PHILIPSBURG – United St. Maarten Party (USp) Member of Parliament Rolando Brison submitted his proposal for a parliamentary inquiry into the status of the Mullet Bay property to parliament today, Tuesday, August 13, 2019. If parliament approves it, Brison will head a committee that will spend 32 weeks researching the issue. The process will end with debates in relevant parliamentary permanent committees and in a plenary session of parliament. The estimated cost of the inquiry is 519,200 guilders (a bit over $290,000). Brison’s proposal is a thoroughly researched paper of seventeen pages that describes its objective, the history of Mullet…
Author: The Publisher
~ “The time to act on Mullet Bay is now” ~ Faction Leader of the United St. Maarten Party (USP) MP Rolando Brison on Tuesday submitted to Parliament his faction’s proposal document for the initiation of a Parliamentary inquiry into Mullet Bay. In submitting the document Brison repeated what he stated during his campaign: a Parliamentary Inquiry is the strongest tool the legislative body has at its disposal to address the many current issues related to Mullet Bay. Entitled “Proposal for Parliamentary Inquiry: Giving Mullet Bay Back to the People”, the document which took a year to prepare, is the…
By Hilbert Haar The clip of the July 31 episode of Late Night with Andrew Dick is nowhere to be found anymore on the internet. The amateur-hour so-called comedy show – did you ever notice that Dick is unable to finish a single sentence in a normal way? – opened that day with a painful subject: The Daily Herald’s inevitable decision to fire Dick. This was of course going to happen sooner or later. But Dick used his airtime to twist the story and to accuse Herald-management en passant of racism. In a message to his contacts he wrote: “I…
PHILIPSBURG — On Tuesday July 30th the Police Chief Carl John and Management team received a scheduled work-visit from the Progress Committee. During this visit Chief John gave the committee an extensive and overall presentation of the current situation and the progress KPSM has been making. The committee was quite happy and impressed with the progress which has been made by KPSM and commended the Chief and management team for the good job they are doing. In other police news…. KPSM says farewell to Commander Sebastien Manzoni On Tuesday July 30th the Minister of Justice the Honorable Cornelius DeWeever in…
AIRPORT — On Sunday, July 14th at approximately 04.45 p.m., a routine joint control was carried out at the Princess Juliana International Airport between the Customs Department and the Alpha Team on board of a private aircraft which originated from the country of Venezuela. During the control a large amount of gold bars were discovered on board of the aircraft. These gold bars of considerable value were all confiscated after it was discovered that the documentation regarding the gold was not in order. After consultation with the Public prosecutor the decision was taken to have the Alpha Team continue with…
By Hilbert Haar Medwork Corporate Health Solutions is a provider of occupational health services. For employers who contract these services, Medwork is the first stop for employees who are unfit to work due to illness. Medwork takes people’s house doctors out of the equation and that changes the position of employees dramatically. I cannot say this for every general practitioner in St. Maarten, but I do know that there are at least some doctors who are prepared to declare their healthiest patients unfit for work upon request. With Medwork that is obviously not going to fly. The company is paid…
By Hilbert Haar A ticking time bomb and a government with a history of ignoring court rulings; two observations from the court ruling that orders the government to finally take action and do something about the persistent problems with the dump on Pond Island. For the plaintiffs – Barbara Cannegieter, Camiel Koster and the BZSE law office – the court ruling feels like victory. However, the question remains whether the fire suppression plan that must be in place by May 2020 is a sustainable solution. In May, stmaartennews.com reported about government-contacts with a company called Multriwell in the Netherlands. For…
PHILIPSBURG – The Court in First Instance put the Ministry of Public Housing, Urban Planning, Environment and Infrastructure (VROMI) with its back against the proverbial wall on Friday with a ruling that orders the government to complete its fire suppression plan for the dump on Pond Island by May 1, 2020, the latest. Non-compliance carries a penalty of 10,000 guilders ($5,587) per day with a maximum of 10 million (just over $5.5 million). Plaintiffs Barbara Cannegieter, Camiel Koster and the BZSE law office will not be the beneficiaries of these penalties; the court considers that disproportionate enrichment. Instead, penalties will…
PHILIPSBURG – Slander, defamation, insults; these are the key ingredients of what St. Maarteners know as melee. Playing out mainly on Facebook and on gossip web sites, it is a popular pastime from the writers of this stuff and their readers alike. And so far, this circus has continued with impunity. In a way it has become part of the island’s culture. The last time a blogger was in court for – get this – “threats, insults, stalking, defamation and slander” – was somewhere in 2015 or 2016, when the prosecutor’s office finally put the infamous blogger Judith Roumou in…
PHILIPSBURG – The unexpected – and possibly counterfeit-alcohol related – death of several American tourists in the Dominican Republic in May has inspired MP Rolando Brison to spring into action. The events in the Dominican Republic, Brison said, are “a clear and present danger” to countries that do not have grip on the safety of imported alcohol. The tourists who died in the May all drank alcoholic beverages from the minibar in their hotel. So far, the link between these deaths and the alcohol has not been firmly established. However, according to an article in Rolling Stone, “all victims had…
