Visits!

I've had a lovely long weekend with my first visitor, who flew in Friday noonish and out today around 3. We had terrific weather pretty much the whole time - important particularly if you have rented a scooter to zip around the island at will. No huge news - just some fotos...

In terms of context: the incredibly photogenic St. George's. The ducking of the Gossip in St. George's. The very different but also glamor-puss Dockyard area, which is where the larger cruiseships now dock (two of them at once, part of this week). Various beaches (particularly Horseshoe Bay) and inlets. Dolphin Quest at Dockyard, one of those in-the-water-with-the-beasts experiences.

And another website reference, this time for someone who had a lifetime of photographing Bermuda and making books and prints of his pictures - some stunning stuff: http://www.picturesquebermuda.com/

fun

I realize this won't be everyone's cup of tea, but today (note - this was written on the 5th) - a day of geeky, bureaucrat-filled policy and procedure meetings - was, to me, fun.

From 10 til noon, development control staff met to discuss questions and issues that had been generated during the review of cases. Jim was generous and brought various cans of nuts and fresh grapes, and the mood was helpful, which is not always how I would characterize these sessions. The more senior staff, other than Director (also from away, Barbados) and Senior (Canadian) are American, tho Cory is here permanently, married to a Bermudian. We've also been here the least time, so the 'local' staff provides the history and context for discussions - incredibly valuable, and not least for making sure we stay aware of Bermudian expectations and touchy points.

Felt like there was more discussion and acceptance of divergent viewpoints than I've seen as the case. Also, we updated the rest of staff on some major cases currently in process, and on topics like the rapidly-developing renewable energy policies, and fire-fighting service provision, and let everyone know of meetings on these topics with invitations to participate. I got the sense that this is not typically done. Does seem to me that one develops the perspective and competencies expected of more senior staff by having interested souls from the 'training' levels participate in the discussions, etal. I was pleased to find that nearly everyone showed up for the 2 pm meeting Jim and I set with the Fire Service, and got very involved in the discussion and debate, and I would have had more people with me at the 3 pm Ministry of Energy solar energy application meeting if the Fire discussion had wound down by then. As it was, one of the more junior staff decided he was interested enough to duck out with me.

The meeting with Fire Service was an effort to push for resolution on a basic conflict that is about to become a much larger thing. Many, many roads in Bermuda are a) private estate roads and essentially driveways with a sort of private right of way, b) 8 to 12' wide and otherwise not such that firetrucks, ambulances, etc can get to calls on these roads. There is no mechanism to widen the roads - and again, most of them are easements across private land. There are easily hundreds of lots accessed by roads that are inadequate for any level of service delivery. Even with the latest Plan, roadwidth is set at 14' to 16' - this is the entire road, mind you, not lane width.

Fire Service says they can't provide fire protection, because their equipment now requires at least a 12' wide by 15' high clear corridor to a site. Since something like 70% of the lots in Bermuda are either themselves on skinnier roadways, or are reached by skinnier roadways, often edged by stone walls and structures, this is clearly an issue.

I don't know, myself, if smaller (i.e. narrower) trucks cannot be bought; all the utilities, the water delivery companies, etc, have narrower trucks, but they are not as long, of course. Fire Service says the smaller trucks they used to have were more dangerous - people hung on at various platforms on the outside of the truck, rather than in a crew cab, and that was more hazardous for the fire fighters.

Of course, there may be some sort of empire building/territoriality thing going on. Fire Services often have a big dose of political 'conveying of weight' involved, and I've certainly been told there is a big slug of that with this one.

Now - the question has been bumped upstairs - per the Plan, the Board cannot approve projects if there is not emergency response accessibility. Again, 70% or so of the properties in Bermuda are in this situation. Do you tell people they can't develop on legal lots of record, or can develop only if they are willing to forgo fire and ambulance protection? If the Fire Service is unwilling to recognize or organize any other sort of firefighting response, where does that leave people? Do we let folks develop (i.e. refuse the applications, have them go on appeal to the Minister and very likely be approved there, thereby undercutting the Plan and enlarging the problem since Fire still can't get to those units just because they've been ok'd by the Minister) knowing there is no fire and rescue response capability as things stand? Does someone in authority in the government declare 'whoa nellie - go get yourself some equipment that works for the reality in Bermuda?' (which the fire chief says would also mean he needs to double his workforce to operate smaller trucks...)

Probably 80% of my cases are hanging fire right now until the hoo-has get this worked out.
For the staff this was apparently a rather exciting event to be part of; a lot of light bulbs going off, a lot of suggestions and chatter.

The meeting with the Department of Energy was also interesting. There are programs abaout to be announced for incentives and rebates for installing solar photovoltaic and hot water systems, and Energy is chomping at the bit to get them out there. However, the legal and interpretive underpinnings aren't in place yet - you still have to get a construction permit AND license to operate a controlled plant for every solar panel installation, if you are doing it legitimately. The applications have no expedited process (the present process probably averages 6 months), there is no information on what particular data is needed to get drawings and applications to the point where they can be dealt with quickly, and everything above 80 sf of photovoltaics, or above 4' off the ground or 10" above a roof requires Board review and approval. So the point was to pull all the info together, design a process that keeps this from being an invent-the-wheel process with each application, develop information for interested applicants and generally get everything in line to be supportive of thisi push.

This literally requires an act of congress - or parliament, as the nomenclature is here. The requirements and limitations are set out in relatively aantique Acts that badly need amendment - or, I suppose, someone to take authority , in writing, for saying the Act may say that but we aren't going to enforce that part of the Act.

I hear from the private side that 'everyone' is on board with doing this and from the technical review side (those charged with the review responsibilities) that that is news to them. Hey, guys, it is your country, decide what you want and how you want it, provide for a way of doing it legally, and we are rarin' to go...

Enough on this...I have some pictures I want to add!

Horses and peeps

We are on a run of excellent weather - a good thing for the 2500 or so participants Saturday in the End-to-End walk, from St. George's to Dockyard, a bit over 24 miles. People ran, walked, biked, skate-boarded; there were some who swam and kayaked. A couple of guys with waaaaayyyyy too much time on their hands biked it first, then swam back part of the way.

It did make for an interesting morning for the bus drivers. I'd taken the bus in to St George around 8.30 and we were definitely running upstream against the folks who'd left St. George at 8. Took an extra ten minutes or so to get to town. Our roads have few straight segments and lots of hills, and while you won't find a 1000' change in elevation it is a constant up and down and up again. I understand the walk can be done at a leisurely pace in about 6.5 hours. A good fund-raiser for various Island charities!

Loving my class. I think that if anyone can get me over my terror of the blank page, Emma will be the one.

Did not do well on the house-keeping/preparation side of things, but did devote time to the ever-so-pleasing puttering with the paints, and cranked thru the reviews and letters for 6 cases, and even a partial report on one.

And, finally, a couple photos...some horse inclined group gathered at the park across the road Sunday, unloading the trailers of horses in front of the apartment house. Horse-drawn carriages are one of those good-weather things here, several families operate them, and they are most evident when the cruise ships come in. It was definitely a horse-heavy afternoon.

And I came in tonight and set my stuff down, then realized I was hearing some little bird cheeping away. He let me step outside but not get near, effectively running away screaming as well as a 3" or 4" ball of fluff can do. They are funny to watch. Now there is a pair playing on the steps near the door.

Friday!

It has been a busy week, and I'm glad for the weekend - although, of course, I brought things home with me, and intend to spend tonite working on making some progress for my painting class tomorrow morning, and have excellent reason (visitor!) to get the apartment in really good shape. Lots of things have been happening, against a backdrop of terrific weather.

The house is rather more 'full' now, with Monday's pick up of a kitchen table and 4 chairs (2 more than I was anticipating!), and Tuesday morning's delivery of a free tall bookcase. I haven't gotten things settled in place yet. (A queen-size airbed was part of that delivery, and since in both instances the people were leaving the island, they tossed in additional 'stuff' - Christmas paper and ribbon, tupperware, a tool kit, flashlights, candles, cleaning supplies...) Not having things settled in place is making me a little cranky. I look forward to trying to get all that sorted this weekend.

This has been something of an "it takes a village" experience. The most recent things reached me thru the assistance of co-workers. The airbed etal were picked up by the husband of one of our department secretaries. I rode on the back of Jim's scooter as we headed to the house where the table was, to meet his girlfriend getting off from work on that side of the island. We took the table apart to fit in her car and loaded up all the other stuff but the bookcase, then she followed us back to my house. The bookcase arrived by taxi - all my truck-owning acquaintances bailed - but I'd called the driver to arrange for my visitor's pickup at the airport and asked him about this as a by-the-way thing. Turned out he was going to that house every morning to pick up the husband and bring him in to his office since they had sold their car, and he'd just carry it on over here after he dropped the guy off, on his way out to the airport.

What else? Got my first performance review, which went well.
Was drafting pieces for bosslady so she could get what she needed completed before she left for 2 weeks in Spain.
Have been deep into procedure development as part of an inter-ministry group on solar (mostly) renewable/alternative energy projects - which has been one of those things that people like the idea of but havent gotten around to making work here.
Have been working with Fire Department to develop some consistent and reasonable policies on dealing with proposed development on legal lots with inadequate roadway access. (Here, that means there is not a clear 12' paved carriageway - that is the entire roadway width, mind you - from acceptable street to lot. The other elements are, predictably, a minimum 15' clear height - so it is this 12' x 15' "caterpillar" they need; also minimum radii - lots of sharp corners and curves, sometimes with grades beyond what the trucks can handle.) Probably 80% of the applications are in that circumstance - they have an 8' or 10' private right of way. The Fire Department recently went to these bigger wheelbase trucks and can't get to lots and lots of places as a result.)

After work today I scooted over to BSOA for the opening reception on two shows - our birdhouses, and digital art, mostly by students. Photos attached!

I felt there were some really nicely done bluebird houses, and mine was nowhere near the level of those. But it held its own. They couldnt apparently mount it with its roof on properly, which is a shame, since that was a big part of the whole thing.

On to other things...Love hearing from folks!