Linden Deputy Mayor renews calls for municipal court

– as a means of securing revenue

Linden Deputy Mayor Waneka Arindell has renewed calls for a municipal court in the community if the Council is to advance in the recovery of much-needed revenue owed by defaulting taxpayers.

The Linden Mayor and Town Council (LM&TC) has a history of being cash strapped, and since the new Council took office following Local Government Elections, it has vowed to secure avenues of increasing its revenue intake. Arindell, during the hosting of the most recent statutory meeting of the Council, urged Councillors to follow the example of other municipalities which have succeeded in implementing ways of garnering such revenue.

“We were able to meet with the Mayors of Corriverton and New Amsterdam, who have been able, in some way, to increase their revenue intake by having the persons go after the revenue. Not just by television but door to door. I know we don’t have the staff, but I’m just saying these are some of the things we need to think about,” the Deputy Mayor told the Council.

She noted that in some instances, those municipalities have been able to take people to court over owed taxes; however, she said that in such cases, the court secures the monies which are owed and the country receives the money instead.

“The money goes to the Government and not to the municipality. So we need to up and move forward on how do we get our municipal court. We have a building that is a court that is empty three days in a week. This is things we’ve talked about, but we need to start putting this on paper and say this is how we’re going to go about getting it. If it’s information we need, we need to go and get that information. We need to put that information in place”, Arindell stated, as she urged the Council to pursue the initiative. She added that she was not prepared to take people to court over taxes only for Government to receive the money. According to the Deputy Mayor, the Council has been talking a lot on moving towards securing a municipal court, but it was now time for action.

Town Clerk (ag) and Deputy Town Clerk, Orleena Obermuller said that February was designated tax paying month, as she stated that after then the Finance Department was expected to commence updating its database in an effort to review the listing of taxpayers in the Linden community who were in default.