I am honoured to be so highly thought of by your Sunday Gleaner columnist, Dawn Ritch, for her to have spent so much of her valuable time, and your valuable space, focusing
on the performance of my administration over the last year.It is unfortunate that on each occasion Ms. Ritch has been showing less and less regard for the facts and is now, carelessly
and irresponsibly, presenting information which is either inaccurate or unsubstantiated. This suggests to me that she is inclined to descend to the level of a personal vendetta in the pages of the Sunday Gleaner, rather than a genuine attempt to represent the concerns of the people of Kingston and St. Andrew.
For example, she says in her article (July 17) that it is my duty, "as mayor to ensure the health and safety of the citizenry". Yet, she criticizes me for insisting that a circus that comes into the city and is being presented without the proper health and security certification of the KSAC, should not open until the basic requirements are met.
According to Miss Ritch, "it takes a heart of stone to stop the opening of a circus". Unfortunately, I always thought that it was the other way around. That it would take a heart of stone for a mayor to allow a circus, which attracts thousands of infants, to go on without ensuring that the proper safeguards against risks such as fires, or poles being blown down, or the safety of the animals and the health of patrons are checked and certified by our fire and public health departments.
exercised discretion
She suggests that, "the mayor could have exercised discretion and let the circus open while he had the drawings examined by his technical staff". I think this is
one of the most irresponsible statements I have ever heard from someone who is supposed to be addressing the concerns of the public and, personally, I wouldn't even dignify it with a response.
But, imagine she adds, "now the circus has lost so much money it may not be able to go to rural Jamaica as planned, and many more children will be disappointed".
Obviously, Ms. Ritch's concern is more with the profits and success of the circus rather than the security of the patrons. My concern has to be with the children of the Corporate Area, and their parents, as well as the children in the rural areas, to ensure that when they go to see a circus in this city they can do so without being overly concerned about their health and their security, as is the case in any decent city in the world today.
But, after reading those comments from Ms. Ritch, I was not surprised that she commented that, "Desmond McKenzie is an aggressive force unleashed upon a totally unsuspecting city". She may have a very good point there. This city has been without proper municipal leadership for several decades now and, in the meantime, it has deteriorated to the extent where most businesses, including government offices, and homeowners have moved
out and gone to much better organised locations leaving it in a bad state of underdevelopment.
In those circumstances, it should not be surprising if most residents surrender the hope that it can be restored to some semblance of order and discipline and did not suspect that as mayor, I would have the courage to take on the job. Let me assure, Ms. Ritch, that the restoration of order and discipline in this city is my primary mission and I intend to pursue it as aggressively as I can to ensure that the maximum level of success is achieved during my time in office.
Let me also clear up some of the inaccuracies in her column:
In terms of the Coronation Market, the KSAC has never installed a municipal car park opposite the Coronation Market. The car park is situated on privately owned land and is operated by private individuals. As a matter of fact the KSAC operates no municipal parking in downtown Kingston. All of the council's municipal parking is situated in New Kingston, so there is no way the vendors could have seen me doing anything like this, as she claimed.
The area with garbage at the market which she refers to is what is known as a garbage bay. It was erected by the KSAC to hold refuse pending the arrival of the trucks which do the removal. It may be necessary to remove the garbage more often, but the area should not be used as an indication of the market being unclean.
In terms of parking in the vicinity of the KSAC office, the right hand side of Tower Street, running west-east, has never been a no-parking zone. The only no-parking area on that side of the street is between King and Church streets, where the Supreme Court is situated so all vehicles, KSAC or otherwise have a right to park. And, secondly, the majority of cars parked outside the Corporation's office are not owned by councillors, as she suggests, because they usually park in the employees' car park or at the KSAC car pound.
responsibilities
In terms of the sweeping of the streets in downtown Kingston, for some ten years this has been the responsibilities of the Downtown Kingston Management District.
This organisation works in conjunction with the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), which has overall responsibilities for sweeping, collecting and disposal of garbage.
On the matter of drain cleaning, it is the responsibility of both the National Works Agency (NWA) and KSAC. National Works Agency (NWA) has responsibilities for drains running on the major roads such as Harbour, Princess, Orange and King streets etc. while the KSAC has responsibilities for the lanes. Ms. Ritch stating that no drain cleaning was done in downtown Kingston is totally erroneous and dishonest.
Despite that fact, however, because of our concern about the threat of flooding in the hurricane season, the council spent large sums of money cleaning these drains which is the reason why properties in downtown Kingston suffered minimal damage during both recent hurricanes and there was no loss of life.
In fact, it was because we spent large sums and focused on the cleaning of drains, gullies and waterways in the Corporate Area which minimised the effect of both hurricanes on our people and their property.
Finally, let me remind Ms. Ritch that the services provided by the KSAC could never be fully financed by the Corporation's revenues, even if we were to collect all that is due to us.
However, if Ms. Ritch has any doubt about where our revenues are directed, I would like to invite her to visit the KSAC, at her pleasure, and we will be willing to allow her to inspect our books and see whether or not our revenues are being spent in the best interest of our residents.
Our council has nothing to hide from the press or the public. Over the years we have been highly commended by the Auditor General for keeping our books in good order and keeping within the guidelines of the Financial Administration and Audit Act (FAAA). And we are very proud of our record as a responsible public entity.
We do not know the source of Ms. Ritch's bitterness, although there are suggestions that it may be linked with the fact that her vehicle was towed away by persons contracted to the KSAC and we did not see the need for any preferential treatment in her case.
