Portia Simpson Miller, Local Government Minister (centre); Town Clerk Errol Greene (right), Deputy Mayor Councillor Larel Thomas (second right) and Michael Ammar Jnr, head of the Kingston and St. Andrew parish development committee in conversation as representatives from the public and private sectors, donor organisations and the civil societies join to sign a grant agreement and launch the Citizens' Alliance Project aimed at developing a sustainable development plan for revitalising Kingston and St. Andrew. Looking on is World Bank representative, Errol Graham (left). The top officials were at Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston on Tuesday. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer LOCAL GOVERNMENT Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, will wait until Prime Minister P.J. Patterson conducts a meeting with a group examining urban renewal proposals submitted by the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) before having her first meeting with the group.
She was expected to establish and chair the group and examine the proposals with a view to having them implemented, possibly beginning next year.
"That is why I haven't moved on it because I know that the Prime Minister is going to be looking at that as well. He is going to be pulling some people together for a meeting and I can't say when. I don't want to speak for the Prime Minister," she said on Tuesday after the launch of the Citizens' Alliance project at the Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston.
Officials from the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC), the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Committee (KSAPC) also signed a Citizens' Alliance Partnership agreement, being funded to the tune of US$256,000 from the World Bank's Cities Alliance Programme.
The idea for the group came out of a meeting between the Minister and the JCC on November 15, 2002.
Following that meeting, she was also expected to have a second meeting with vendors' associations, the JCC and the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) regarding vendors selling in no vending areas in downtown Kingston.
But Minister Simpson Miller said that was in the pipeline but not immediately because the various stakeholders were meeting among themselves and with each other.
Merchants along Beckford Street should have met Tuesday and various vendors along the sidewalks of downtown have reportedly designated December 8,2002 as their clean-up day, she said.
The Minister added that she could not say when the next meeting between herself and stakeholders will be "because it's dependent on how the meetings are going that we will meet with the groups."
Among the other agreements arrived at on November 15 are that municipal authority, the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation, implement temporary additional vending areas. These will be put in place, in addition to the prescribed vending areas, for the upcoming Christmas season.
The KSAC is expected to also complete the implementation of the infrastructure necessary for a municipal enforcement arm, one agreement point stated.
On the matter of infrastructure, the Town Clerk said that the KSAC has already begun seizing goods from vendors on no vending streets and will continue to do so now that a building set up to house the seized goods was ready.
Vendors will pay transportation and storage costs for these goods as well as a $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 fine based on whether the seizure is a first, second or multiple offence.
Representatives from both sides also agreed that the Downtown Kingston Management District would join the KSAC in an effort to co-ordinate and implement a clean-up campaign for downtown Kingston.
