Jamaica: (Was - Re: Money, Taxes, and Rebates)

Ok, Robert a little hijacking seems to be inorder, but since you are serving, I'll do it publicly.

BTW, if I was contemplating where to build now, I would probably hae Costa Rico at the top of the list as it is set up to cater to Us retirees, especially, NCOs.  I kid yu not.  Not speaking Sp;anish is a minor drawback, as many (most in the industries that matter) speak English.

30 years ago, when I first went to Jamaica, I went to Negril, which at the time was a sleepy little town with around 14 hotels (and I use the word hotel in the smallest sense, as even today the zoning prohibits them from building higher than the palm trees).  Natually, with legal mushrooms, inexpensive good ganjar, 7 miles of clean white sandy beaches, good good and a fine climate I decided to come back.  I told a few friends, who came with me.  After around three years of going down the first weekend in February for a week or two, a light went off in our heads, and while drinking fruity rum drinks under the shade of a pogada 15 feet from the water, the three guys said "Damn, we should buy some land here and build."

I was tasked with finding a suitable property.  The way it works with my friends, is that the parameters are given and the guy/gal doing the work is given free rein.  My next trip had me talking to a few people amd I was introduced to the neice of the widow of a guy who owned a property called Saxham, one sqauare mile of cane with a nice house on it.  I rejected the idea of paying $50,000 for an acre on the beach, as it would have taken almost all of our capital.  Given rising prices, with no regard for being able to get a return on one's investment, that was the only bad decision we made.   However, we would not want to live on today's beach.

Anyway, Eleanor Gubler, then on rich husband number two, introduced me to her Aunt Katie, then 75 in 1982 and, bottom line, we bought 8+ acres along the old cane road with a wonderful view for $US 8,800.  This portion of Saxham, for those of you who look at things through satielites, is located up the road from Green Island, up the cane road from Prospect, and just before Sprague Hill (another story). near Pell River and Grange. 
Believe me, it took a while to learn all these places.

Post now and then resume.

Over the next 7 years, we established our group as 4 couples.  We arranged to improve the road a bit through the Spragues land.  The spragues are a clan whose contentiousness is only exceeded by their fecundity.  They somehow agreed to have one of their own, Willi Vassel, assigned power of attorney for the group. 

As an experiement, around 10 years back, we rented a bulldozer during the dry seaon, and over a four week period with Tom Dimock and I overlapping trips), we built our storage building (called the fortress), a two storey building, 12' square interior, steel reinforced concrete, with a steel reinforced concrete floor between floors and four 650 gallon water storage tanks on the second floor.

Viola - it took a little longer and was about 10% over budget (these became reoccurring themes for all our construction projects), but hell, its Jamaica and it was finished.  We then spent the next two years filling it with all sorts of tools.

Next break

After I take a break, I'll resume and tell you about how we built a road for 1.1 miles, installed 16 steel reinforced concrete poles and got electricity to our place, all in three weeks.  While doing so, we created, briefly, one of the largest road construction outfits on the island.

Splitting for the sake of at least a semblance of thread continuity. 

Around 7 years ago, retirement hove into sight.  The Dimocks (Tom and JC) were going to be there in 2007, the Laughlins (Jeff and Diane) by 2010, The Elliots by the same year, and the Spiegels, fully retired by 2014, although I am merely keeping my hand in at this time.

It became imperative to have electricity to the property, as well as a good road.  We figured the entire 1.1 mile project could be brought in for around $60,000 (all prices are in US).  As there are a total of 10 properties along the proposed road, we figured $6K per property.  Tom took the job of getting everyone to contribute, i.e., herding cats.  He did an admirable job.  We jot a firm quote in writing from JPSCO (Jamaica Power Supply Company, a national monopoly).  JC ran the power end, while Tom arranged for the Bulldozer to start cutting the road (the old cane road was well overgrown).  did I mention that Tom owns a Bulldozer in the States and thus is fairly immune to Taurus defecation about running them.  When I came down, one week into things, the roadwork was proceeding apace, but the delivery of the marl (the crushed stone they use for non-asphalt paving, sort of like what is on our driveway in PA, but not the same) was way too slow.  And JPSCO was not even started with the electric.

JC is one of the nicest people in the world, but totally nonconfrontational.  Jamaicans often believe the validity of a position is directly proportional to the volume in which it is pronounced.  upon arriving in Jamaica, I went straight to JPSCO, where I got the distinct impression that we were getting jerked around because we were white.  I understand why, but it burned me and I did what I always did - I gave the guy in charge of the local office an ultimatum, and the minute he missed it, contacted the Company's number one troubleshooter, who happened to be located three quarters of the island away, and with whom I had spoken earlier.  Mr Stirling came down, read the local the riot act, and told me to call him if we had any further problems. 

The local guy, with three others accompanying him, came out to the project (by this time, I had contracted with six independent haulers, each with a truck capable of carrying between 15 and 20 cubic yards of marl.  they were making 4-6 trips a day per truck).  The local guy came up to me and said "You were a bit snippy today on the phone, Mr. Spiegel."

I replied, "Actually, I was a prick."

"Yes you were" he agreed.

"Remember that nice lady, Mrs. Dimock who called you earlier and whose entreaties you ignored?"  Honest to goodness, these are the words - Jamaicans like speaking like this and have wonderful vocabularies.

"Yes"

"She's the nice one.  I advise you to listen to her, otherwise you get the prick."

We now have a good working relationship, and he knows why he is not being promoted, but he does like working....

Meanwhile, we got 1700 cubic yards of marl delivered.  We found a road project one mile away, bribed the grader operator to work for us 6 hours per night, and got the stuff spread 12 feet wide, 8 to 10 inches deep for 1.1 miles (do the arithmetic).  We also build a retaining wall around a sharp curve.  The great wall of Valley View (the name we gave our spread).

All that remained was to rent two rollers for three days, and viola - the road and electric was finished.  Sounds easy - well it was not.
More tomorrow

Please keep telling Charlie. I am taking notes....haha you will also have to send pictures this place sounds beautiful.