Open records requesters seeking access to minutes from Port Authority of the Cayman Islands board meetings from last year must now go back to square one.
According to Information Commissioner Jennifer Dilbert, her office will not be going to court to challenge the port authority over its non-compliance in releasing meeting minutes from 20 April, 19 May, and 15, 24, and 25 June, 2011.
The initial information requester sought a number of records from the port authority regarding negotiations between the government, GLF and China Harbour Engineering Company over various proposals to build a cruise ship berthing facility in George Town.
Three of the records, including financial assessments of the project, and legal advice given about the GLF construction proposal, had already been released to the public outside the open records process. The only matter remaining was the request for the port authority meeting minutes.
In a bizarre twist, the requester – who had fought to get the records through a six-month process under Cayman’s Freedom of Information Law – backed out and told Mrs. Dilbert’s office they were no longer seeking access to the records. The request was withdrawn on the same day the port authority was due to release the minutes.
Mrs. Dilbert had sent a letter to Chief Justice Anthony Smellie seeking to force the port to release the meeting minutes.
However, she said Monday that her office was withdrawing that request.
According a statement released by the Information Commissioner’s Office: “[Mrs. Dilbert] had been advised that determining whether the records should be released by this route would probably involve a long legal battle.”
Other applicants have since sought to access the meeting minutes and other port authority records related to the China Harbour-GLF negotiations. Because of this, Mrs. Dilbert decided to restart the open records process regarding those requests.
“This would be the most effective way to proceed, if they so desire,” she said.
How long the request process would take to get through a second time wasn’t known. The initial requests took more than six months prior to a ruling being issue by Mrs. Dilbert’s office.
The Port Authority released the following statement on the matter, applauding the commissioner’s decision to withdraw the case: “The Port Authority continues to believe that the complaint should never have been made. There was no legal or factual basis for the [Information Commissioner’s Office] to suggest that the Port Authority breached the Freedom of Information Law.”
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The authority meetings of 24 and 25 June, 2011, detail what occurred when the board members recommended to the Cayman Islands government that it re-establish negotiations with GLF/Royal Construction over building the cruise ship facility.
GLF’s negotiating agreement was terminated by Premier Bush in April and the premier recently announced government had decided to settle with the Italy-based company without using government funds to pay them.
After the 24 June meeting, some of the long-serving members reported to Mr. Bush’s former chief officer Carson Ebanks – a statutory member of the board who wasn’t at the meeting – that they were uneasy with what they were told in the meeting, including that they could be sued personally if GLF/Royal were to go that route. Mr. Bush earlier told the Caymanian Compass he called the board members into another meeting on Saturday, 25 June and said “he’d lost confidence with some of the board members’ ability to be impartial” with matters dealing with the cruise berthing facility and he would be changing some of the members.
The end result of the 25 June meeting was that former port authority board member Noel March was removed and former chairman Stefan Baraud and deputy chairman Woody Foster resigned.
The Cayman Islands government is still negotiating with China Harbour Engineering on a proposal that would not only create a berthing facility in George Town harbour, but improve cruise ship facilities at Spotts dock and build a cruise ship pier in West Bay.
Premier Bush said talks for a cruise facility in Cayman Brac were also under way.
The negotiating agreement with China Harbour is set to expire in March.
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Freedom of information is still having to be pulled kicking and screaming from some offices.. The desired effect of this act is not only to see and hear what officials are doing for us, but that they will have to enact and follow rational procedures in all their work for review.
Boys will be boys at play, but we need gentlemen at work in order to avoid being penalized.
Painful as it may be, the minutes must be released to insure future desired effect..