Montego Bay mayor takes municipal police to task

Claudia Gardner, Assignment Coordinator

WESTERN BUREAU:

Mayor of Montego Bay Glendon Harris has called on the administrative arm of the St James Parish Council to take urgent steps to ensure persons who flout laws, which fall under the jurisdiction of the council, are prosecuted.

Harris expressed concern during the council's regular monthly meeting last week after Secretary/Manager Gerald Lee, in providing an update on the status of a proposal submitted to the Ministry of Justice for a municipal court for Montego Bay, said there were still not many municipal cases being brought before the court in St James. He also said the resident magistrate for the parish was willing to facilitate municipal matters in the night court, if necessary.

"But at the moment, we are not at the level it seems where they need to do that as yet because it seems we do not have enough matters to cause them to have to refer them to the night court, but the system is in place, and they are willing to work with us as soon as it becomes necessary," Lee added.

But Harris' reply was terse.

"The system is in place, and will remain in place and nothing done. Let me ask at this time, how many of our municipal police walk with a ticket book? None! That means we have no hope of any issuing of tickets to go to court. So the administration needs to set the pace, so that we can have these wanton breaches that are taking place in the parish brought before the court," Harris countered.

"Mr Lee, I recommend that you deal with this matter at your management meeting and bring to the appropriate committee measures to ensure that we start to take action; that we start to enforce the laws in this parish. There is too much complacency in this parish," he said.

In response, Lee said the municipal police were in possession of ticket books and these were the "only tickets they are allowed to write".

"I do not know if it is true to say that none of the police has ticket books. As to whether or not they are issuing enough for littering is another matter that we need to examine, but I agree that in terms of other violations, there are problems. I know that there are several matters before the court having to do with property tax, but there are other tax areas that we really need to step up and do some work in getting persons before the court for violations," Lee said.

At June's regular monthly meeting of the Council, Lee had said members of the judiciary were of the view that if the council continued to take only a small number of cases before the court, its request for a municipal court could be deemed unnecessary and possibly denied. He said the resident magistrate for the parish had said while she was in favour of the municipal court, she was not seeing enough cases coming from within the parish council "right now to overwhelm the court".

Lee also said the council would have to "come up with a strategy to get some municipal matters before the court to get some resolution".