Latest update January 30th, 2025 6:10 AM
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Waneka Arrindell unanimously elected Mayor of Linden
Mayor-elect: Waneka Arrindell
A 38-year-old school teacher was yesterday unanimously elected as Mayor of Linden. Waneka Arrindell is no stranger to the Council as she was formerly the deputy Mayor.
Mayor Carwyn Holland was absent.
Arrindell, reflecting on the elections, said that the process was an internal one and was conducted by the Town Clerk, who is empowered to carry out such functions.
She declared, “The elections were by the choice of the councillors, but Mr. Holland remains the Mayor of Linden until the installation.”
Arrindell added that the Mayor would work along with the Mayor-elect “and so we will have three months to have a smooth transition to make sure all things are working in sync, so by the time the Mayor leaves, the Mayor-elect can take up his or her full position, knowing what’s happening on the ground.”
As regards the no-show of Mayor Holland, Ms. Arrindell said: “Today’s non-attendance of the Mayor bears a lot of thought as to how we will go forward. And it will take a lot as to how we are going forward, because we don’t want to go into 2018 battling. The Mayor did pledge that he will be working together with whoever is elected, and we do hope he intends to do that. Otherwise other actions would have to be taken.”
Forty-six year-old Deputy Mayor-elect Wainwright Bethune who is the Technical Services and Environmental Coordinator at Bosai, in reflecting on his new designation, said: “The process is just as normal as when I was just a councillor, it’s just that most of the councillors now have entrusted some level of confidence in me to take up part of this leadership role, but my personal thoughts on being involved in this process is that irrespective of whether I’m councillor, Deputy Mayor or Mayor, I will serve with the same level of commitment; the same commitment continues. I am a humble servant.”
Bethune said that he was not surprised with the election results.
Councillor Lennox Gasper said that he was very displeased that Mayor Holland did not attend.
He however said that he was happy that Deputy Mayor Arrindell was unanimously elected.
“I believe that in the spirit of togetherness and cohesion, the Mayor should have shown up today. However, I’m happy for the Mayor-elect and the Deputy Mayor, and I will give them my full support.”
Former IMC Chairman Orrin Gordon, who was on hand for the elections, said that there needs to be a unified body going forward, for the development of the Town, as some issues “seem to have been flowing within the young council”.
“From what I have observed, there was some amount of dissatisfaction with how things were managed, and because of that, the council had some difficulties with the headship, and so went ahead and decided to change course. Nothing is wrong with that, as that is democracy.”
Gordon said that when he was invited to the meeting, he was a little bit concerned.
“I would have had problems in my time, too, but we tried our best to settle as much as possible from within, instead of going on the outside, to the extent whereby it was said that we could not contain whatever difficulties we were having on the inside, so we ended up going on the outside, which was not necessarily the best thing for the type of social cohesion or the kind of thing needed to propel the level of unity required to bring about development of the community.”
Gordon said that there also seemed to be some problems with interagency cooperation, and reflected on his own time in office when this type of teamwork was promoted.
He added that whatever happens henceforth, more attention needs to be paid to this type of cohesion.
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