KARLENE Sinclair, who spoke out on behalf of residents of Wellington Glades whose homes have been damaged by a hillside development overlooking their properties, has been threatened with death unless she stops talking.

She says she will.

“I want my prospective killer(s) to know that I have nothing more to say on this matter,” Sinclair told the Observer yesterday. “I will not be pursuing the issue any further because of this threat… I have dropped the matter.”

Wellington Glades is on Munroe Road, St Andrew, on the northern face of the Long Mountain range, where the government’s National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC) and the private sector firm, Meridian Construction Company, are developing 17 acres of hillside land for prime residential real estate.

But Wellington Glades residents have complained that blasting and drilling to cut a road into the hillside leading to the development have caused structural damage to their properties and boulders to lodge threateningly in their complex and flooding during heavy rains.

Sinclair, the treasurer of the Wellington Glades Citizens Association, has emerged as their key spokesperson on the issue, having taken their case to newspapers, radio and television, gaining promises of action from government agencies.

But according to Sinclair, on Saturday afternoon a resident picked up an envelope on the complex addressed only to Wellington Glades. Inside was a note with Sinclair’s address and a single bullet.

The note warned Sinclair that she “chat too much” and gave her 10 days to leave the complex or be shot in the head.

Last night Colin Campbell, the information minister and member of parliament for Eastern St Andrew, in which constituency Wellington Glades is located, condemned the death threat, called on the police to pursue those involved and urged the Wellington Glades residents not to be cowed.

“I urge the citizens of Wellington Glades not to be bullied by any threats and I call on the commissioner of police to ensure adequate protection of the community,” Campbell said.

Sinclair last spoke publicly on the issue on Saturday — the day the letter was found — when she complained in a newspaper article that the engineering inspection of the properties promised by NHDC president, Milverton Reynolds was not done.

Reynolds had given the undertaking for the inspection after a June 9 story in the Sunday Observer in which Sinclair was quoted extensively on the concerns of the property owners and claimed that the NHDC had done little to address them.

In yesterday’s statement, Sinclair said she had nothing personal against the contractors or developers of the scheme which Wellington Glades residents believe caused their problems.

“I spoke out as an affected resident and on behalf of the citizens association of which I am a member of the executive committee,” she said.