Bahama Pundit

Update on the Overdevelopment of Bimini

by Larry Smith

The island of North Bimini is just 3,100 acres in size - and most of those acres are covered by mangrove wetland, with only few hundred acres of hard land supporting about 2,000 people.

In addition to the small settlements of Alice and Bailey Towns, North Bimini now supports hundreds of cookie-cutter homes and condos, a mega-yacht marina, a bulkheaded artificial island dredged from the lagoon, restaurants, pools, bars, shops, tennis courts, and a beach club.

It’s called Bimini Bay, and the resort's history goes back to 1984, when the Pindling government gave the former owners blanket approval for a similar scale of development, without a thought for the environmental or social consequences.

The property includes a big chunk of North Bimini with five miles of ocean frontage, as well as parts of a pristine mangrove wetland surrounding the lagoon on East Bimini.

Despite some clearing and dredging, the initial plans were never implemented. And in 1995, a Cuban-American from Miami named Gerardo Capo acquired the property for $3 million.

Capo's Rav Bahamas construction company launched the current development two years later, after the landscape had been duly scraped to the bare limestone rock. The first phase of the resort opened in 2007, and then nosedived after the 2008 financial crisis.

Capo's original plans called for dredging an 85-foot wide channel entirely around Bimini's mangrove-fringed lagoon and bulkheading most of the land - essentially killing the only marine nursery in the region. And then establishing a golf course on the East Wells wetlands.

The ultimate size and scope of the resort has fluctuated over the years, with both the golf course and a water theme park on and off the table several times. And many residents, as well as scientists at the Bimini Biological Field Station, spent years in a futile effort to conserve the island's natural environment—an oasis in a vast expanse of water.

In 2010, the Ingraham administration flatly ruled out a golf course on North Bimini and limited the northern extent of the development to the area around Paradise Point. But the Christie administration subsequently approved a controversial ferry pier and terminal, as well as the huge investment by Getting/Resort World, which completely changed the island for good.

Lately, there has been a new upsurge of public protests against the resort because of rumours that the Christie administration earlier this year again approved a golf course on the wetlands of East Wells.

The other outstanding issue is the fact that, although the government designated the eastern portion of North Bimini as a marine protected area in 2010, the heads of agreement between the developer and the government were never revised to reflect this. And the government has failed to proceed with what is required to legally establish the MPA.

There needs to be a full public airing of the current status of agreements, approvals and plans for Bimini. And early movement towards establishment of the MPA.

The developer, Gerardo Capo, agreed to comment for this article, but did not follow through.

The Desperate Need for Change in the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

 

Leslie Miller and BS

 

The level of irrational and deceptive discourse from our political leaders can sometimes be stupefying.

 

Take Leslie Miller. Please. But first let me remind you he is a longtime Progressive Liberal Party MP (since the 1980s) who was appointed BEC chairman for the second time in Perry Christie’s last term, even though he and his family did not pay their own utility bills - to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

Miller was also presumably chairman while a well-organised theft ring was siphoning millions from BEC. I am not suggesting he was involved, but official sources tell me this scam (which is now under close police investigation) has been ongoing for "many years”. 

 

Miller chaired BEC from 2012 until late 2015, and he ran his mouth the whole time. His latest buffoonery was to blame the current managers of the state-owned utility - now known as Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) - for the incessant power cuts we face.

 

He has also claimed that his former board had a surefire plan (financed by our social security funds no less) to resolve all of the country’s power woes, “but we got stopped dead in our tracks because those foreigners thought they knew better."

 

This is just so much horseradish, it should make you want to vomit. First of all the “foreigners” were put in place by Miller’s own party. And as well-researched letters to the editor by Tony Zervos have shown, we have been in an “electrical crisis” for the past 50-odd years.

 

The Cost of Culture in the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

There has been a flurry of discussion lately over the $400,000 annual contract given to Ian Poitier by the former government.

 

This comes after Tourism Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar revealed in parliament that Poitier received over a million dollars since 2014 to consult on cultural matters for Perry Christie and Obie Wilchcombe.

 

A high-flying St Anne’s alumnus, Poitier obtained an international baccalaureate in Canada before studying law at Oxford. In 1985 he switched to musical theatre, at the Arts Education School in London.

 

He worked as a performing artist in Britain, and began directing and coordinating shows and events in the 1990s. He also worked in advertising.

 

After three years as an investment manager at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts in London, Poitier began focusing on freelance projects.

 

Beginning in 2008, he directed the annual Cacique Awards in Nassau, and he was responsible for the creative content of the 2014 independence celebrations. 

 

So there can be no argument with the fact of his exposure to, and experience in, the arts and creative industries - both here and abroad.