teachers should know that their students are the future of their country, so the future development of any nation is in the hands of teachers. A teacher should be a role model and should bring out the best in their students by encouraging them to strive for greatness.
Sadly, this is not the case with some of the teachers at the St. Dominic High. Some of these teachers that are supposed to be veterans/well-seasoned in their craft have now resorted to degrading, selfish patterns of speech directed at the students, which is very discouraging to them. Especially students in the final year. How is it a teacher can literally tell you in your final year that you are going to fail, I do not have time to teach you, because I have my own problems to worry about. Refuse to teach a class because a few students are being disruptive. These are just some of the examples of the behavior being exhibited towards the students.
It is every student’s ultimate goal to succeed, but in such an environment it can be quite difficult.
St. Dominic High is supposed to be a Catholic faith institution; this surely is not behavior becoming of the faith.
I do hope and pray that these students have the strength to endure such intolerable behavior and at the end of the day become that well-rounded citizen they strive to become.
St. Dominic High School, shame on you! Get your act together, wheel your teachers in and give them a crash course in Positivity, Encouragement, Love and Understanding!
Concerned parents
Name withheld at author’s request.
Dear Editor,
A remarkable report about aviation and government caught my eye in your paper recently.
It is a global phenomenon that small airlines are generally not profitable. In the Caribbean they are almost never profitable. Companies that are owned by the state are seldom profitable, particularly in the Caribbean. In St. Maarten they are also seldom profitable unless they benefit from concessionary income.
What a pleasant surprise to see that Winair, operating entirely in the Caribbean and owned by the state, produces a profit for its shareholder. How nice to see the trend of unprofitable airlines in the Caribbean reversed. How nice to see a government-owned company being profitable without extraordinary support.
The directors, managers and all employees deserve to be congratulated on a unique achievement.
Robbie Ferron
Dear Editor,
As I meditated and enjoyed God’s scenic nature of our beautiful island with my Mom and eldest son, a good friend of mine sent me a WhatsApp message if I ever read the book The Making of an Island by Jean Glasscock.
One of the pages in the book which my friend sent to me spoke about the history of St. Maarten when Mr. Bill Hunter opened Hunter House (now called Castle Cove Inn where he brought guests by boat to Pointe Blanche from the little pier in town). The article spoke about my Dad “Mooch” who use to work for Mr. Hunter, and who would blow a conch shell from the little boat and pick up the guests and bring them to Hunter House.
In those days they only had lanterns and candles and some large flashlights. The road was built out to Pointe Blanche in the fall of 1961 and in 1963 or 1964 they finally got electricity from the light company.
As I continued to read one of the pages in the book, I turned to my mom and asked her about the history in which she explained to me how my Dad “Mooch” used to work, cook and even sing for the guests at Hunter House during those days. We spoke for a long time about my Dad’s contribution to St. Maarten and how he swam from Anguilla to St. Martin seven times, a talented soccer player and sportsman. He was the chauffeur for three Lt. Governors of St. Maarten.
My mom turns to me and says we need to document our history for generations to come to have an insight on how it used to be in the early days before modern development and the progress of society took over.
Mr. Editor, I fully agree with my mom and the point I would like to make in this letter to the editor is that we need to start documenting our history and landmarks of our beautiful island for generations to come. We have lost a lot of our seniors with so much wealth of knowledge without documenting our history.
By documenting our history, we would treasure, value and respect the foundation and principles that St. Maarten was built on by our local ancestors and seniors.
Today, we reap the fruits of St. Maarten’s past heritage but forget some of us forget the history and how St. Maarten was built and by whom. We need to get away from becoming a self-centered society and start focusing on building each other up rather than tearing each other down. It’s very sad to see how we got away from our history and principles on how we lead and build a Nation by becoming more caring and creating hope by speaking truth to our people to move forward in life. The most powerful leaders stay humble and tell people the truth and create hope for their people.
We need to get back to basics and respect, appreciate the solid foundation and principles that St. Maarten was built on for us to enjoy and make us what we are today. We need to pray more, stay humble and start caring and sharing more about our people. We need to pass on all these principles and family values to the next generation and generations to come before we lose focus to outside peer pressure and other influences of the world.
I pray that this letter to the editor will get us to appreciate and start sharing and documenting our history to build a better St. Maarten in unity for our people. A lot of us forget our history, where we came from and how St. Maarten was built for us to become the person, we have grown up to be today. We need to continue naming our buildings and streets after our local icons. I was so happy to see St. Maarteners will have the honour of carrying two street names in Amsterdam, Holland, by our own national cultural/heritage expert the late Camille E. Baly.
In closing, let us continue to honor and recognize our people who have contributed to St. Maarten's development, and to create a new Destiny for our children, grandchildren and generations to come.
Gratitude is a must.
Maurice Lake
