Joshua Sur­tees

The Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) has served an evic­tion no­tice on the Ch­aguara­mas Mil­i­tary Mu­se­um, even though the mu­se­um's own­ers have a Cab­i­net note is­sued in 1991 grant­i­ng them a 30-year lease.The CDA is claim­ing to be com­mit­ted to the mu­se­um, but wrote to its man­age­ment on Sep­tem­ber 6 giv­ing no­tice that the mu­se­um would be evict­ed by Oc­to­ber 6.The CDA wants the site to ex­pand its board­walk.

Asked why an evic­tion no­tice had been served, with sev­en years of the agreed lease re­main­ing, Joycelin Har­g­reaves, CEO of the CDA, said: "We want to as­sure the pub­lic we are ful­ly com­mit­ted to the mu­se­um and the ser­vice it pro­vides. We are try­ing to work out the best lo­ca­tion for the mu­se­um. Their plans for de­vel­op­ment are not con­sis­tent with our plans."Asked what the plans were for the site where the mu­se­um has stood for 23 years, she said the area had been "ear­marked for a de­vel­op­ment of the board­walk."

The own­ers of the mu­se­um have re­ject­ed the of­fer of an­oth­er site near the mil­i­tary ri­fle range, say­ing mov­ing there would cost $25 mil­lion.The mu­se­um, found­ed by dec­o­rat­ed WWII com­man­der Gay­lord Kelshall and his wife Lin­da, hous­es ar­ti­facts rep­re­sent­ing the mil­i­tary eras of T&T from the Span­ish 16th and 17th cen­tu­ry on­wards. Kelshall is in poor health af­ter a stroke and his wife runs the mu­se­um.

His­to­ry buff and T&T Guardian colum­nist An­ge­lo Biss­esars­ingh de­scribed the mu­se­um as be­ing "self­less­ly put at the dis­pos­al of the T&T pub­lic, al­most as a char­i­ty. Com­man­der Kelshall did it all us­ing his own re­sources."The CDA has pro­posed a new site in Grand­wood, on the edge of a mil­i­tary ri­fle range. There is no build­ing at the site to house a mu­se­um, but Har­g­reaves said there was "in­fra­struc­ture."

But Lin­da Kelshall said when she was tak­en on a tour of the pro­posed new site, 200 feet above the main road, all she saw was bush. She re­ject­ed the pro­posed site as un­work­able and un­sat­is­fac­to­ry.The Kelshalls es­ti­mate the cost of mov­ing the arte­facts and re­lo­cat­ing them would come to $25 mil­lion, and build­ing a new mu­se­um would cost up­wards of $150 mil­lion.Lin­da Kelshall told the T&T Guardian: "Un­less they give us the $25 mil­lion it would cost us to move, we are not mov­ing. Pay us and we will move.

"The CDA has told us that if we move to Grand­wood they would is­sue us a new 30-year lease. We con­sid­er that black­mail."The CDA ad­dressed the cost of re­lo­ca­tion in a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, say­ing: "If there is a cost is­sue, the CDA will work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with the mu­se­um to sup­port the in­sti­tu­tion's on­go­ing vi­sion as an im­por­tant stake­hold­er on the penin­su­la."

Min­is­ter of Plan­ning Bhoe Tewarie said he had chaired con­sul­ta­tive meet­ings be­tween the mu­se­um and the CDA, and re­solv­ing the mat­ter was down to ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the two par­ties."It's an im­por­tant mu­se­um, a vol­un­tary ini­tia­tive and I want a rea­son­able res­o­lu­tion," he said.

What the Cab­i­net note says

Cab­i­net by Minute No. 1888 dat­ed Oc­to­ber 17, 1991, writ­ten by the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the CDA and signed by the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Plan­ning and Mo­bil­i­sa­tion, agreed to ap­prove: "The grant of a 30-year lease in re­spect of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.4 hectares (3.45 acres) of land at Care­nage Bay, Ch­aguara­mas, to the Mil­i­tary His­to­ry, Mod­el En­gi­neers and Builders So­ci­ety of T&T for the de­vel­op­ment of a mil­i­tary his­to­ry and avi­a­tion mu­se­um at no cost to the so­ci­ety for the first five years, at the end of five years the lease will be re­viewed with a view to de­ter­min­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate charge to the so­ci­ety."

No re­view or de­ter­mi­na­tion of the "ap­pro­pri­ate rent" re­ferred to in the Cab­i­net note ever took place and the mu­se­um has re­mained on the site rent-free for 23 years. The an­nu­al costs of run­ning the mu­se­um are al­most $1 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to its own­ers, and are bare­ly cov­ered by rev­enues achieved via ad­mis­sion fees.