TOWN Clerk, Royston King, has accused some city councillors of peddling misinformation to the public about the highly contentious parking meter contract that the municipality has entered into with Smart City Solutions (SCS), the foreign company that was granted a concession to install parking meters in Georgetown.

“Councillors were saying they were not seeing the contract; they came into my office, saw the contract, made copious notes, and then came out and said ‘I ain’t see the contract.’ And they sat there, they looked at the contract and made notes, and then go out and say their own thing,” King told reporters outside of a press conference at City Hall on Monday.

“Some councillors continue to say 49 years when they know that that is not true. Councillors continue to give a lot of inaccurate information, and some newspapers are carrying it with their particular agendas,” he further stated. King continues to claim that the City Council itself had granted him permission to sign a contract with SCS. “They’ve seen the minutes; they’ve seen everything prior to all of this. Those individual councillors who are asking for those things are councillors who would never be persuaded otherwise.”

He said there are minutes available to prove that the Council decided under former Mayor Hamilton Green to go ahead with SCS. “And the minutes are there to prove it. These are records of the Council. They’ve seen these things over and over again,” King claimed. Significantly, though, when councillors requested at past statutory meetings to see such minutes, King was never able to provide them.

No mandate to tender
According to King, the City Council is in no way mandated to tender for a new contract. “The contract is legal and binding and we have no mandate to tender for a new contract. The Council has given a mandate to renegotiate with our existing partner and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.

According to him, the Council has a right to delegate its responsibilities and hence did not need to go to tender. “Council has the statutory responsibility to regulate traffic on the road. We are doing this by installing parking meters. We are doing it through an agent. The project is a Council project. It is not something that you can actually tender out. We delegate. Council has a right to delegate its responsibility. So it’s not like if you have to tender it. It’s not like if you are tendering for garbage collection or you tendering for drains or you tendering for whatever. So the laws that people are quoting….those laws don’t apply,” stated King. Contrary to his announcement recently that the Council would need to seek another extension of the parking meter by laws from Communities Minister, Ronald Bulkan, King said there is no longer any need to do so.

“We are now in the process of writing our partners with respect to recent developments at the Council. We believe we have an obligation to inform them about the progress made and how we will go forward together. The council voted by majority for renegotiation of the contract and we are in the process of putting systems in place so we can begin that process. It is no longer necessary to write the minister because it is renegotiation. At the conclusion of the negotiations process, we will then have to write the minister. We don’t have to write for an extension because those by laws are no longer applicable. If you’re asking for a renegotiation then the existing by laws are no longer applicable because those by-laws will not match what will happen; what will come out of the new situation,” he explained. Regarding the court matter that has a bearing on the parking meter fiasco, King said the Council was not particularly worried. “I don’t think Council is particularly worried about that court matter. We have a legal and binding contract and the Council, by a majority vote, has decided that it wants to renegotiate.”