City approves amended parking meters by-laws 13 – 2

- two councillors abstain, nine absent

emphasized. Team Legacy Representative, Ferreira, pleaded with his fellow councillors to not move forward until the matters in court were settled. There is a challenge to the parking meters contract in court.

“As I have said before, and I maintain now, we need to exercise caution and allow the court to rule to offer legal guidance, as well as endorsement of whatever decision we would then decide is best to move forward with. We should not rush into any decisions, and more so, decisions that have proven to be unpopular,” Ferreira said, while emphasizing that if the City Council “truly cared about the City and Citizens” they would not rush into “rubber stamping any new bylaws” without thinking it through properly.

“My fellow Councillors, I beseech thee, I implore, plead with, appeal to, I obsecrate you, I beg you, it’s my humble view that we should let the court make its ruling before we decide to do anything else,” Councillor Ferreira appealed to the councilors present.

Conversely, Bostwick said that it was in the best interest of the Council to ensure that they move ahead with the project and not risk being sued by the contractor. He said that it was also time that they show the Government that they are an autonomous body and can operate so in all context and “without contradiction of any section, chapter or verse of the Laws of Guyana.”

“I have no objections in seeing parking meters being restored to the City of Georgetown,” he added.

After the vote passed, Chase-Green announced that the amended by-laws will be placed in public spaces for viewing for 14 days before being sent to the Ministry of Communities to be gazetted, and any persons desirous of giving any feedback can do so by sending it to the Town Clerk’s office.

The previous by-laws had been thrown out by the court for not complying with legal requirements.

After protests and a widespread boycott of the parking meters, the Ministry of Communities had put the project on hold to permit the city to undertake more consultations. This was done by a group headed by Ferreira and a report submitted with various options.

The city and APNU+AFC have been flayed for pursuing the parking meters deal.