7 News Belize

UDP Dion Ready For Bernard
posted (November 7, 2017)
So, now UDP mayoral candidate Dion Leslie isn't shadowboxing anymore. The three term councillor knows whose name will be on that ballot next to his. Today, we found him and Deputy Mayor Dean Samuels in the Port Loyola area. He told us it's not about personalities, it's about work:..

Dion Leslie, UDP Candidate for Mayor
"Well Jules I'll be honest with you. I don't really look at what the PUP is doing or who they brought. I'm looking at the work that we've accomplished over the past 12 years in office - 9 years for myself, 12 with Deputy Samuels and what we plan to accomplish come for the nest 3 years. Yes, at the same time you can't completely ignore your opponent, but we are not catching up to them or playing behind their game. They have to come to us. We are the incumbent, we know what it takes. We've been there. We are experience."

Dean Samuels, Deputy Mayor
"I don't personally watch who the UDP is bringing. For me, what have you done? Besides play politics and talk politics. I don't do that. We don't do that. We are about work and service and anybody can attest that Belize City Council has been one of the most proactive councils this city has ever seen."

Jules Vasquez, reporter
"It's been 4 elections and isn't there inevitably a type of voter fatigue that sets in, where people just want a change, even for the sake of change."

Dion Leslie, UDP Candidate for Mayor
"I would understand that and give credit to that statement if we weren't working, but what the council has done, the transformation that you've seen over the past years where Belize City was pre-UDP city council to where we are now. The residents will judge us on what we've done."

Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Is it harder to campaign now than it was when it first started, because a lot of these people have goods and services, maybe they've been waiting over 10 years for?"

Dean Samuels, Deputy Mayor
"Jules Vasquez, I will be real. Like what you've said I've been here 12 years at the end of my term, been the deputy for 4 times, held many portfolio for the council. I'll be honest with you and I'll tell you what I have seen and what we have accomplished, I think this Belize City Council has just gotten better at what we do."

Jules Vasquez, reporter
"But at the end of the day, Dion, as they say it's the little things that gives you away. In so far as the City Council has been great at undertaking large and impossible projects, but perhaps not so great at doing just the small things such as picking up the garbage, or keeping the city relatively litter free as much as possible. Just trimming the grass on the medians, on the sidewalks, in the hedges, fixing the manhole and the drain covers. Don't make me start on that. I'm saying that it's the small things that your council has failed in."

Dion Leslie, UDP Candidate for Mayor
"I wouldn't say we failed. Maybe we had some shortcomings, but to use the work failed, I think you are going overboard. We have addressed these problems. We have fixed them when we could and we will continue to fix them and all of this actually is part of our manifesto to address concerns like this - to look at the little things."

The pair were overseeing drainage and street works on Arlington Drive.

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