mmmmmmm: just quickly....i speed read an article in the bahama journal about this...does anyone know whats going on? why is it talking the govt so long to rebuild the straw market????

:tdown:

you mean this?
Taken from the Bahama Journal
http://www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=45&a=5045&sid=82f6fe68e99e9fe94734d024c022a2ab

Four Years After Blaze Straw Vendors Endure Conditions of Makeshift Market
Perez Clarke

Sunday marked the fourth anniversary of the Bay Street Straw Market fire and some straw vendors said it was more than enough time for the government to start work on a new market.

nstead, they remain in a makeshift market near the old site, complaining for the most part about uncomfortable conditions worsened by the summer heat.

Minister of Trade and Industry Leslie Miller recently indicated that work will start on the market by the end of the year, but he said the original price tag of $8.4 million has gone up to around $15 million.

For vendors weary of timelines not being met, the new date means little.

"Nothing has changed in this place at all as far as I am concerned; nothing has changed," said Rev. Esther Thompson, president of the Straw Business Persons Association. "I have no more complaints about this tent. My interest is the new market.

"I want to know what is the definite plan and what exactly is going on. That is what we are getting ready to march about, the new market. We need to get in the new market.

"We are demanding answers from the government as to what is going on with our new market. I don’t care about this tent any longer, but I do think that we should at least know where the new market will be and when we will be moving in."

Wendy Nixon, another vendor, said that she would definitely be joining the march down Bay Street for the new market.

"I think that it was last year that we had the anniversary in the parking lot and Mr. Miller laid out the plans and said that they are well on their way with the construction of the new straw market, but none of what he said has come in to play," Mrs. Nixon said.

"I am still [disgruntled] about a lot of things. I think that the government is dragging its feet and is putting straw vendors on the backburner of their agenda. I want them to know that we elected them, and some of us are still holding on to faith that they would remember us."

She added, "I would stand with Rev. Thompson in marching because I believe that unity is power. I would march Bay Street in and out to get the respect that we deserve as straw businesspersons."

But Rev. Jerome Taylor, a veteran straw vendor, sees things differently.

"To me now the market has been upgraded and although business is up and down at times, since the tent came, business has definitely been better," Rev. Taylor said.

"Every day now you can see tourists walking through the tent. They don’t just walk through anymore; they really do stop and buy. Even though facilities here have not been the best, business has picked up 100 percent."

Known by many vendors as the mother of the straw market, Vernetta Ambrister said that straw vendors are ungrateful.

"They’re complaining about it being hot," she said. "Yes, it’s really hot, but my house [is] hot too. The government cannot do anything about the heat because that is God’s sun.

"We are too miserable here at this market. We are unthankful and if we gave God thanks for the little we have then he would give us more. But the people here are ungrateful."