City Manager System could renew city

Jan 21, 2018 Consumer Concerns, Features / Columnists

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By PAT DIAL

For many years now, the Guyana Consumers Association (GCA) has been advocating that the Georgetown City Council be replaced by a City Management System headed by a City Manager. City Managers have been used in the United States with much success.
Indeed, Washington D.C. the capital of the United States was not a municipality for most of its existence and was run quite well, in effect, by a City Manager and paid officials.
Since it had been converted into a Municipality with an elected Mayor and Councillors, the quality of administration in that City has fallen.
Georgetown once used to be a very well-run City. Taxes were paid and collected and the Town Council did not venture into questionable schemes to raise money. It would sometimes issue bonds which were much in demand. The various services the Council provided to the City were of a high quality and citizens did not complain as they do today.
The streets were clean and the trees of the City were well-tended. The drains and canals were kept flowing and never clogged. The City was known as the “Garden City of the West Indies”.
The Town Hall was one of the main attractions of the City and was always kept in an immaculate condition. It used to be the main concert hall of Georgetown and regular concerts of classical music were performed there on Sunday afternoons. It was also used as the lecture hall where visiting academics and dignitaries would speak.
The Town Council itself did the waste disposal from its earliest days in the 19th century by animal-drawn carts succeeded by motorised vehicles. The Stabroek Market was well-kept and orderly. From the time of its construction in the 1880’s until its decline in the 1960’s and 1970s, it was one of the major tourist attractions of the Caribbean.
During these halcyon days of the Council, the men who served as Councillors were prominent businessmen and professionals. Many of them served in the Legislature and even held Ministerial rank such as Mr LFS Burnham. It was an honour and prestige to serve on the Council and it was unthinkable that accusations of theft and corruption could ever be made against them.
From the 1970s, prominent businessmen and professional ceased to serve on the Council because Party Politics had taken over the Council and most of such persons were not politically affiliated.
During this time, also, without any proper legal and administrative arrangements, the boundaries of the City were extended along the East Coast and East Bank Demerara. The City’s population and geographical expanse were far greater than the Old City but the same 19th century Statute was applicable to the extended City.
With these handicaps and others, it is not surprising that the City began its decline. The causes of the decline have been covered in articles and comments in the media over many years and we will not reiterate them.
But mention of a few manifestations of that decline will illustrate the urgency for action: The City Hall, one of the country’s main heritage buildings is rotting and becoming unsafe; the drainage and sewer systems of the City have all but collapsed; Stabroek Market, once the City’s showpiece, is now a chaotic slum; and the remaining trees of the Garden City are struggling to survive.
The City Council and City administration are overwhelmed by the enormity of the task facing them and are quite aware of their inability to renew the City. In their attempts to barely keep the City afloat, they have resorted to ad hocism.
Some of the gauche schemes to extract money from the citizens fall into this category.
City officials keep talking of their insatiable need for money, but citizens are convinced that however much money the Council collects, things will remain the same way.
For example, the property tax has been increased by 10% and there have been enormous increases in fees and imposition of new ones. But this large injection of money of tens of millions of dollars has not been publicly accounted for nor has it resulted in any change for the better.
Another solution must be found to renew the City. The Committee of the GCA has long felt that a City Manager should be used. The City Manager would run the City strictly along business lines.
He should have powers of recruitment and dismissal as well as disciplinary powers. He would be the City’s Financial Officer and should be a person of the highest integrity and of course very well paid.
His work should be subject to a rigorous annual appraisal and if he fails to meet the standard set, he must demit office.
A City Manager System could be used for a minimum of 10 years and when the City would have been renewed, a reformed City Council under new statutes and procedures could be reinstituted.

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