The Bodden Town group opposing relocation of the George Town Landfill has described as “an insult and a slap in the face” a Thursday district meeting by Premier McKeeva Bush to discuss port development.

Calling on supporters to gather 45 minutes ahead of Thursday’s 7:30pm start at the Bodden Town Post Office, coalition spokesmen Gregg Anderson and Alain Beiner lamented the failure of government to discuss with local residents the construction of a 110-acre waste-management facility in the district.

“This is nothing but a UDP election campaign rally”, Mr Anderson said, pointing to the official notice of the meeting which “hints at ‘other matters’ on the agenda,” but “not a word is mentioned about the planned dump in our district, and this is certainly not any sort of consultation with Bodden Towners about the dump.”

Mr Beiner said the gathering “is meant to distract us from the issue of the planned dump, with a misleading suggestion of jobs and economic growth.”

Calling the meeting “an insult to all residents of Bodden Town, and a slap in the face,” he said, “we’re all deeply concerned about the proposed dump. Yet there has been no consultation at all nor any attempt to ask for the population’s prior consent.”

Closure of the landfill and creation of a Bodden Town-based waste-management facility are part of the $1.5 billion, 30-year plan for infrastructure and community development by the Dart-government ForCayman Investment Alliance (FCIA). The landfill is adjacent to Dart’s business-residential Camana Bay community.

Thursday’s meeting is only the latest in a series of district gatherings staged by Mr Bush, who appeared in East End on 28 February and in George Town the previous Tuesday. He has vowed to tour each of Cayman’s electoral districts, speaking about economic and political development.

Yesterday, Mr Beiner told iNews Cayman that the coalition would “take advantage of every opportunity to get its message to the people, and the McKeeva meeting is another such opportunity.”

Bodden Town MLAs Mark Scotland and Dwayne Seymour had promised to meet the group, he said, but had never offered a schedule.

“They promised to meet us in January, but never did get back to us with a suggested date,” he said.

Mr Scotland had also promised to produce documents detailing decisions about shutting the George Town Landfill and building a new facility in Midland Acres.

“It’s now 6 March,” Mr Benier said yesterday, “and they have yet to produce a single document”, a situation he described as “another broken promise”.

Meanwhile, former Bodden Town MLA and local businessman Osbourne Bodden yesterday affirmed his own opposition to the waste-management facility, and feared the Dart Group under chief Ken Dart had grown too large.

“We have in this country an entity of seemingly unlimited wealth, known as the Dart Group, that over the past 10 years have accumulated large amounts of real estate and has grown in leaps and bounds,” he wrote in a letter to the editor.

“At its helm is a Mr. Kenneth Dart – a man largely unknown to the people of the Cayman Islands, who reportedly holds Caymanian status. This group, the developers of Camana Bay, a modern town, are now entrenched into the fabric of the Caymanian society,” Mr Bodden said, warning that Mr Dart’s acquisitions were unlikely to slow “unless he is stopped through legislation from procuring more and more of this country.

“The master plan,” he finished, “is indeed to make these islands Dart Islands – make no mistake about that.”

Mr Benier said the coalition would demand to speak on Thursday.

“This particular occasion is especially important to the coalition because government has refused to consult the Bodden Town population about the dump (or to ask for its consent), choosing instead to come and talk to us about the cruise ship dock – and to drum up electoral support.  But, we won’t let them get away with this insulting distraction – we’ll be there with our placards and flyers and make sure that the issue of the dump is present at this meeting.”