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Sour over milk prices March 14, 2001

Every Wednesday for the past five years, I have made my weekly trip to the grocery store and done the food shopping for my family.

When I first moved to Bermuda in May of 1996, the cost of one carton of Dunkley's (green label) skim milk was $3.05. Back then, I thought that was a high amount because I could get a full gallon in the States for that price.

However, I was willing to pay that much because I could accept the fact that food was more expensive here to begin with and milk is such an essential item to have in the fridge.

Over the past five years, I have observed the price creeping up a few cents every now and then, and I was shocked when I looked at my grocery receipt this week and the price had gone up to $3.47! That is an increase of 42 cents in 5 years or approximately eight cents per year.

I know that may not seem like a lot to some people, but when you have small children and go through several cartons of milk in one week, it quickly adds up.

Considering the fact that milk is a staple item in most households -- are they going to keep increasing these prices because they know the people will pay them just to have milk in the house? LOOKING FOR RELIEF Smith's Parish Cracking the parking nut March 15, 2001 Dear Sir, We are anxious that our position on parking and pedestrianisation is understood. We believe that the revitalisation of Hamilton hinges on the principle of providing comfortable access for consumers, from the entire Island, to the city's workforce -- whose jobs depend upon ready accessibility to their services. In a car-dependent community, this means assured, close-by parking. Therefore, unless Hamilton plans to continue surviving essentially on the city's own lunch and coffee-break workforce, to the virtual exclusion of the much larger Island as at present, the problem of grossly inadequate consumer parking must be properly solved before money is spent on pedestrian areas. It is obvious that without adequate close-by parking first of all, there can be no pedestrians. Bermuda's car-dependent consumers' ideal is guaranteed parking, close-by, and then as pedestrians, having plenty of time to walk about and relax -- without the fear of $60 fines.

Customers Come First.

All present parking should be retained until dedicated, close-by, one- and two-hour space is fully up, running and proven adequate. The key word is adequate. As `adequate parking' in the lexicon of a mall competing against another mall means right outside the door, and never, ever, full, we believe that all central parking in the City should be one-or two-hour, 100 percent dedicated to the city's customers and clients -- upon whom the jobs of the workforce ultimately depend. This is common sense. Once accomplished, then, and then only, should money for pedestrianisation schemes be spent. Easy Access to The Job.

For the workplace, there must be sufficient, properly policed, Bulls Head-type commuter parking, with the fees supporting a non-stop shuttle service to the city centre for those requiring it, demonstrably adequate to absorb existing central all-day parking. We are accordingly unimpressed with retaining half, or even a part of the City Hall, or any other central commuter parking. Giving up nine one-hour parking opportunities for the city's customers to a single all-day parker, whose job one way or another should depend on the consumer thus displaced, makes no sense to us.

Malls -- boarded up towns -- will Hamilton make the same mistake? Shopping malls, and the consequence boarded up town centres across the US, were triggered first by the US post-war swing to a total dependence on cars, making dinosaurs of destinations that did not provide guaranteed parking -- and second, by the towns' absolute failure to realise that left un-addressed, when time and money was still in hand, this evolution would destroy their town centres. The consequent departure of the consumers looking for parking, and the stores with them, is legendary. To late, tax-strapped tinkering such as pedestrianising was easy (the cars had gone anyway); bricks, quaint lamp posts and flower tubs, have only attracted ice cream stands, tee-shirt and `antique' junk-shops, interspersed by ubiquitous `for rent' sings, druggies and purse-snatchers.

The horse was out of the stable, long gone to greener pastures, never again to return to pay the cities' taxes.

We do not believe that our consumers should or will give up their air-conditioned cars for as yet undefined transportation alternatives, especially in Bermuda's heat, wind and rain. We are certain that the assumption they will fight hostile parking to get to the city's services, the mistake the US town councils made, is a dangerous miscalculation. Our highly mobile consumer, armed with many options, is already responding to Hamilton's paucity of parking -- contributing to the landslide of overseas shopping, and the loss of local retailing jobs, by finding easy parking readily available at the airport -- and on the Internet.

Lower Reid Street parking is alone worth Three Cruise Ships.

By survey, there are 30 cars on average, Monday through Friday from 10 am; and 40 on Saturdays, using loading zones, from 9 am, all limited to 60 minutes.

This totals 1,560 private cars per week.

At only one shopper per car, each for the full 60 minutes, for 52 weeks, the parking contribution is 81,120 consumer visits per annum.

To put into perspective the loss of 18,000 consumers with specific purchases or services in mind (why else come to Hamilton?), one- 1,000 passenger, 26-visit cruise ship provides 26,000 potential shoppers. Therefore, lower Reid Street alone is worth an entire season of three 1,000-passenger cruise ships.

There is enough fuss this year over the loss of just one ship. Chicago's pedestrianisation disaster -- one of many.

This was imposed on the famous State Street, the Fifth Avenue of Chicago, and reported extensively in the New York times last summer. We quote: "Contributing significantly to State Street's decline was the urban renewal project in 1979 that closed the street to vehicles and turned it into an enormous -- and usually deserted -- pedestrian mall,'' and, "By the early 80s, State Street, which had boasted seven major department stores a decade earlier, was down to two...what little specialty retailing remained was increasingly the fast food and adult bookstore variety.'' The subsequent, and painful cost to the city alone of re-opening the street to auto traffic was over $70 million. The result: "Striking; ...annual rents have doubled to $52 per square foot, while the vacancy rate has dropped to 3%.'' Doubtless, this is why New York's Fifth Avenue itself is careful to remain happily as it is.

What is Wrong with Hamilton parking? Viewed by the local shopper, Hamilton is simply a mall with grossly inadequate, effectively hostile parking due to heavy penalisation for anyone who risks the time to make an extra impulse purchase. Failing to provide adequate parking, the city has no alternative to the self-defeating policy of chasing shoppers out of town.

Effectively the dictate is: `If you don't want a $60 dollar ticket, buy what you have come for as quickly as possible, and get out,' The modern mall says: `Park right at the door, free, look around, walk about; perhaps you will see something else you need, have lunch, stay for the afternoon, and then, it is only a short, brightly lit walk back to the safety of your car.' The city's paucity of parking is a major added negative to efforts to compete for consumers against all the other options available.

With respect, especially as the new plan is supposed to `re-vitalise' the city, we should be very careful to get the parking priorities well in hand before committing to expensive changes that may be irreversible should they fail, and, as wide experience suggests, they very well may.

Respectfully, and responsible for over 600 Bermudian jobs on Reid Street.

The Stationery Store, A.S. Cooper's, The English Sport Shop Group, St. Michael's, Aston & Gunn, H.A. & E. Smith's, Triminghams' Special Branch query March 16, 2001 Dear Sir, Please allow me a few lines to express my view on a most interesting topic that seems to have escaped the attention of the reading public.

I have read your newspaper articles recently on the US Senate investigations into suspected money-laundering carried out by one of our local financial institutions by one of its former employees.

I can now understand why the "Powers That Be'' decided some years ago to disband our local Special Branch. It would appear that Special Branch was getting a bit too close for comfort and rather than risk any future embarrassing episodes, Special Branch had to go.

It would be a good idea to find out who inside and outside Government circles, was responsible for directing the liquidation of Special Branch.

FORMER RESERVIST Warwick Museum is interesting March 17, 2001 Dear Sir, We have been enjoying our time-share for more than ten years. Finally we were able to make the time to stop in at the Bermuda Railway Museum. What an interesting little museum with pictures and historical information about this remarkable railway system.

What was most interesting and shocking to us is the fact that this wonderful exhibit of history is not part of your National Trust or Historical Preservation Programme. Can someone explain this? ANDRE AND JANE CUSHING St. George's Club