M&CC postpones committee selection

Parking meter renegotiation

…appeals for civil society nominations

The Mayor and Councillors of the City of Georgetown (M&CC) were forced to defer selection of members for the Parking Meter Contract Renegotiation Committee because members of the public did not submit names of persons to sit on the committee.

The M&CC had, on May 13, 2016, entered into a contract with Smart City Solutions Inc for parking meters to be installed in Georgetown. A committee was set up on April 26, 2017, one month after Bulkan had suspended the paid parking initiative. Its members are: Malcolm Ferreira (chairman), Roopnarine Persaud, Noelle Chow-Chee (VC), Ivelaw Henry, Trichria Richards, Carlyle Goring and Heston Bostwick.
The Committee’s Terms of Reference, (ToR), drafted and voted upon by the majority of M&CC members, provide the committee with the authority to “engage all stakeholders within the parameters of the framework agreed upon by the Council, Cabinet and Smart City Solutions (SCSI) to seek to determine what terms of the agreement can and should be negotiated to bring the contract in harmony with the desires of the Council, Central Government, SCSI and the citizenry.
The life of the Parking Meter Re-negotiation Committee ended when it submitted its final report containing its findings to the Mayor of Georgetown on August 2, and later circulated same to all councillors.
The report made three recommendations: renegotiating the contract with SCS, scrapping the entire project, and awaiting the outcome of the pending court cases.
On September 7, a vote of 13:5:7 was returned in favour of continuing the metered parking systems with a renegotiated contract. Councillor Gregory Fraser of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) colluded with Alliance For Change Councillor Sherod Duncan and Deputy Mayor Lionel Jaikarran, along with the People’s Progressive Party Councillors Khame Sharma and Bisham Kuppen, to scrap the contract.
Councillors Heston Bostwick, Carolyn Caesar, Noelle Chow-Chee, Oscar Clarke, Welton Clarke, Yvonne Ferguson, Junior Garrett, Winston Harding, Ivelaw Henry, Tricia Richards, James Daniels, Monica Thomas and Patricia Chase-Green all voted to have the contract renegotiated; while Councillors Malcolm Ferreira, Carlyle Goring, Andrea Marks, Alfred Mentore, Akeem Peter, Phillip Smith and Sophia Whyte voted to await the outcome of the pending legal proceedings.
Following the vote, the Council agreed to appoint a Special Select Committee consisting of seven councillors and two members of the public with expertise and experience in accounting, law and engineering to meet with SCS. They would discuss the terms of the agreement with a view to renegotiating it in light of the findings and recommendations made by the previous committee that carried out an examination of the project and reported its findings to the council.
At Monday’s statutory meeting, the Council was supposed to adopt the draft Terms of Reference and select the members of the new committee, but Mayor Patricia Chase-Green informed the Councillors that nominations for the public members have not been submitted. The council agreed to have the date extended to October to have the nominations made by the public or Councillors.
“If we do not get any names submitted by October 9, then we will have to move a motion to have the number reduced to 7, to just accommodate the Councillors,” she informed.
The new committee, according to the draft ToR, would be tasked with engaging Smart City Solutions with a view to renegotiating the terms of the agreement entered into between the parties, and more specifically to seek to take into account the concerns raised and addressed in the reports of the Special Committee in relation to costs, fines, enforcement, profit-sharing, areas, times and other factors identified, and any other relevant actions as the committee may, in its discretion, determine or as may be suggested by the general council.
Upon completion of the negotiation period, the new committee would have to prepare a report and present it to Council at a meeting convened for that purpose, setting out the proposals and/or agreements arrived at.