The Mayor and City Council (M&CC) have declined an invitation to today’s Town Hall-style meeting on the metered parking system, organised by the Movement Against Parking Meters (MAPM), while referring to it as a “setting for propaganda and abuse.”
Nevertheless, the MAPM is sticking to its plans to meet and engage with the public in an effort to raise awareness on the matter of metered parking. The meeting is scheduled for 3pm today at the Saint Stanislaus College auditorium.
In a correspondence sent out by the M&CC, dated February 16th and signed by Town Clerk Royston King, it was stated that not only will he nor the Mayor be in attendance, but no official from the council.
It was noted that prior to the MAPM having organised and set an agenda for the meeting, the idea for a meeting was suggested, and the council had issued a public invitation to the group but had received no response.
It was further stated that the MAPM failed to observe the protocols and norms by which the council is governed.
“…the Council is very surprised that some of the very individuals who continue to be extremely abusive to the Mayor and Town Clerk, particularly, on Social Media, believe that they can invite the Mayor to a meeting at a time and place of their choosing and convenience. It seems obvious to the Council that this meeting is no more than a setting for propaganda and abuse,” the statement added.
In a letter to the Mayor, dated February 14th, the MAPM said it was heartened by the “speedy manner” in which she has sought to engage various groups on the parking meter system, in light of its suspension for review and consultations.
“We, the supporters of MAPM, feel that this process should be extended to the wider populace in order to provide clarification to as broad a cross section of the public as possible and also top capture as many of their concerns as possible,” it said, while adding that it believed that a clearer understanding of the parking meter project would emerge from the planned meeting and this would aid the process going forward.
The MAPM also committed to ensuring that the process take place in a non-confrontational environment and it also assured that the subject of the meeting would be confined to the parking meter issue.
Meanwhile, the Private Sector Commission (PSC) yesterday expressed its complete support for the MAPM, while reiterating its call for the central government to utilise its powers to ensure that the parking meter contract be scrapped.
“The Private Sector Commis-sion is of the firm belief that no reductions in rate or other adjustment to the arrangements will resolve or address the unconscionable nature of this contract,” it said in a statement, while adding that something was very much amiss in the binding acquiescence of the city’s officials with a contract that cedes monopoly control of the city’s real estate to a company of dubious origin. “The fact that there was no public tendering, public consultation or impact study, as we have expressed before, has informed this view. The Private Sector Commission further calls upon the Government to immediately constitute a Commission of Inquiry to examine the questionable manner in which this contract was constituted and awarded,” it further said.
