(Continued from last week under the headline ‘What a Fishy Story!’)
On Monday April 23, 2012 Senior Solicitor Mr Theodore Hobson wrote to Mr Ashley Farrell, Nevis Island Administration’s Cabinet Secretary, with copies to the Embassies of Japan in the United States of America and Trinidad and Tobago. The letter’s subject matter was “Japanese Financed Fisheries Complex”.
Who is Solicitor Theodore Hobson? Fellow solicitor the Hon Mark Brantley said on Wednesday May 9 on his weekly ‘On the Mark’ show: “I am a lawyer for a long time now, but if you want to have a bulldog terrier representing you, you go to Theodore Hobson, because Ted don’t make joke.”
The tone of the letter suggests that Mr Hobson is a forceful man. He said the government was attempting to ‘steal’ his relatives’ land and warned that they would frustrate the government in its efforts to put the Fisheries Complex on land that would have to be acquired from his relatives.
“This attempt to compulsorily acquire their (his clients’) land is in my opinion unconstitutional and is being done in bad faith,” said Mr Hobson in the letter. He dismissed government’s invocation of the Land Acquisition Ordinance 1997 as a ploy to steal the land.
He further stated: “We have always been aware that forces within the Administration were bent on pursuing their political vendetta against the Hobson family in the only way open to them which was by compulsorily acquiring some of their assets particularly lands.”
At one time Mr Theodore Hobson served as the chairman of the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) party when it was in power. He also at one time worked as the Legal Advisor to the CCM-led Nevis Island Administration. One wonders why he has called the intended action of the NRP-led administration unconstitutional, yet it is using an Ordinance that was passed in 1997 when the CCM was in power.
On Tuesday May 8, 2012 on Voice of Nevis (VON) radio’s ‘Let’s Talk’ programme, host and the station manager Mr Evered ‘Webbo’ Herbert reminded members of the heavyweight panel that he had earlier started a new campaign, where he was calling on people to tone down the rhetoric, arguing that people were too angry in everything that they did.
Addressing the heavyweights Mr Herbert said that he had “good news in the new campaign that I put on the table, last week, and the feedback I am getting is most, if not everybody is in agreement. How it will work out in the end is left to be seen, but we are getting such strong feedback from quarters that I didn’t even think we would get it from.”
He then said directly to Mr Theodore Hobson (a heavyweight): “I think everybody is in agreement, that we are too hostile as a people right now, as a nation. Everything gets everybody overexcited, and we are saying, tone it down a little; tone it down, and in the end won’t we all be better off with it? Mark you as I said, that is not to compromise on what is right, not to compromise if you have a point, but we are saying, the language and the tone that you choose, let’s get particular attention to it.”
In reply, Mr Hobson said in part: “Webbo I entirely agree with what you are saying. I am quite sure that much of this bitterness and anger that exists in the society is partly created by the governance that we have to endure, the politics of it and all that. But the country cannot prosper when there is so much anger in the country and so much bitterness and so much...
“I myself as I walk the streets of Charlestown, I see people abusing one another, people getting (on) one another for almost anything and I think we cannot continue like this, because it is a small society, families know one another, we live in some cases in villages and so forth and we live close to one another and I think that, you know, politics come and politics go, and so forth.
“But I think that you are right, I think that we need to tone (he must have said ‘turn’) down the rhetoric but at the same time, Webbo, I agree also with you that you were not saying people ought not to stand up what they believe in and pursue it, and I think we all could benefit from your (word inaudible).”
Did Webbo’s strategy work on the show? Yes it did, with the exception of Mr Edric Stanley. While the heavyweights were so passionate about the fisheries complex subject on Tuesday May 1, they did not touch on the subject on Tuesday May 8. However, Mr Stanley tried to bring the subject via the back door by talking about the murky waters in New York, but the minute he tried to compare with waters in Charlestown, he was unceremoniously derailed by Mr Herbert.
Premier the Hon Joseph Parry has said that the size of land the government is seeking to acquire is a mere house lot that is about 4,000 sq feet. From the letter Mr Hobson wrote, one would think that the government is taking huge chunks of his family land, or he does not understand the size of a house lot.
However, when later in the programme a caller talked of a plot that had been allocated to the teachers’ union it was Mr Hobson who advised the caller: “I think all that this Teachers’ Union is expecting is an area where they could put down a building, and it may not be more than four-five thousand square feet.”
Mr Edric Stanley suggested to the caller that the Teachers’ Union needed someone to represent them, but Mr Hobson interjected: “But I do not think you need a lawyer.”
Acting as the lawyer for his family, Mr Hobson said in his letter: “It is clear that if the Administration were to succeed in this incomprehensible and spiteful action it would severely devalue the rest of my clients’ land.
“Further it would degrade and destroy any tourism prospect for the area not to mention the environmental damage to the area which is partly wet lands. It is oft said that Gallows Bay Beach is one of the best on the island and to put a Fisheries Complex on the Beach Front of this land is not only ridiculous but is counterproductive to the development of Nevis.”
It is public knowledge that when the CCM-led Nevis Island Administration negotiated with the Japanese for the project funding, Gallows Bay was one of the four areas presented. Mr Hobson’s relatives have always owned that land even when the CCM was in government. If he cared so much for their land, he should have started fighting right from the word ‘go’ to have Gallows Bay excluded. Then his letter in 2012 would make some sense.
As former Director of Fisheries in the CCM-led administration Captain Arthur Anslyn said in the last week’s article, of the four sites named, New Castle was knocked off by the Civil Aviation authorities, who felt that it was too close to the runway and the building would be too tall. Indian Castle and Jessups were not commercially viable and hence the choice of Gallows Bay when the CCM was still in government.
Captain Anslyn disagrees with Mr Hobson’s contention that the project would degrade and destroy any tourism prospect for the area. He is of the opinion that the beach will still be used as before. In the interview on Friday May 4, he said that he was “involved in the putting together of the first project documents, and the use of the whole of Gallows Bay is not in the question.
“The area that will be used is just a corner of Gallows Bay, which is currently being eroded. In fact to actively participate in the heart of the area that is earmarked for the structure that is intended to be put down, there will have to be an amount of reclamation (from the sea) done to actually get the area required to put the facility down.”
Captain Anslyn is saying that the action of placing the project on Gallows Bay will actually save Mr Hobson family’s property from future sea erosion.
“This area we are going to reclaim will actually have existed in the past but due to erosion it is now claimed by the sea,” said Captain Anslyn. “That little area that we are putting back into Nevis, so to speak, building back the land from the sea, is only a little area in the corner of where Prince William Street meets the bay front. Also the whole of Gallows Bay will not be utilised, just a little area. Access to the beach to Gallows Bay for swimming will still be maintained.”
Mr Anslyn who for many years was the captain of the then government-owned St. Kitts-Nevis ferry, Caribe Queen, is not an alarmist. He is advising that with the prevailing sea rise as a result of global warming, the Gallows Bay beach will be a thing of the past.
“Taking into consideration what has occurred in the past with regards to erosion, the area is subject to heavy erosion and from what I have seen in my lifetime, two thirds of the area has gone to the ocean already, it won’t be long before the other third goes and the property in the area will be more or else in the sea,” advised Captain Anslyn.
“The construction of that facility will stop the erosion in that particular area. You will observe that the other areas in Gallows Bay south of the project will be eroded,” noted Captain Anslyn. “You won’t be surprised to find that sooner than later the sea will be in the bogs, because this is what has been happening over the years and it is not going to be long, depending how many groundswells we have, that the sea will end up in the bogs.
“Now, when that happens it will be unfortunate but this is something that we can’t stop. This is the work of Mother Nature and we just have to go along with it.”
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