Following the previous week’s story of the plane that disappeared after leaving Grand Cayman on Good Friday with four people on board, the front page of the 10 April 1975 edition carried the news that The Carlton Bodden Fund had been launched, named for one of the three Caymanians who were feared lost, along with the American pilot. ExCo member Benson Ebanks and Senior Administrative Secretary Dennis Foster established the fund, though the article added that Bodden’s wife and other relatives “are still confident that he is still alive somewhere”. The Boddens – Carlton, 30, and Corinthia, 25 – had five young children.
Also on page 1 was the story that Brackers were “up in arms” about the proposed Development Plan, with some declaring at a “packed” public meeting that, as a last resort, they might “reconsider their ties with George Town rather than accept the plan in its present form”. According to the article, no one fully supported the document’s growth guidelines for the islands until 1990. “For years Brackers have resented being poor relations of Grand Cayman”, and they believed the proposed plan would “confirm them permanently in their present status of ‘second class citizenship’”.
An article on page 3 called attention to the 22nd anniversary of the death of Owen Roberts in a plane crash in Jamaica, which killed 13 of the 14 people on board.
As in the week before, the editorial covered the Development Plan, noting that it took government four years to produce the document, but the public only had one month to read it and submit any objections. The “key issue”, the editorial said, was the plan’s view that Cayman’s population should not exceed about 21,740 by 1990 – which implies a “Caymanian-to-alien ratio of at least three-to-two” – as that might “stunt economic development”, adding that for the country “to prosper, the hundreds of Caymanians overseas must be encouraged to return home”. However, by 1989, according to that year’s census, Cayman’s population had already grown to 25,335.
