We will continue to put people front and center of all our activities. In doing so, we will ensure that individuals are treated with respect, dignity and professionalism. We will ensure that our services to the vulnerable are designed to maintain the dignity of all those we serve. In our drive to create that clean safe and thriving Corporate Area, we are committed to ensuring that public order is maintained. We are also committed to increasing our support for local economic development.
In order to maintain that public order, I believe that it is important for us to reclaim and recapture our public spaces. Last year, we started with St. William Grant Park in terms of renovating it, the aim is to continue those renovations to ensure that we have our activities in the park, that our trees are in better condition, that there are more plants in there that provide the kind of environment that allows individuals to come in and have a seat and relax in the middle of downtown. We will also be introducing some new programmes in the park. I know the Town Clerk doesn’t want me to talk about ‘Dancing in the Park’ just yet; we will wait a few more weeks before we talk about that. The idea is to make sure that there are far more activities that are held in the park and that will attract visitors and residents alike.
But we will also be looking not just at spaces like St. William Grant Park or Emancipation Park that are there already, but we want to turn now to our communities and spaces that are in our communities. So I am making a commitment, this year, to ensure that we identify some of those community spaces that we make the investment so that individuals in our communities don’t have to leave to go to Emancipation Park or St. William Grant Park but they will have something right there in their communities. Of course we know that we cannot do this alone so this is going to be done where we are able to confirm that our communities are willing and able to take responsibility for the ongoing maintenance of these spaces: whether they are kiddy corners or community parks. We will come in with the community and make sure that they are of a particular standard and then what we are looking for are partners in the community who are willing to take it from there.
Vending
It also includes our sidewalks. Our sidewalks are meant for pedestrians. Some of us seem to have forgotten that. We want to make sure that everybody understands that our children and seniors need to be able to traverse our streets in relative safety on the sidewalks and not in the middle of the street. We want to make sure that individuals with disability have access to our sidewalks and are not forced into the streets because some selfish individuals have decided that their garage, shop or stall have priority and should be built on the sidewalk. Last year, through our efforts we were able to have 18 sidewalk garages closed. This year we intend to be relentless.
Last year, we removed 1,000 illegal structures. This year we intend to be relentless. We believe that someone has to take up the crusade and insist that public order prevail. It is not a popular decision and I understand it because so many individuals are torn apart about how it was done, because we have to create a balance between those individuals who are eking out a living under trying times and the public order that is required for a city and a country to progress. So, we know that as we go about doing this, there are going to be naysayers. There are going to be individuals who have not yet caught that vision of a city where public order reigns, a capital city. We know that there are going to be individuals who do not realize that business does not thrive in chaos. And so what you want to see which is good business are going to be stifled by allowing that level of chaos; but we are the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation, we cannot resign from our responsibility, we have to take it on unpopular though it is, someone has to do it. My hope is that we are able to do it together as one, without allowing other differences to separate us on what is an important, far reaching decision, attitude and approach that we have to take to development and commerce.
We made a commitment in December 2014 in discussions with our stakeholders and partners who have been here with us for many years, for decades. Certainly, many of them were here when we engaged in this discussion in 1998 when I entered the Council. We agreed that the approach we have been taking over the years where our efforts have been inconsistent at best needs to end. The approach we have been taking over the years which brings us in October-November to take some extraordinary steps to bring order, cannot continue and is in fact unsustainable. In keeping with the commitment, we have already begun our own internal discussions to put us in a position to have the discussions with the Jamaica Constabulary Force, merchants, with our other business partners and the vendors so that at the end of the day, we can chart what is a sustainable approach to vending downtown and in and around the Corporate Area.
Over the next few weeks, we intend to complete these discussions. While we work out a long term and sustainable approach, I want to make it clear that the rules will be enforced. Vending will not be allowed in no-vending areas and this goes for Beckford Street between Orange Street and West Street too. We will not be tolerating the construction of illegal structures in the middle of the street, not as brothels that we have found there, not as stalls, not as bedrooms; the laws will be enforced.