— top city officials lament
A NUMBER of city committees are not meeting as often as they should and councillors have been complaining that only certain matters engage the committees’ attention while others are being dealt with unilaterally.
The Markets and Public Health Committee has not met for months now, Deputy Mayor Lionel Jaikarran offered, even as he has been documenting this to Mayor Patricia Chase-Green via emails for the past six weeks.
At last Monday’s statutory meeting, Jaikarran was responding to Councillor Oscar Clarke who enquired why the committee was not meeting.
Councillor Clarke said he was “very annoyed” over some of the “disturbing” things he sees taking place that have not managed to gain the attention of this committee. Clarke concluded that the Markets Committee is not as focused as it ought to be.
Councillor Sherod Duncan offered that the situation is similar with the Legal Affairs and Security Committee and the Information Technology Committee.
He said chosen issues are referred to the committees, while selected ones are dealt with unilaterally by Town Clerk Royston King.
According to Duncan, this behaviour by the city’s administration results in councillors being unable to give an account to residents in their constituencies when certain works are being done.
The mayor had chided city councillors in the past for what she described as their lackadaisical attitude towards attending scheduled meetings of the various committees.
In fact, she had called for all those who treat such meetings in a sloppy fashion to make it known to the administration if they can no longer serve on the committees in view of the weighty responsibilities that have been entrusted to them.
The mayor pointed out that certain matters cannot be dealt with only at the statutory meetings of the Council. “You ought to be committed to those meetings. I expect that this Markets and Public Health Committee will be very serious in the way forward. Another committee that has not been meeting if the chairman is not present is the City Works Committee.
“If there is no chairman, the vice-chairman, if there is no vice-chairman, among yourselves as long as you have a quorum, you can choose someone to sit in the chair and conduct those meetings. The City Council cannot be at a standstill for the want of a chairman not attending the meeting. Please let us be serious as we sit around this table and take up responsibility as chairmen and vice-chairpersons.”
The mayor had also lamented the attitude with which those on the Markets Committee were approaching the relocation of Stabroek Market vendors to facilitate repairs to the wharf.
“I am not hearing from the [committee] and I hope that we can start consultations with those persons, so that they will be able to give us ideas of where they can be relocated while the wharf is being constructed,” she said.
