People must stay engaged in political process

| 23/04/2021 | 46 Comments
Cayman News Service

REAL Representation writes: Another four years of PPM government would have left Dart in charge – specifically hotel tourism monopoly, mass tourism policies, high property costs, erosion of environmental protections, more office buildings (when corporates globally are downsizing their real estate in favour of much better and more acceptable flexible working), more traffic congestion, harmful/toxic waste-to-energy incineration plans, under-valuation of non-SMB land and landowner monopoly.

PPM’s favour of Dart was exacerbated by “connected persons” whose influence has now been broken. A triumph for voters everywhere. However, Dart’s pundits will be actively searching for alternatives to coerce because they have a lot to lose. Parliament must now stand very firm against any and all unethical and corruptive finance in order to serve, without major bias, fellow men and women and future generations.

This means purposeful action on changing election law to prevent excessive front loading of campaign funding, breaking monopolies, placing a cap on private land ownership, re-imagining stay-over tourism, placing a moratorium on cruise ship tourism, controlling spiraling property costs, creating new master planned environments to control congestion, re-instating mangrove protections, measuring pollution, placing a moratorium on waste-to-energy incineration.

Each is critical to the success of a non PPM government. The last is a fight I am passionate about in order for the Cayman Islands to support internationally approved/national environmental leadership in zero waste masterplanning to create much needed new jobs and to place a range of ongoing and profitable recycling businesses into the hands of Caymanians.

To ensure PACT and PPM are held to account it is incumbent on everyone – individuals, civil service, Parliament and pressure groups – to remain fully engaged, paying attention to action, lack of action, decisions made and reversals.

With the momentum created by this recent change, I am very hopeful that Cayman’s current population will lobby for physical and economic development that is socially, culturally and environmentally conscious/responsible. If we retain this purpose in our hearts and minds, surely “We got this 345”.

This comments was posted in response to: Roy forces PACT to embrace Mac as speaker


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Category: Politics, Viewpoint

Comments (46)

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  1. Caymanian Gen 2 says:

    This is absolute crazy talk. Dart is an investor who has done so much that will never get an economic payback. The nation is completely spoiled by his largess, so much so that posts like this show how completely out of touch people here are with how our economy has fared so well. It is investors like Dart who are lifting this Country up and they should not be talked down or neutered.

    Has anyone done a simple math calculus of value Dart brings to Cayman in GDP each year. Has anyone calculated how enormous the hole in our finance would be without the duties and profits and economic trickle through from his development efforts.

    Talking against the good work this group has done is lunacy bordering on treason. We need to jail more environmental nuts and reward the developers.

    We all need to travel more to realize how good we have it here and how lucky we are to have the Dart Group underpinning our economy with their excellent work which is attracting the brightest and the best here.

  2. Anonymous says:

    I’m staying enraged about McBeater

  3. laybylill says:

    Ghost Orchid… Brilliant!!! said everything better than I ever could. Wake up Cayman, maybe it is already too late.Vultures are circling!!!

  4. Concerned says:

    Worst part is some of the executives and vps at dart think they have nothing to do with causing high property costs in cayman.

  5. Ghost Orchid says:

    This is a hopeful viewpoint and all of us should heed your advice. You wrote: ”Dart’s pundits will be actively searching for alternatives to coerce because they have a lot to lose…”

    I believe we should also highlight who Dart’s well paid and incentivized lobby are:

    1. business “owners” who run his shadow companies;
    2. Dart employees—the largest labour force in the Cayman Islands next to CIS;
    3. politicians—former and current— who are wined, dined and paid off to maintain Dart’s growing hegemony;
    4. auxiliary developers—local and foreign — who profit from being adjacent to Dart’s growing sea to sea empire; and
    5. Cayman’s public— the most complicit lobbyist of all— who believe that by working in Camana Bay, shopping (or window shopping) in Camana Bay, going on an occasional spa trip to Seafire or having a night out at one of Camana Bay’s bars or restaurants means they are living the dream. (FACT: You’re not living the dream, you’re just a worker—lawyer or plumber. As a worker you are paying your hard earned wages to feed a single developer’s growing empire that is segregating these Islands economically and racially.)

    After all, Dart is a North American white male who descends from a long line of European settlers who raped and pillaged North America’s resources and marginalized people all the in the name of “progress” “development” and “nation-building.” Today most of the world is breathing in micro particles of styrofoam that Dart’s family made their fortune on. Long after generations of us are dead, styrofoam will sit unchanged in landfills and float down the rivers of this once verdant Earth. So what do you think Dart is doing on this Island… Cayman… who was on a long list of countries he tried to purchase and gain diplomatic immunity so his Yankee nation wouldn’t come after his trillions?

    So REAL Representation, you are so right that we the people who are conscious of what is *actually* happening on these Islands, including MEMBERS OF THE PRESS, have to keep this current PACT administration accountable. This is a daily job. But there’s far too much at stake, Unlike North America, or even our neighbors Jamaica, the landmass on these three islands are far too small to live and let live. If George Town gets a cold, Brackers in Stake Bay will get sick too. Like most tiny Islands around the world, Cayman has always been very vulnerable. All of us who call Cayman home are vulnerable too. Poor governance of successive governments will continue to affect us generations to come. But we can cauterize it now before it’s really too late.

    Final word by late US President George Washington:

    “Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder”

    Let’s hope this old enslaver was wrong, but even if he wasn’t, let’s not get complacent with the PACT administration. Running a country with integrity is a far greater challenge than campaigning for an election.

    • Anonymous says:

      OKay then – not sure about most of that but I get the need for holding the new government accountable. That brings question 1

      How we supposed to keep Wayne and Kenneth’s government accountable when they are not transparent from the get go with the KeKe deal, despite PACT having a T for transparency. Wayne need to publish the deal with Keke so that we can understand what we the people paid and what KiKe and Wayne got.

      • LOL / says:

        Who cares if they sat in a room, discuss options, and you weren’t there??? 🙂 Like .. HELLO! Mac was the wild card both sides needed! PACT won him over to get the MAGIC NUMBER 10 to form a government. Who cares if they negotiated behind a close door and you were left outside??? I am sure the real “T” for Transparency is not your “T”. Please ask a member of PACT what “T” means.

      • Anonymous says:

        if you’re not sure about most of what the commenter wrote, then why are you asking them a question? or perhaps your purpose was to be dismissive? why don’t you ask yourself your one question or someone else whose opinion you value.

    • Anonymous says:

      Racist much?

  6. Anonymous says:

    We have been able to cut off the head of the snake..now we need to make sure that all of those tentacles that had their hands in the cookie jar are removed from their posts.

    The old guard must fall. We need to cut off the cash flow and the those that have been sucking of the tit of the government.

    The first place we need to start is with the Planning Board Cartel. It it needs to start with the chairman. He is completely conflicted and the res to f the developers and contractors need to be replaced as well.

    • anonymous says:

      Why would you think it would be good for the Country to remove the people most successful and knowledgable about there building business. Cayman is a tiny Country and there will always be conflicts such as those you describe. putting the ignorant and incapable in charge because they never could achieve anything in the real World is a recipe for disaster for our Country. Be careful what you wish for all you development naysayers. You may get what you want. It comes with a dose of higher unemployment, poverty and crime.

  7. Anonymous says:

    Ship done sailed on waste to energy. Placing a “moratorium” would be an incredible expense, and frankly not resolve how to convert said waste into a potential resource. Legislating emissions standards to ensure better outcomes from that combustion process is a much more productive use of time.

    • anonymous says:

      Anyone looking at the cancer rates in this Country downwind from CUC smokestacks belching unfiltered carcinogens into south-sound and South Georgetown? Funny how we are so distracted by the shiny new waste to energy object that nobody cares about the killer in plain view every day and easily treatable with a particle filter.

  8. Anonymous says:

    2 Corinthians 11:14 & 15

    • Anonymous says:

      Book of Cyril

      There shall, in that time, be rumours of things going astray, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment.
      At this time, a friend shall lose his friend’s hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o’clock. Yea, it is written in the book of Cyril that, in that time, shall the third one…

  9. Anonymous says:

    Jeremiah 10:23

    • Anonymous says:

      D H Lawrence Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I mean, wtf with all the biblical quotes foolishness?

    • Thank you for the for this Text says:

      Yes, we see in Jeremiah that mankind is given evil inclinations to lead astray from the good way. This is our test in life. But we are also given free-will to resist temptations, repent, and live righteously. So, by Grace, Prayers, and Obedience to the moral laws, there is hope for mankind. As for politicians, they only mirror the same type of nature that is in all of us. That’s why its good to pray for them and share with them the “truths” you hold dear. So that they make the best laws or decisions for the country.

  10. Anonymous says:

    The reversal that everyone is quite properly focused on at the moment is the one that goes something like:

    13 April 2021 – Mac is bad and should not be Speaker

    16 April – Mac is fantastic and we will reward him by making him Speaker

    How do we achieve accountability for that disgusting reversal?

  11. Anonymous says:

    We are trying but all we can see is that Wayne put that man back in as Speaker and it is making us all want to throw up.

  12. Anonymous says:

    Naive much?

  13. Anonymous says:

    The government should stop talking about protecting the environment and take action. A good place to start would be to prosecute Michael Ryan for the completely unnecessary damage to the marine park.

  14. Anonymous says:

    Prediction: Either PACT makes a pact with Dart over the next four years OR will implement direct taxation. Choose your poison, people.

    • Anonymous says:

      The fearmongering about implementing direct taxation people always amuse me

      We are already getting ripped off by businesses who mark up prices as they see fit

      At least the general public would get something out of direct taxation, properly funded public services and programs
      I’d rather have the money end up invested back into our community than end up lining the pockets of the already wealthy

      • Cayman Blessed says:

        🔴Cayman’s Needs Assessment Unit (NAU) needs improving. I think customer service is too slow. And funds should not be allotted to the unit whereby it takes up time to process it before it reaches to hands of individuals. Implementing a simple NAU Tax system whereby everyone must contribute at least a small percentage of their salary to the unit, would makes things go alot more smoothly. We must always a safety net to help those in need and who can’t find a job because the churches, faith-base organizations, families, and friends can’t do everything.

      • Anonymous says:

        Do you have any idea – even the slightest clue – about the effect trying to implement direct taxation on income would have here? The cost to set up and implement would be enormous, create higher costs of doing business, require higher compensation for expertise and then the number of business that would be non-compliant would make a mockery of the whole system.

    • Anonymous says:

      I’m sure the latter depends on what they find after reviewing 8 years of creative accounting.

    • anonymous says:

      Not just a prediction. Total reality. If we don’t have steady development the whole house of cards here collapses.

  15. JTB says:

    If the new PACT government really wish to demonstrate a willingness to effect change in the environmental sphere, a good first step would be the replacement of the chair of the CPA.

    • Anonymous says:

      OK, I’ll bite: With whom?

      • JTB says:

        Anyone without a vested interest and a very wide-spread reputation for er … ‘leveraging’ his position.

        • John says:

          Retired people who used to be in the real estate industry and understand it but have no vested interests.

        • Anonymous says:

          1:46 they don’t exist in Cayman. When the honeymoon horniness declines and the government begins to face real problems rather than the ones mouthed off by the posters here and fighting the election and the unemployable Caymanians and they realise you can create WORC or whatever but it won’t solve the very real problems we face, not much will change. But will Mr Panton replace Al Thompson and the builders as head and members of the Planning Authority? That will be a major sign of change. But………

        • Anonymous says:

          Unfortunately, intelligence and competence are missing from your desire, as logical as it may be. Because this person has to be Caymanian, the choices are limited.

    • Anonymous says:

      – and the rest of them and the Planning Appeals Tribunal as well – better yet ban everybody who has served in the past 20 years on either body from every serving again. Some may have been honest public spirited individuals but one cannot be too careful when dealing with the CPA and PAT.

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