The BML ruckus started with a bang on Monday, but ended with a whimper by Wednesday when a Prime Ministerial panacea put the street sweeper rebellion on pause. Everyone got their jobs back, all the charges were dropped, and they got promised that they would get jobs with city Hall when the contract was up.
Now, we don't know if they'll all live happily ever after, but all told, it's a stunningly quick reversal in public policy and management - and today we put together, a brief history of the blow-up and the meltdown:
AUGUST 4, 2014
Sr. Supt. Edward Broaster - Deputy OC, Eastern Division
"When I went there and I saw what I saw it's a real public indecency. They were given sufficient warning to remove the garbage and to remove themselves from the street and they refused to do so. All 44 persons were arrested and charged for participating in an unlawful public meeting."
August 6, 2014
Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"There was no lodging of the charges, so the assurance is that those charges will not now be lodged and so they don't have to worry."
August 6, 2014
Sr. Supt. Edward Broaster
"We sat down as a management team and decided that we will reconsider and we will discontinue the charges after we were requested to reconsider."
August 6, Mayor On Tickets
Reporter
"Will you strike off the tickets for littering? Will you continue fining them at 500 dollars each?"
Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"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."
Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"There was also the question of the tickets for littering issued by the city council to the workers who were engaged in the process. The Mayor will ensure that those tickets and the $500 penalty that the tickets speak to will not be proceeded with."
August 6, 2014
Darrell Bradley
"When I saw the images last night on the news of people being incarcerated. I'm a human being."
Daniel Ortiz
"This seems to be a reversal of your position"
Darrell Bradley
"A leader can never be inflexible, leadership always has to bend."
Daniel Ortiz
"How influential was the intervention from the Prime Minister in reversing this position?"
Darrell Bradley
"Well I think that the prime minister is always a significant act, if the prime minister calls me, I'll jump."
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 of Belize
"No sir, the short answer is no."
August 5, 2014
Mitchell Danderson- Operations Manager, BML
"You cannot have people work and they don't get their pay, so we send them home and then whenever we are paid by city council then we would reimburse them whatever time they were off from work."
Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"That's their business, that's not my business. I have to worry about paying them. I have to worry about paying our staff. I have to worry about paying our streets. They have to then deal with their own employees - like that's their company."
August 6, 2014
Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"So the commitment on the part of government is to pay the salaries through January 18th, whenever the contract expires and the city council in turn is committing to employing those workers to having them transition to the status of Belize City council employees."
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