Dear Sir,

I am disappointed at the huge outcry against the Fairmont Southampton special development order. I would like to see the condo/residential buildings scaled back a little, but I suspect the SDO in its present form has taken that into consideration as a possibility.

Some Bermudians have gotten themselves into this bad habit of objecting to every little thing, just because they can — not to mention their quest for some kind of public notoriety. Sadly, the reality is simply they only make themselves look a lot less than brilliant. The objectors have lost sight of one very important fact: the property is zoned for what they have applied for, and there are provisions for nonconforming aspects of an application in the (Planning) Act.

As a musician, I have enjoyed playing at the Fairmont Southampton and elsewhere, and I see this project as an opportunity to restart that type of employment, which is otherwise all but defunct. All that aside, what’s really important is Bermuda has to grow. We can’t grow physically, so the only option is to grow economically. I suspect that somewhere there’s an algorithm that can tell us how close we can get to physical, infrastructural saturation, but I suspect that — even with the highest space allocated to golf courses per square mile in the world — we’ve not reached that point quite yet.

The rot set in with the airport. Once the power of that kind of money had us over the proverbial barrel, we were done for. We’ve been literally, and not too subtly, extorted into submission. Sad. But all this was foreseen in think-tanks I was privy to in the late 1970s. Of course, there is an upside: get on board!

Bermuda, like the rest of the world, will be dragged, kicking and screaming into what’s left of the 21st century — and the 22nd century, too, like it or not. I really do understand the objections because too much infrastructure can overshadow our natural beauty, but at least all of this new development is in one place.

It’s a hotel; get used to it! Gencom can do anything within the law! Let’s get used to that, too. We turn up our noses at jurisdictions with economies and currency exchange rates nowhere near what we enjoy, but their tourism is thriving. Guaranteed, there is somewhere with a US exchange rate of 160:1 only too glad to let Gencom build what it wants. It’s true these places have more space, but that fact notwithstanding, we would be wise to at least not get in the way of the inevitable progress.

On another note, I was glad to see my friend, Walter Carlington, put a scammer firmly in his place. I’ve found that a few choice expletives and the very real threat of getting Interpol involved works wonders.

KEITH SIMONS

Sandys