So, as we've reported, all charges will be dropped, and the ticket fines for littering will be waived, which means that the workers aren't expected to pay that $500.
But yesterday, Mayor Darrell Bradley flatly rejected the idea of doing what the Prime Minister announced that the City Council intended to do.
During that interview, when the angry BML workers swarmed him demanding that he speak to them face to face, he was asked that question.
He said that abiding by the new policy of avoiding political interference of paying ticket fines to City Hall, he wasn't prepared to entertain that idea. Here's how that conversation went:
Reporter
"Will you strike off the tickets for littering? Will you continue fining them at 500 dollars each?"
Darrell Bradley - Mayor, City Hall
"As a matter of policy and politics, I put a policy in relation to this. I have made a policy at city council that when a person is issued a ticket that's a ticket that is issued by our staff for an infraction. No political person gets involved with that. When we have parking tickets that are issued, no councilor can get involved in that, just like how the police process is there, that's an administration function. If a person has been ticketed, I saw the reels in terms of the trash that was laid out there. Those tickets have been issued, there is a certain process that deals with that and if they think that ticket was unfairly issued then they should deal with that."
Since then, as we've shown you, Prime Minister Dean Barrow, has intervened to authorize exactly what Bradley didn't want to do. So, today, when we caught up with the mayor at another event, we asked him about the exception to the council's ticket policy which the PM pushed through:
Darrell Bradley - Mayor, City Hall
"The position is after reflecting a lot no this matter, I think that the workers ought not to be victims in these circumstances. I think that Audrey Matura said something yesterday on the news which spoke to me. She said that when elephants fight it's often times that they trample on grass. I thought that was not a nice way to describe people being trampled on, and when I saw the images last night on the news of people being incarcerated. I'm a human being and those things speak to be as a human being and I think that in retrospect things could have been different in the entire circumstance and we took a decision to withdraw as it related to that aspect of it that has to do with the city council. Which is the issuance of the littering fines, which are these 500 dollar tickets, all of that will be withdrawn and I understand from the prime minister that they will also ask for the police aspect of it to also be withdrawn."
Daniel Ortiz
"When this question was put to you yesterday, your position at the time was a complete no, in relation to the tickets. You said that this is policy, you don't influence the retraction of such things because of politics, and this seems to be a reversal of your position"
Darrell Bradley
"Well, one of the things that I will say is that leader can never be inflexible, leadership always has to bend and you have to be reflective on your individual conduct. One of the things that moved me as I indicated is seeing the images of the people incarcerated. These are people who for want of their jobs are put in a very difficult situation."
Daniel Ortiz
"How influential was the intervention from the prime minister in reversing this position because our sources say that it came from the prime minister originally. Then it caught traction with the city council."
Darrell Bradley
"Well I think that the prime minister is always a significant act, if the prime minister calls me, I'll jump. If the prime minister who has been very generous in our infrastructure projects indicates to me that his position is that he is prepared to assist the municipality with meeting financial obligations of this contract, we don't have a problem with that. That's something we welcome, we have to welcome, and this is the leader of our country. Clearly in retrospect and reflecting on my own conduct, I have to say that there are certain things that have unfolded over the last couple days which I find unfortunate, which I find I have some culpability in, which I would have liked to be different."
Daniel Ortiz
"Did you have to pull rank as prime minister, the leader of the nation to get this change in position?"
Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"No sir, the short answer is no. When I met with the mayor and the council this morning, in going over what had happen up to that point, I informed them that after speaking with senior super intendant Broaster and the police; Those charges were going to be withdrawn and immediately and the mayor said the same thing is going to happen with respect to the tickets."
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