Per­ish the thought that I am the ar­biter of doom and gloom, but the 'board walk' may have to be board­ed up un­til Ch­aguara­mas can be eas­i­ly ac­cessed. If it is on­ly on pub­lic hol­i­days that vis­i­tors will have the leisure time to sweat it out in the traf­fic jams get­ting there, Ch­aguara­mas and its fa­cil­i­ties will cease to at­tract enough vis­i­tors to war­rant the out­lay.

I am pur­pose­ly not go­ing down the road of com­ment­ing on the des­e­cra­tion of the wet­lands. I am not lis­ten­ing to the heart felt pleas of the Guave Road farm­ers who are be­ing treat­ed like dirt.

I am to­tal­ly avoid­ing the al­le­ga­tions that the Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment ap­pears to have no re­spect for Ch­aguara­mas it­self, be­cause it is seen as 'PNM coun­try.' What I wish to do is to point out that the Penin­su­la and In­vaders Bay will ul­ti­mate­ly on­ly be vis­it­ed by a lim­it­ed num­ber of rich lo­cals and for­eign tourists.

Once the 'new­ness' wears off how many fam­i­lies can af­ford week­end vis­its? Stop al­low­ing the cool­ers and pic­nic bas­kets and the par­ty peo­ple will not want to pay crazy prices for food and drink. How many will go to play golf?

How many times will pa­trons pay to 'fly' through the trees? How many will be able to gam­ble at the casi­nos? Un­like Movie Towne, Ch­aguara­mas will not be fre­quent­ed by un­em­ployed teenagers who are fund­ed by their par­ents. Lim­ing, as in re­al 'true true' Tri­ni lim­ing, will ob­vi­ous­ly not be al­lowed.

Will it re­al­ly take ten years be­fore a vi­able road­way can be built? How many of us can pay to ac­cess the penin­su­la by sea craft or he­li­copter un­til traf­fic jams are elim­i­nat­ed? What can be put in place to at­tract the wealthy gam­blers who are used to Dubai and Las Ve­gas? I have lived abroad for 25 years and the tru­ly wealthy do not 'walk the streets' look­ing for amuse­ment.

In fact, 'board­walk type/style en­ter­tain­ment is en­joyed on­ly by the or­di­nary 'fi­nan­cial­ly chal­lenged.'

The signs are al­ready there that en­try in­to Ch­aguara­mas could be, let us say 'some­what dif­fi­cult.' It ap­pears that the on­ly com­mon ground will be the gam­bling casi­nos which may at­tract rich and poor alike. How many Arab sheiks will we see fly­ing in and out of Ch­aguara­mas and how soon?

Is it pos­si­ble that there may be the lure of 'off­shore bank­ing' and pret­ty host­esses wip­ing fevered brows?

How many of the 'glit­terati' will ex­change rid­ing the ski lifts in As­pen in ex­change for zip­ping through the trees in trop­i­cal Ch­aguara­mas.

Re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, how many young peo­ple will find gain­ful em­ploy­ment and do­ing 'what' any­where in In­vaders Bay? Where will the prof­its go? In­to the Trea­sury?

Lynette Joseph

Via e-mail