Linden Town Clerk blasts Mayor for poor financial management

The Town Clerk of the Linden Mayor and Town Council (LMTC), has recently criticised the Mayor of the town for his poor financial management and understanding of the council and it polices.

Linden Mayor, Sharma Solomon last week conducted a walk-through exercise at the town’s Wismar market. There the Mayor told stallholders and patrons about the plans his administration has in store for the facility. One of the issues the Mayor told stallholders the council is working to address is to repair the market’s roof, however he said these efforts have been futile due to a lack of cooperation from the Town Clerk.
In an invited comment Linden’s Town Clerk, Lennox Gasper told this publication that the Mayor had made a request for some $1 million to be withdrawn from the council’s market emergency fund to purchase Euroband to patch the market’s roof.
However, Gasper explained that the council’s market emergency funds is only to facilitate minor works. The Town Clerk added that with the current state of the market’s roof, emergency works must be done to reconstruct the entire structure.
“These funds are for any emergency, any minor stuff that is needed at the Wismar market. They have a serious situation with the roof and the Mayor and councillors are telling me that I must spend a million dollars in Euroband. When we need, is a tender, a contract to have the entire roof of the market done over.”

The Town Clerk added, “I cannot bring council’s resources to put Euroband. He claimed that that’s a quick fix. No amount of Euroband would fix anything and this just showed the shallow minded thinking of these councillors. It’s not an ordinary house, it’s not domestic work. This is a market and this is bigger than the Mayor and myself. It will require the engineers to do an investigation or an assessment, then get back to you and say, look, this is the assessment.”
This publication was told that a total of $2 million is budgeted from the fund each year for the Wismar and Mckenzie markets. With both markets being allotted $ 1 million each.
Noting that the repairing of the market roof would cost more than $ 1 million, the Town Clerk revealed that it was suggested that the council should attempt to source financing for the project from the $18 million council subvention.
“Through the Ministry, they had suggested, because after the council kept submitting different programmes for the $18 million subvention, and the Ministry’s position is that we have a graveyard of vehicles that they’ve been purchasing, but not repairing. So by the time they go down, you left them, and so they sent us back. We had a discussion with the technical advisor to the Minister which suggested that maybe we could commit the $18 million to the market roof. It would really help the stallholders.”
However, the Town Clerk noted that this decision was quickly shut down by the council, particularly the Mayor who highlighted that a previous request from the clerk to central Government was turned down.
“But remember, we got to pass it by the councillors first. So we returned the programme to the council. The council and Mayor refused to agree to that position. and according to him (the Mayor), we have taken every advice of the clerk, because the clerk also suggested the use of a power generator and we agreed to it, and it was turned down. Now I can’t tell the Ministry how to spend their money.”
On this point the Town Clerk blasted the Mayor for his poor financial management and governance of the council.
“He ought to be reminded that he’s just a paper boss, a ceremonial Mayor. His powers lie when the council convene and they don’t even understand the simple interpretation. I tell them every day, this is not about Lennox Gasper or Sharma Solomon, the power is in the council. But when you have a party of people that don’t even understand their role and purpose, the Mayor alone spoke for two, three hours at the last meeting.”
Moreover, despite the bitter history between the Town Clerk and the Mayor, Gasper told this publication that he hopes that himself and the Mayor would be able to find common ground soon, in an effort to better serve the people of linden.
“There should be a synergy between administration and council but the relation right now with the Mayor at the helm is not favourable and it is not making for a good workflow. It is running bitter on the very council and the administration in the mouth of people out there. It is hopeful that we will be able to get around that soon enough. I honestly do wish for it to happen in spite of all the disrespect. For the good of Linden, it is my desire that we are able to work together very soon.”