A SUB-committee was formed Monday afternoon to deal with City Hall’s Restoration Fund that had been set up to aid the building in returning to its former glory days.
At the City Council’s statutory meeting, Mayor Ubraj Narine requested that the committee be set up to move the process forward.

He will now head a nine-member committee with five other councillors namely Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore, Eketa Edwards, Michael Leonard, Dion Younge and Oscar Clarke; and three senior officers of the Council being, Deputy City Engineer Kenson Boston, City Treasurer John Douglas and Deputy Town Clerk (Ag) Sherry Jerrick.

Councillor Clarke recalled that, in the past, a number of agencies showed interest in the restoration of City Hall’s building, and that one of the reports done indicated that the structure is very sound, but the roof is very critical.

Mentore observed that the building is decaying rapidly and that he was happy that the mayor has decided to take a stand on it. He offered that while persons continue to take photos of the building, it may be that their reason is to compare what the building looks like now to what it was in the past.

Consultations with the European Union (EU) had pegged the entire sum to restore the historic building at US$4.3M with the City Council rounding the figure off to US$5M to cater for supervision expenses.

For several years now, the restoration of City Hall has only been talked about, with officials often citing the fact that the current situation amounts to a threat to ‘life and limb.’ In fact, councillors had, in the past, questioned how safe it was for councillors to even sit in the building for statutory meetings.

While some describe City Hall as the ‘’Victorian Exuberance in time,’’ and others as “the most handsome building in Georgetown,” City Hall’s structure is literally falling apart and thus in need of major repairs.

City Hall was designed by Ignatius Scoles, a trained architect and the foundation stone was laid by Governor Henry Turner Irving on December 23, 1887. The building was opened in July 1889 by Lord Gormanston.