The Belize City Council is celebrating the second anniversary of its being elected to office. This morning at City Hall, Mayor Darrell Bradley hosted a press conference where he discussed the Council’s accomplishments in those two years – and he had a lot to boast about:
Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City Council
"When I became mayor, nobody really looked at the municipality with any kind of seriousness or credibility. They thought that city governance was a joke. 2 years later, nobody can do any project in Belize City without coming to us. Our audit also shows that the City Council rose from an organization with an expected income revenue of 17 million dollars to 23 million dollars. So, we're growing as an organization. Our audit also shows that in March of 2012, when the last audit period began, this City Council had in its accounts 37 thousand dollars. One year later, when that audit period closed, on March 2013, the council had 5.3 million dollars. We have a City Council which is in a much better financial health that we inherited. It is not where we want to be, but we are moving in the right direction. We are so comfortable that the City Council could have aborted the planned implementation of the 10-dollar residential garbage fee. One of the decisions that we took is before we tax you, we will try to go out and collect taxes from the people who owe us. That has worked quite well, to the point where we do not have to create new tax revenues. We are collecting on monies that owed to us. We are paying off our debt obligations, and we are managing he accounts of the City Council very well. Prior to our being elected, if any single person would have said, Jules Vasquez, do you believe that the City Council will build 102 concrete streets in 1 and a half years, they would tell you that you are smoking something or that you are law you're lying. So, there is no lagging. We are performing; there is more to be done, but we're performing. At this present moment, we have concreted 102 streets in Belize City within a 1 and a half year's period, and by September of this year, that number will climb to 140. With the resources that we will get from the Central Government now, and with the 20 million dollars from the municipal bond, we have gone from 1.3 million dollars spending on infrastructure, to 34 million dollars being spent on infrastructure over a 2-year period. At the end of 2 years, we can report quite comfortably that while we still have substantial problems with infrastructure in Belize City, nobody can deny that there has been substantial improvements in the driving quality. And we only intend and mean to continue that. No government is perfect, but people cannot, in giving an assessment at the 2-year period, deny that there has been substantial work in the City over this last 2 year, to the point where you cannot drive anywhere in Belize City. You cannot drive anywhere in Belize City and not see some project going on."
The City has collected five of ten million dollars in back taxes.  The first bond issue matures in November and the council has enough in its Central Bank sinking fund to pay it.
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