Looking at the Deputies - Rod Bryans, Sean Power

Each day I am going to try and pick a few matters from the Deputies who are standing that I think of interest, together with the links, some sitting, some standing. Here is some stuff from Rod Bryans and Sean Power.
 
Rod sticks his neck out on GST, but his comments on the waterfront are more ambivalent. Notice he doesn't actually come down one way or another about it.
 
Sean speaks as he finds, and there is refreshingly little fudging, or the kind of Gus Hedges management speak that a certain Senator is notorious for coming out with. I have to say that while I don't completely see eye to eye (I think basic exemptions on fuel would be relatively simple, not as complex as food obviously would be), he seems to dig into issues - the information about the waste and analysis has not appeared to my knowledge in the JEP - and be very responsive to explaining things, despite some general snipers on Planet Jersey who are, in my opinion, behaving like kids (maybe they are?).
 
Rod Bryans
 
http://rodbryans.com/?page_id=8
 
GST
 
There should be exemptions for necessities, food, heating and utility bills. This is a given. If the UK can do it so can we. To tax the essentials for those who find it difficult to afford is madness.
 
Waterfront

There are so many concerns about this development they are difficult to number.  It just feels wrong. Gut instinct is a great litmus test and nobody feels easy about what is happening. Why is the project so large? As the case against Harcourt becomes more public so does the disquiet. What assumptions are being made regarding the growth of the Finance Industry and its inherent population to warrant so many offices? Now with the current climate of businesses reducing staff and resources, who are going to fill these offices?

Sean Power - in his own words
 
http://planetjersey.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=491.0
 
GST
 
If you are referring to GST, I have voted 5 times against this awful tax.  Now that 28 of my colleagues voted to bring it in last November, I am firmly of the view that my colleagues are not disciplined enough to hold it at 3%. Already the clamour for exemptions on food, children's clothes, school uniforms, books, fresh food has started.  If we go for a VAT monster type model with large numbers of civil servants dealing with exemptions, then inexorably, the rate will have to go up.  And it will because of this clamour.  That is why I am of the view that GST will never stay a simple tax

On GST, I voted against GST everytime.I then voted against exemptions.   We must keep GST simple. We cannot have a UK VAT look a like monster.  That takes battalions of  civil servants to do the exempting.  If we have to have the bloody thing, then this clamour for exemptions will give any future Treasury Minister carte blanche to raise the base rate. I don't agree with that. I don't agree with GST as I am still unconvinced we need it.  It is the GST is the problem, not GST on food.

West of Albert and Toxic Waste
 
A brief comment on the West of Albert (1980's) reclamation site. I have checked with Health and Social Services (Protectorate) and Social Security (workplace). The major works being undertaken by Dandara, the first of the developers is that constant daily monitoring is going on as to what is being extracted. This is subject to Lab analysis and the results come back every three/four weeks. So far, they have found some gray asbestos that is being handled properly and lots of mixed debris, including batteries that should never have been dumped there as mixed loads.

Soil samples are taken daily and these are bagged and batched and sent weekly to a UK lab.  The results come back for that BATCH about three weeks later.

I have checked with TTS and HSS. Because I am on PAP, I cannot contact Dandara direct. This monitoring is being done. My information is that Castle Quay and excavation is proving a very expensive and difficult exercise. Why ?  Because so much non-recorded crap was deposited there in the early 80's. Mostly by the Jersey born dominated States public service of then.

I understand that specialist firms and sealed 20'  < psi proof containers with containment monitoring are being shipped on a weekly basis with Huelin Renouf .
 
Child Abuse
 
Any civil servant under investigation by the SOJP [States of Jersey Police], particulary in the area of child care should not be active  and should be suspended.

Bus Shelters
 
I  have now had a long conversation with some people in the know at TTS. Connex and TTS have agreements that make it difficult for Connex to carry advertising.  That same applies to Bus Shelters as the advertising has to be done on a common agreement. There are now one or two sponsorship deals notably EDD. Anyway sponsored Buses and Bus shelters are being re-visited.
 
Getting people on buses is a bit like recycling. You can provide a good bus service and shelters and the user friendly stuff. My sister lives in Seattle. They have an integrated bus policy with decent shelters, mini-stations, bike racks on buses and the whole thing works. TTS need to realise that they can get people onto buses, but it is not just the bus. It is the whole package. It is comparable to recycling. TTS have a captive audience that are soooo keen to recycle. Yet, they only do the 32%.

I have had bus shelters as an agenda item for three years.  All of us have been waiting for the Integrated Travel and Transport Plan for three years. It was never delivered by TTS. It is a bit like New Directions.