7 News Belize

Money and Power Clash In San Pedro Land Dispute
posted (June 19, 2014)
Tropic Air may control the bulk of the local traffic in the skies, but back here on earth, the Lands Department has the control and, tonight, the leading local airline says that Lands is dispossessing them of a prime piece of real estate. The land adjoins the San Pedro runway. Tropic air had hoped to use it to invest substantially to expand their operations since San Pedro is their base. But, then, their lease was cancelled - and it emerged that two private landowners, Brett Feinstein and Marilee Pou had separate titled lands within the leased area - though their titles were also mixed up. Today, Minister of Natural Resources Gaspar Vega told 7News that Tropic Air ended up with the lease as a result of human error - and the Department had to correct the error:..

Hon. Gaspar Vega, Minister of Natural Resources
"Yes the lease has been cancelled. It's an error that the ministry made. It's an error coming long before 2008 and instead of rectifying - we try to rectify the problem and another problem gets done. I am going to be honest and say it's a problem created by the ministry. The errors were not calculated, it was just a human error and it has compounded problems."

Jules Vasquez
"Specify the error? Tropic Air should not have ended up with a lease for that entire tract of land? I know that numbers were mixed up between Ms. Pou and Mr. Feinstein as well."

Hon. Gaspar Vega
"What happen is that there was a lease issued, another lease was issued for the same land. A title was issued to Mr. Feinstein on a land that he did not survey, just by wrong numbers and we rectified by then a lease was issued to the other party and that is the complication. But I am certain that we will be able to settle it. I wouldn't want to say more than that Jules."

Jules Vaquez
"But Tropic Air is at the disadvantage now because their lease has been cancelled?"

Hon. Gaspar Vega
"Yes, because Feinstein had a title and that's where we are. We are trying to see if we have both parties compromise along with us to see how we can fit them. Neither one will be able to get what they want, but we are hoping that that will be the conclusion."

Hon. Manuel Herredia, Minister of Tourism
"I have tried to mediate in both side, but at the end of the day Jules it is those power against power right. I still believe that I will continue to see how I will speak with the Deputy Prime Minister. I have spoken with Ms. Pou that probably Tropic can buy out that property and then we will relocate Mr. Feinstein if he so agrees. So I have sent message to him that if there are possibilities that we can continue the negotiations meanwhile this matter is in court because an injunction has been put over there which to me, injunctions can last up to 3 years over there. In the meantime there will be an eye soar in the airstrip which was what I was trying to avoid."

"I am just a humble person trying to do my job, but when it comes power between power then I will only do as they ask him. That is what I know about this issue."

And while both ministers proposed a conciliatory solution, Tropic air is not interested in that. They say their 2008 lease is fully paid up, valid for 30 years, occupied, and they are intent on maintaining possession of parcels 5621 and 10959. Furthermore, last year they started construction on a 6 million dollar building and never got any notice of the cancellation of their lease. Now, a lawsuit has been filed against the company - a cease and desist order which means that all work on their building has been halted.

This afternoon in San Pedro, Monica Bodden spoke to d, the CEO of Tropic Air - he explained their position:..

Steve Schulte, CEO - Tropic Air
"We did a survey of April of 2014 and a deed of April 15th 2014 well into the construction of our building. We were in contact with the lands department pretty continuously since we started this project and there was no challenge to our lease up until about March. In March we were called at the lands department and we were told that we had to meet with Mr. Brett Feinstein and with Minister Vega and I went to that meeting and I was shown a deed for the land next to us which was in Construction Depot Limited, Mr. Feinstein's company I understand. Leaving that meeting I determined the best of my knowledge that there was no dispute about the land. They own the land next to us and that is a separate lot and we still had the full area of our lease. Subsequent to that there had been a whole number of instances where we've been ask to stop construction or interfere with construction on the lot and in each case we consulted our lawyers and determined that it was legal and proper for us to continue the construction which we had done up until the court gave us this cease and desist order on Tuesday."

"Right now we have a response to that, we only had a few hours between the time we were served 4pm in the afternoon here in San Pedro and 10am the next morning, so we didn't have time to mount a defense and to show all of our records. Currently our lawyers engage to that. We intend to pursuit it vigorously. We believe if this is a mistake or an intentional deeding of lands that are involve in our lease it has to be rectified. We went to the government in 2013 and showed them our plans. We told them that the lot wasn't wide enough that we needed additional land. The Cabinet approved that according to the information that was sent to us by ministers Castillo and Herredia and so we then applied for permission to survey and it was granted in May. It took until December until we received that lease which is this second lease that I referred to here "entry #15-158" its dated December 13th, 2013. At that point we started construction because there was no challenge. Then this parcel that originally deeded to Construction Depot Limited seems to be not what they thought they had and so they pursued this with the government and as I mentioned we had the meeting. That was the first time I saw their deed and my understanding of that. That deed I believe is part of the record of lawsuit. My understanding of that was that that was their property and there was no challenge to the date of our original survey of the land in early 2007 and there was no challenge to the lease prior to April of 2014. Actually, the very parcel that's disputed is where we erected our cargo terminal and operated for years since 2008. Six years we operated off of that property and now all of a sudden its no longer."

Brett Feinstein told us the matter is already at court and they prefer not to fight their battles in the media. He would only say that he has done nothing unethical.

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