As part of its avowed plan to restore Georgetown, the Mayor and City Council has indicated its intention to host a ‘Green Expo’ from October 30 to November 1, through which it aims to “start a national discussion and encourage the establishment of partnerships to promote and maintain a clean and green environment.”
The expo will also be a money maker for the M&CC as its plans involve the sale of gold, silver and bronze sponsorships to participating businesses, which include use of the city’s green logo, branding, tents and other promotions. It is a smart initiative from a business perspective as it would allow the M&CC the kind of autonomy it has lacked and bemoaned that it lacked over the years to boost the resources it earns from the collection of taxes, while at the same time creating awareness of the need to care for the environment. It is a well-known fact that the current feverish efforts to fix the drainage, remove litter and generally improve the aesthetics of Georgetown will not have the desired impact unless the people problem is also addressed. Thoughtless littering, wanton dumping of garbage in drains, at road corners and in empty lots, failure to adhere to city bylaws with regard to storage of construction material and the covering of drains to facilitate parking and walkways have all got to come to an end. If not, forget it, as the city, regardless of who runs it, will never get to a stage where it can recreate and maintain its former appeal.
That apart, the M&CC needs to detail a reasonably achievable proposed plan for what else it intends to do and get the other interlinked agencies on board. This is in reference to a press release from City Hall this week, in which Town Clerk Royston King indicated that it was mulling transforming the busy and traffic-congested commercial Bourda block into a designated open air shopping centre, which would not allow for any vehicular traffic.
The release quoted King as saying, “We are still at the conception stage, but we are thinking about closing off the road to vehicular traffic and organize it so commercial activities will be allowed and people can come in by foot and walk through the block to get their various shopping needs.”
While this may sound good on paper, the actual logistics of it point to a virtual nightmare. Moving the traffic congestion out of Bourda entirely would simply mean adding to a similar problem elsewhere, perhaps in the neighbouring Cummingsburg or Lacytown wards. However, these areas are already under severe pressure having been forcibly subjected to the Guyana Police Force’s Traffic Department’s one-upmanship in its recent requirement of parallel parking, which is still a most vexatious issue.
Therefore any contemplation as regards the shifting of traffic should come after consultation, not just with the police Traffic Department, but with property owners and businesses operating in Bourda and the adjoining areas. It is possible that there is a way to address the situation but it should not be done arbitrarily.
In yet another missive to the media, which this newspaper published today, the M&CC invited city residents to get involved in what was described as a National Tree Planting Day, on October 3, which would be followed by an ‘I have planted a tree’ lime at the Seawall Bandstand.
Tree planting is among the greenest of green activities and should be encouraged and applauded, but it needs to be done right. It should be noted here that local horticulturalists have been expressing concern for quite some time now that many of the existing trees growing on the city’s reserves have been neglected for years and are in desperate need of proper pruning. Some have fallen or lost branches causing damage to property.
And while the M&CC’s release on the tree planting exercise quoted the Town Clerk as stating that it would be structured and the locations carefully chosen, it does not speak to the care and maintenance of the trees after they have been planted. What Mr King does address in the release, instead, is having the proposed tree planters take along their “music boxes and other means of comfort.” He also indicated that there will be an “eco-friendly truck” driving around the city and playing music and providing eco-friendly information, while promoting the event.
This is more than passing strange as the greening of the environment and boom boxes are definitely at opposite ends of the spectrum. In addition, trucks, unless they are being run on clean fuel, and trees are like chalk and cheese. Is it the case that the M&CC intends to turn everything into a fete? Surely it must be obvious that the effort can quite easily degenerate into an occasion where a ‘massive clean-up exercise’ would be required afterward.
The proactivity of the M&CC is refreshing, but it should try not to get too carried away lest it ends up being its own undoing.
