Vexed Bermoothes

The Royal Gazette has been excerpting sections from a new book by Don Grearson about the closure of the US bases in Bermuda.  Mr. Grearson worked for the Bermuda Land Development Company, the Bermuda Government entity that assumed responsibility for the old baselands.

One of the book sections talks about a meeting held with The West Group, one of the most successful developers in the US and creator of the “edge city” of Tyson’s Corner in Virgina.  They were prepared to invest huge sums  in a Bermuda project to create a significant mixed use development on the US Naval Annex (aka Morgan’s Point).

The West Group had been in detailed talks with the UBP, and following the change in power those negotiations had continued with the new PLP Government

Until one meeting apparently blew the deal to shreds.

Allegedly, PLP environment minister Arthur Hodgson took the opportunity to deliver an unscripted critique of the US treatment of immigrants and minorities, and according to the book suggested that:

If the West Group was going to invest $90 million at Morgan’s Point, Hodgson said, he wanted to know when Bermuda was going to have that $90 million. “When will we repatriate that investment?” He said he was thinking of an arrangement akin to a household mortgage that left Bermudians owning the house. In the West Group’s case, he proposed establishing a fund over 15 years, wherein the company’s money would be invested until it matched its initial outlay. The West Group would get its original investment back and the earned money from the fund’s investments would be distributed to Bermudians, perhaps for continuing education and job-training that would help them get “to the top of the pack.” If that wasn’t enough, Hodgson added that the project should include low-cost housing for Bermudians. The government, he said, was not interested in seeing the construction of another Tucker’s Town.

In my opinion, this type of activity is why Morgan’s Point still remains empty 10 years later, and this is why Bermuda’s tourism sector is moribund.

You could argue that this was a “training wheels” mistake by a new Government.  But in my view, those mistakes and misadventures continue to this day at massive expense to Bermudians.