Yesterday we took you to the Twin Towns where you saw the groundbreaking for a future boardwalk and river park. You might have noticed, though, that the UDP mayor was absent from this very "blue" event. When we asked the PUP mayoral candidate, he said that they haven't been able to meet with the mayor. But today, Mayor Earl Trapp told us via Zoom that he was never even invited to any meeting discussing the plans for the riverbank. In fact, he says he didn't even know it was happening until yesterday morning. And he added that it's illegal since they don't have his endorsement and they didn't go through the proper protocols to get the project approved. Here's how he explained it.
Earl Trapp, Mayor of SISE
"About a quarter to 7, the manager from the market called and said to me, Mayor, do you know what's going on here? I see the PUP's putting up some tents. I told him, no, I'm not aware of what's taking place but he saw them putting up a billboard that depicts a project."
"All I know is that I have not endorsed the project that they are depicting there and I know nothing about it, I was never involved in any discussions with BTB but you know what, I will leave it like that. All I can say is that it is illegal for the simple fact that I am the maximum authority in this town as the mayor and basically all open areas, all parks, all playgrounds are the responsibility of the Town Council, the responsibility of the mayor."
"What is necessary is first of all, call the general community to a consultation. If they agree, then we proceed with the different steps of the Department of Environment to get the EIA approved and we go from there. If you notice, if you recall, about 3 years ago, we had a project with BTB by the riverbank but that was on the higher part on Santa Elena side which would have been a project to install some food stalls where we would have had the different ethnic groups have a stall and we would have tourists come and they would have start a cuisine from scratch. That was more of a viable project because of the area where it would have been located."
"As such, nothing have been done for this, I have never been invited to any meeting to discuss any project as such. So when BTB would come, and I'm really surprised that Minister Mahler would come out of the blue, I thought they had more common sense than this, realizing that for a project of such magnitude, it requires collaboration and support from the Town Council so I was really surprised with Minister Mahler being the head of the project along with the next 7 candidates who believe they are leaders already of these towns."
As for the meetings Preston claimed that Trapp missed, the mayor says that while they haven't had any official meetings, he has had regular sessions with the councilors. He also said that the river park was originally his project idea, along with others that have been waiting for financing opportunities.
Earl Trapp, Mayor of SISE
"Since October, we have not been having meetings officially, but unofficially, we had meetings in my office. So you see, this is the thing, this guy goes on national TV and on social media and speaks as though he does not kill a fly. He has to be honest and sincere. We have had meetings in my office. Maybe we did not have the official meeting in the conference room but we have always had meetings in my office. I have shared the profit and loss statements with them so when they would come and blatantly lie like that, it just shows you the level of desperation that they are in."
"As a matter of fact, that is one of my projects that I had since 2015 and I have most of my projects in the computer, I have the animated plans for all those projects. That is one I have, the other one that, the name is History Tourism Trail, it starts from Boat Walk and goes all the way to Sandy Bay. So I have many projects, it's just that we did not get the, the financing has been a problem but I'm still looking out for investors that will eventually give us support to get some of those projects in so I'm hoping in the next three years of my terms, I'll be able to get maybe one of those big projects out."
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