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Mayor Darrell Bradley had a press powwow today – where the media got to ask him that burning question: will he run as Mayor in the next municipal election? It's burning because of persistent and credible reports that he has packed up and left city hall. And the event that reportedly pushed him to do so was a meeting the Prime Minister held last week with two councilors where he put plans in motion to take over the operations of Belize Maintenance Limited, when their contract ends early next year. That includes, centrally, a commitment to take on all 170 of the BML workers at City Hall. It was a political decision made in the wake of the politically disastrous garbage protest in August – but a decision that the Mayor still cannot accept. Today, he repeated his renunciation of it – calling it a bad idea:…

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City

"I think it is a bad idea for the city to grow it's staff by 35 percent. That's not withstanding the fact that something need to be done with the people. I understand the humanitarian aspect of it and I think we can deal with that in a different or a better way. I could see in the future, essentially what your going to have is a new BML because you will take on 170 people, you're going to realise as I have realised, and I'm not an idiot. I know how the city council works, so i've realised we have problems in terms of existing staff. In the last month I shared to you Jules, we lost 10 weed whackers, we lost our projector, we lost a generator, all these things were stolen from the city council. These are significant amount of public funds and we have to prosecute anyone for this, we have yet to see our management structure is in place to prevent against lost of property. Now what we're doing is go out and ballooning the city council with significant more issues. That's not a direction I think we ought to take. One of the serious difficulties that I have is now we're having admitted difficulties servicing our sanitation contract, I don't want to have a difficulty in the slow season of October of next year not being able to pay our staff. Now, when we're trying to control the budget, we have to deal with 170 more people, that's 35 percent more staff and that's a challenge Jules. It's a challenge to any budget and it's difficult for me to see that working properly."

Reporter

"How do you see thing unraveling because the prime minister said they must be retained."

Darrell Bradley

"All i'm saying to you, I don't have any conflict with the statements of the prime minister. The prime minister knows why he had said that and I think genuinely that comes from a good place. The prime minister is an honourable person. I think he sees a humanitarian concern, as do I because you are talking about the lives of 170 people. But when I look at city hall, I also look at it from a budget standpoint. You know what somebody told me? Take on the people and then fire them after elections. If I hire anybody, I will never fire them after a short period, I won't set anybody up. If we take on those people, it is to tell you I know that can work and that we can pay those people. All i'm saying is that we need to be satisfied, that when those 170 people come to us, it's not just an election thing and there is no phasing out of them, there is no future privatisation to create a new BML and we can comfortably pay for those people. There is nothing wrong with me raising those as serious concerns and saying I have a difficulty with that."

Jules Vasquez

"Will you then continue to offer yourself as a mayoral candidate for the UPD if the future is untenable?"

Darrell Bradley

"Jules you jump into an area we don't want jump. You ask me a certain question and I responded to you truthfully. You jumped into an area that I am not."

Jules Vasquez

"Your boxes has been packed, you left the building."

Darrell Bradley

"The position is people have elected me to the office to solve problems. People have asked questions, mayor you seem frustrated, that's not something that just had happened. If there comes a time when I'm saying to myself, this thing can't work in terms of how the operation is, then I know what I have to do. There difficult questions we have to face but that's what leadership is about. It is about facing difficult questions in a mature way and that's what people elect you for."

Jules Vasquez

"But sir you are no longer there, you've left the office."

Darrell Bradley

"Jules I don't know about that, I was at the office this morning and I had meetings at my office, I don't know where you get that from."

As we've said we've gotten it from multiple credible sources inside City Hall. But since the mayor won't say straight up whether he's staying on or rolling out, a closer look at his interview may yield answers.

He said, quote, "And if there comes a times when I say this thing can't work, then I know what I have to do…"

Coming after a lengthy explanation on all the reasons why taking on the 170 BML workers can't work, that seems to logically suggest that right about now, even though, he isn't saying it, the mayor, to use his words, knows what he has to do…which is roll.

Still, that's our interpretation, and we await the next pronouncement from the Mayor.