NEITHER City Mayor, Patricia Chase-Green, nor any other official from the City Council would attend Saturday’s Town Hall meeting being held to discuss the parking meter controversy.In a statement City Hall said it has noticed that, the Movement Against Parking Meters has organised a meeting for Saturday, February 18, 2017, to which they have announced the attendance of Mayor Chase-Green. According to the Council when the idea of a “Town Hall” meeting was first floated, the Mayor had issued a public invitation to the group – MAPM, to a meeting at City Hall, to sit down and discuss the initiative of parking meters. However, the group did not reply.

City Hall observed that the group’s members have now organised a meeting with a fixed agenda and have gone ahead to announce that the Mayor, as well as other officials would attend. “This action on the part of the MAPM is very impolite and discourteous to the Office of the Mayor and, in fact, the Council,” the statement from City Hall read.

Further, the Council said it is very surprised that some of the very individuals, who continue to be extremely abusive to the Mayor and Town Clerk, particularly on social media, believe that they can invite the Mayor to a meeting at a time and place of their choosing and convenience. “It seems obvious to the Council that this meeting is no more than a setting for propaganda and more abuse. The Mayor’s Office has been in existence for more than one hundred years. It is governed by certain protocols and norms. The group – MAPM – did not observe those protocols. As a result, neither Her Worship nor any official from the City Council would attend that meeting.