Letter: NY office was never closed

Dear Sir,

The column written by Mr. Stuart Hayward and published in the June 11 Bermuda Sun contained several factual errors. 

First, he asserted that taxi drivers “had their dispatching company shut down”. Not true. Bermuda was never left without a dispatching company. One company did cease operations after it was found to be in repeated violation of the law. But, there was never an interruption in dispatching service.

Mr. Hayward goes on to incorrectly claim that the New York tourism office was closed. Again, this is just not true. The New York Tourism office was restructured to continue to provide a high level of service while also saving Bermuda’s taxpayers money, but, it was never closed. In fact three Bermudian College students will be working as interns in that office this summer!

Finally, he claims that the internationally acclaimed public relations firm GlobalHue held a “no-bid contract”. Again, this is just blatantly not true. There was a bidding process that involved multiple firms. GlobalHue competed against several reputable agencies and won.

One short column. Three major factual errors.

Senator Marc Bean