SXMElections.com

Dear Editor,

It has come to my attention that in his bid to win re-election Theo Heyliger has promised to deliver a waste to energy plant to Country St.Maarten. In the ad is an artist's rendering showing what the plant will look like when built. All in all, a pretty effective ad for something St.Maarten has needed for a long time.

Now I do understand the business of politics and that come election time, all politicians will remind voters that it was them or their political party that "brought home the bacon". The only issue I have is that in order to bring home the bacon, you must first realize that bacon comes from hogs, and you must be willing to go find the hogs or at the very least stop at your local supermarket or butcher to pick up a pound or two.

That takes a bit of ambition, which, despite the high salaries they are paid, none of the politicians in St. Maarten seems to have, when it comes to the need for sustainable energy. It took me doing the research, finding the company, contacting the company, looking at what it had to offer and determining how it could benefit the island. After all that I still had to practically light a fire under their rear ends in order to get them to move on it.

Now I have been writing about this need for sustainable energy in the local St. Maarten papers starting way back in 2002. The second article I wrote for The Daily Herald was titled The Winds of Change; Are they blowing in St.Maarten?

This article ran in the business section of November 23, 2002. It prompted a good deal of discussion and for many years politicians promised they were doing something about it when it was what they thought the people wanted to hear. The problem is, nothing was ever done about it.

The people of the island have suffered needlessly due to the high cost of energy. When GEBE was in the news constantly back in 2011 due to the outrageous bills people had to pay, it prompted me to write a second follow-up article, titled "The Winds of Change- Revisited" which ran on June 29, 2011, and even prompted the editor of The Daily Herald to write an editorial piece about it titled "Sustainable" which also ran on June 29, 2011.

Finally I decided to take matters into my own hands, so on Thursday July 21, 2011, I called a company in Dallas to inquire if they would have an interest in doing a sustainable energy project in St.Maarten. They did have an interest, so after studying the material on August 3, 2011, I made my first contact with then Minister Heyliger. My letter to him, as well as his response to me is copied below.

As you can see from his reply, Theo was quite wary of me from the start, which given our past history was not unexpected on my part, however, we got over it and things moved forward.

Knowing St.Maarten politics the way I do I did not want to see this project turned into a political football due to the huge upside potential to the people of the Island, so I also contacted William Marlin then in the opposition benches, as well as Kendall Dupersoy and let them know what was being proposed. In fact I actually contacted Kendall a few days prior to approaching Theo.

St.Maarten politics being what it is, this proved to be a wise move since the first government fell and William replaced Theo as the point man on the project with Kendall serving as his advisor. This allowed for a transition with a much shorter learning curve since they already had knowledge of the project from the start.

William's turn at the helm narrowed the field to four potential companies before the collapse of the second government.

Maurice Lake became the next minister in charge of VROMI and has recently announced the company selected to do the project is the same company (Synergy) which I initially put Theo in touch with.

That is the short version of the long history of this project. I don't think the voters really care who brought home the bacon just so it costs them less in electric bills to fry it up when they get it home.

Note: During this project I was also in contact with Jadira Veen, as well as Bibi Shaw so they had knowledge as well as to what I was trying to make happen here in addition to the aforementioned politicians. I just want the people of the island to know the whole truth as to who did what before heading to the polls on Friday. I'll be sitting here in Akron, Ohio, waiting to hear the results. Now get out and vote. If you don't vote, don't complain for the next four years. I will be happy to answer any questions anyone has about this.

Andy Croxall