Latest update November 26th, 2024 1:00 AM
Acting Town Clerk, Council clash over Regent St. vending
– Clean-up campaign at standstill
By Abena Rockcliffe
Acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba
With all that the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has on its plate, including a workers’ strike and ongoing investigations, another “situation” has arisen as Mayor Hamilton Green sanctioned against acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba’s order to remove all vendors from Regent Street.
Speaking to this newspaper yesterday, Sooba disclosed that due to the clean-up campaign that was launched in collaboration with Keith Burrowes’ Implementation Committee, it was imperative that vendors be removed for the exercise to be effective.
Sooba claimed that as the Regent Street area was being cleaned, vendors continued dumping their garbage and therefore “it was looking like nothing is being done.”
She said that it was because of the aforementioned reason that she ordered the city constabulary to clear the vendors off Regent Street.
However, Sooba disclosed that the following day after the exercise was completed, the Council, through its fortnightly statutory meeting, voted to allow vendors to remain.
Green, when contacted yesterday, said that the issue of vending on Regent Street is a complex one which has engaged the Council for years. “It is also a political issue. The Council has to deal with political issues,” the Mayor stated.
He said that Sooba’s instruction to the constabulary without consultation with him or Deputy Mayor Patricia Chase-Green is a breach of protocol.
However, Sooba affirmed that she hadn’t the need to consult with “the Mayor, Deputy Mayor or Minister to do my job.”
The Town Clerk (ag) noted that vending on Regent Street is illegal and the issue was taken to the court before, with then Chancellor, Desiree Bernard, pronouncing that “the M&CC is breaking its own laws and persons should be jailed.”
However, Green expressed that “a little before elections Jagdeo himself went down to those vendors and told them that they will be allowed to continue, so I don’t know what is really going on now.”
At a press conference earlier this week, Minister of Local Government, Ganga Persaud, inferred that the Mayor is encouraging “lawlessness.”
He stated that vendors on Regent Street pollute the environment with the garbage they leave after vending. “Business owners on Regent Street complain on them and they cause obstruction of traffic when they take over the pave, causing pedestrians to enter the flow of traffic.”
In the past, the Council had argued that vending is the livelihood of some and they met an agreement to allow it “moderately.”
Meanwhile, the clean-up campaign that was launched about two weeks ago, and was supposed to result in “a massive change” as it relates to garbage around the City, remains at a standstill as workers are on strike.
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