Town Clerk issues notices of removal to Holmes St wharf residents
Town Clerk, Candace Nelson has issued notices to remove with immediate effect to several persons who are living on a wharf owned by the Mayor and City Council, on Holmes Street, Georgetown. But the Mayor of Georgetown, Alfred Mentore has informed this newspaper that the notice to remove was not a council’s decision but rather was a unilateral decision by the Town Clerk.
Mentore expressed his concern with the Town Clerk’s action to issue the notice while explaining that it was a squatting issue. Mentore said that a statutory meeting was held the day before the notices were issued and the issue was never raised at the council. Mentore said he is cognisant of the sensitivity of the matter and said that matters of this nature require a discussion by the full council. Mentore disclosed that the matter will be ventilated at the next statutory meeting.
According to the Mayor, central government will need to be consulted on the issue as the affected persons will have to be relocated and that land and other resources will have to be identified to facilitate a smooth transition. He also mentioned that a letter was written to Nelson to have the matter taken to the level of the full council.
“This is not an issue that the council has made a decision on. We believe that if we are going to treat which such a matter, you’ll have to come to the full council… we have to look at other things concerning it and figure out what we can do, how we can work with government and how we could treat with the general aspect of the displacement of these persons. The reality is that it’s one of those decisions that will have a major consultation with central government as to how we deal with that but it’s not something that we will move on with,” the letter stated.
Nelson told Stabroek News that several complaints were received about the persons occupying the wharf area and their unhygienic living conditions. In addition to the dilapidated homesteads, the wharf
structure poses a high risk to the lives of persons. Nelson mentioned that her contention, given that it is council’s property, is that lives can be lost. To prevent the
council from being held accountable for negligence in allowing persons to continue living under those conditions, the