New parking meter by-laws for next statutory meeting – King

Georgetown’s Town Clerk, Royston King said that the new by-laws for the controversial parking meter project were being redrafted and would be ready for the next Statutory Meeting on February 26.
He was, at the time, responding to questions from Councillor Noelle Chow-Chee at Monday’s statutory meeting.
“We have looked at the amendments of the contract and those amendments have been included in the contract and we will now go forward to sign off on the contract, since the amendments have already been adopted and Council agreed to them,” he stated.
“With respect to the by-laws, those are being redrafted and that will come to the Council I’m sure if not at the next meeting, a special meeting for Council to review it and for us to go forward, but currently the by-laws are being redrafted,” King explained.
The M&CC had entered into a contract with Smart City Solutions (SCS) Inc on May 13, 2016, for parking meters to be implemented in Georgetown, but following strenuous objections and intense protests from citizens, Central Government suspended the by-laws of the project.
On January 23, 2017, Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan signed the by-laws that were approved at the December 13, 2016 Statutory Meeting of the Council. However, Bulkan was forced to suspend the by-laws some nine months ago.
In February of last year, the New Building Society (NBS) challenged the by-laws governing the project and in December, Justice Naresh Harnanan ruled that the procedure used to bring the by-laws into effect was breached, resulting in them being invalid.
A committee was previously set up on April 26, 2017 to review the project and its life ended on August 2, 2017. The Committee report made three recommendations – renegotiating the contract with SCS, scrapping the entire project or awaiting the outcome of the pending court cases.
On September 7, 2017, Councillors vote 13:5:7 in favour of continuing the metered parking system with a renegotiated contract, which led to the formation of the renegotiating committee.
The renegotiating committee was chaired by Councillor Peter and consisted of Councillors Chow-Chee (VC); Oscar Clark; Jameel Rasul; James Samuels; Heston Bostwick and Ivor Henry. The Mayor mandated that two members of the public also sit on the committee and Civil Engineer Owen Godfrey Edwards and Accountant Robin Hunte were selected.
The renegotiation committee was tasked with engaging SCS 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 in relation to the project 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.
Following the renegotiation, SCS and the M&CC reached a new agreement under the controversial Parking Meter Project, which will now see persons paying $150 per hour and $800 for eight hours of parking in the city.
Meanwhile, residents of the city would be issued with a restricted residential pass for free parking from 19:00h to 07:00h (7pm-7am) Monday to Friday, while parking would be free on Saturdays.
All of those changes are expected to be reflected in the new contract and by-laws as the city gears towards re-implementing the controversial project later this year.