Falklands : Public Meeting Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 30.08.2008 (Article Archived on 13.09.2008)
A public meeting was held in the Court and Council Chamber of the Town Hall at 1700 hrs on Tuesday, 26 August 2008. Present were Councillors Rendell, Cockwell, Summers, Clausen, Robertson and Hansen.
PUBLIC MEETING TUESDAY, 26 AUGUST 2008
By J. Brock (FINN)
A public meeting was held in the Court and Council Chamber of the Town Hall at 1700 hrs on Tuesday, 26 August 2008. Present were Councillors Rendell, Cockwell, Summers, Clausen, Robertson and Hansen.
The first question was asked by Willie Bowles who wanted to know why, with all the ditches being worked on, that the surface of many camp roads hadn’t been worked on as well. Cllr Cockwell said that as it is still the winter season and that camp roads would be capped in the summer. A comment about Moody Brook Road and would it be possible to re-surface that as some of the old concrete was making the road surface in front of it like a lake.
Another member of the public asked about the Air-bridge and why the new agreement wasn’t yet announced. The public has not been informed of a decision was the answer but at 0001hrs on Wednesday the FCO are slated to make an announcement about the Air-bridge. The public will know in due course.
A comment was made about the new Constitution and why, if the old one worked just as well did we need the new one.
Cheryl Roberts said that a meeting of the Loligo Producers Group was held on Monday and the Senior Stock Assessment Scientist, Sasha Arkhipkin, gave a presentation on the state of the Loligo stock, since the last meeting. She went on to say that closure dates have now been revised and the South Area appears likely to be closed on Monday 01 September, with the Central-North Area being closed on the 8th of September. Another meeting will be held on Monday afternoon when the position reviewed using another week’s data.
Barry Elsby said that he had been looking through the public folders on the FIG Website and noticed that the data protection act was authored in 1995 but never enacted, yet in the Falklands, Civil Servants and former Civil Servants are not allowed to access their files to see if the data contained in them is correct. According to Councillors the law as written was too complicated and there were other legislative priorities. Dr Elsby felt that people had the right to see their files and that those files needed to be protected.
Dr Elsby also had asked about the Smoking in Public Places legislation The legislation is being worked on and is with the Attorney General.
Rob McGill mentioned that the Tamar visited the outer islands every four weeks and that the Concordia Bay visited once every six weeks, just like the Monsunen did. He praised Byron Marine’s tenure with the Tamar wanted to know if the schedule could be changed. Councillors said that the schedule would be static for a year and then reviewed to see what prudent changes could be made to it.
Mr McGill went on to bemoan increasing costs of FIGAS flights and the negative affect it would have on tourism. Cllr Robertson said that some tour operators say there will be losses and others say there won’t be significant changes to their incomes.
Ging Davis asked about FIGAS flights booked by the KEMH were paid for by the Hospital or were they passed on to patients. Councillor Summers assured him that the hospital paid for the flight. He also said if an aircraft had to be chartered it cost £900.00 an hour.
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