Falmouth mayor defends tighter Trelawny council meetings, rejects grandstanding

FALMOUTH, Trelawny — Mayor of Falmouth C Junior Gager has restated his pledge to run tighter Trelawny Municipal Corporation (TMC) monthly sittings, making plain that councillors will not be allowed to use the chamber for lengthy political displays that once kept meetings running into the late afternoon.

Speaking on Thursday, Gager said issues raised by members should already have been settled in committee before they reach the full council. He told Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) councillors who want a public platform for their views to arrange a press briefing instead.

The mayor was answering claims from minority leader Councillor Garth Wilkinson (PNP, Falmouth Division), who told Thursday’s regular monthly TMC meeting that members were being shut down. Wilkinson said councillors could not speak freely under Gager’s chairmanship.

Gager countered that the corporation changed how it runs its business roughly four to five years ago, specifically to keep council sessions shorter. He said the TMC will not go back to the earlier practice of taking questions during ordinary monthly meetings, including occasions when journalists were in the room.

According to the mayor, monthly council gatherings are meant for council business only; other matters belong in committee. He also said some departmental reports are no longer delivered at the full monthly sitting.

“When we started the meeting in those days, we started at 10 o’clock and sometimes we don’t leave this place until 5 o’ clock in the evening. We sit down the whole day in one meeting! All the other officers, as soon as their thing [presentations] done, they leave us in here. This is one of the recommendations that was made by Minister [of Local Government Desmond McKenzie] of the whole organisation of meetings,” Gager said.

He added that staff who attend meetings must return to work and should not be kept in the chamber all day. “People coming to meetings have to go back to their jobs. You don’t expect them to stay here whole day sit down with us. So the whole agenda and the structuring of council meeting was done through ministry, and recommendations made. And it goes further than that; directives were made that we trim down the thing,” he said.

Gager said he could not speak for other municipal corporations, but the TMC had followed the minister’s guidance with backing from most councillors. He recalled that, in earlier years, he had asked councillors at monthly sittings to submit written questions and receive written answers at later meetings.

Committee sessions, he said, are where disagreements should be worked through. Most of those meetings are open to the media, though some tied to human resources, public health and sanitation are not.

“What should be happening is, during the committee meetings you should have time to argue, flesh out your matter, and disagree with what you want to disagree with. And then from that committee meeting, consensus would be arrived at and it comes to the council meeting so [that] when that item comes up on the agenda you don’t have six or seven persons talking on the matter that would draw out and get council boring,” Gager said.

“Attend the committee meetings. Start coming to committee meetings early,” he added.

He again pressed PNP councillors to hold press conferences when they want to take their case to the public. “Sometimes it is because we are lazy. Councillors, get your press conference! What wrong with you? As an Opposition, call your press conference if you have something to talk about. Of course you would come and discuss what your concern is, if it is something that we can fix here. But if not, you can call your press conference and make your statement that you want to make to the press,” the mayor said.

Reversing the current approach, he argued, would undermine the corporation’s credibility. “But look how stupid that would be, we diverted from the old pattern, we accepted this principle, and then all of a sudden we are going to water it down and go back to where we coming from. It wouldn’t look good on us; people will say we don’t stand for nothing — even the press would comment about us,” he said.

Gager dismissed Wilkinson’s point that Deputy Mayor Jonathan Bartley had previously been permitted to ask questions in council. “If Councillor Bartley choose to ask questions, Councillor Bartley should know better because he’s my right hand. But you know that mi don’t know if there is another mayor [who is] as transparent as I am and accommodating. So, if you have a concern and come here, I will [allow you to air it] but one of the part I can’t assist you with is the grandstanding, because at the meetings it is the mayor who is in charge of this committee. I can’t grant that request. It is not me,” he insisted.