And while the news that the Mayor will face criminal charges is huge – that’s only one issue at a council that today seemed like a crazy house. And that’s not an exaggeration – we’ll explain it all shortly. We begin with a protest by the street cleaners who work at Belize Maintenance Limited. That’s a private company which is contracted to keep the city clean – a job which the city pays them $70,000 a week to do. City council hasn’t paid for ten weeks; the current arrears are now at $700,000 and BML has laid off 150 of 180 employees. Today many of those employees took to the streets in a protest in front of City Hall. We were there and so was the councillor with responsibility for sanitation Phillip Willoughby.

Jules Vasquez Reporting,
A steady stream of about 100 angry and vocal protestors circled on North Front Street in front of the City Council as councilor with responsibility for garbage Phillip Willoughby looked on.  Superman cap and all, he was helpless but not emotionless.

Jules Vasquez,
“Mr. Willoughby how does this make you feel, I know you’re equated your career success with this very important mission you’ve taken on and looking at this, this looks like you failed? This has to be saddening to you, you have on your superman cap but you don’t seem too super with this crowd out here protesting against you.”

Phillip Willoughby, City Councilor
“Yes it hurts to see those people demonstrating over there. Yes it bothers me, I am a human being just like them and it offends me to know what they have to go through to make ends meet and to get the council’s attention but I know, intimately I know and yes it grieves my heart to see those individuals out there doing that. It hurts.”

And if it hurts him, imagine these folks...they haven’t gotten paid for weeks, they say who feels it knows it.

Jeffrey Trapp, Protesting
“These workers are not being paid including myself.”

Jules Vasquez,
“How long haven’t you been paid for?”

Jeffrey Trapp,
“7 weeks.”

Protestor #2,
“It is the worst it has gotten.”

Jules Vasquez,
“Who do you all blame it on?”

Protestor #2,
“I don’t blame on Zenaida, on the City Hall itself because it is from there we get paid.”

Jules Vasquez,
“How unu feel about this whole under=depositing when you see $271,000 under-deposit?”

Protestor #3,
“We angry because how would they like for we to do this to them. We are out here working hard and when pay come we can’t get nothing; we can’t pay our bills, fi we landlord di threaten to put us on the street, I can’t send my kids, nobody out here can’t pay bills because they are not getting paid. It is really unfair to we.”

Protestor #4,
“I want to tell Zenaida that I have 4 children to send to school to eat and drink and the moment they nuh have to eat and drink, she is not thinking. She is a mother, she should think. What about the innocent children who have to stay out here in the draft and she is in a seven bedroom house. Think about it, what goes around comes around Zenaida.”

Protestor #5,
“Tell the woman we can’t even eat. I can’t even put food on the table because we are not being paid. We need money. I have Court’s bill, all kind of bills I owe. Send the money now.”

Protestor #6,
“I get up 3:30 from Mahogany Heights everyday to reach work at six o’clock. If I don’t pay for my house, DFC is going to auction my house the same day sir. I have lots of bills to pay. I am a single parent.”

Protestor #7,
“All I got fi say is please tell Zenaida to pay we because the single mothers out here are taking lik and for ten weeks some of wi not get paid and we can’t take that no more. This has been going on for years and years and we can’t take it no more. We think by all of us being out here, we are trying to make a stand and thinking a change might happen.”

Protestor #8,
“Deh people got needs and family and they work very hard and they don’t want to hear nothing because they have worked already for their money and they need their money.”

Protestor #9,
“All whe I want, all I want to tell Moya and Willoughby is mek they fulfill their promise. Before they had City Council, they went to BML office and had meeting with we and they told we money won’t be a problem and this is the second time they did this. 8 weeks now we nuh di get paid. When they are paying themselves, they are leaving we and our children di starve.”

Protestor #10,
“We get tired of them. She needs to come out and pay we fi we money because we nuh the tolerate them in their simpleness. They thief so much from up there, so much from up there so why they can’t pay we our money.”
 
Protestor #11,
“If dog dead or anything we still have to bag them up and thing and we still can’t get pay. We have to bag up dead dog and all kinds of things, nasty kind of work boss. Sometimes when we go home we sleepy and we nuh have nothing to eat.”
 
Protestor #12,
“We nuh wah go thief nobody, we nuh wah go rob nobody and that is why we are trying to work, we are trying to make a little living. We don’t want to go broke the law. We can’t tolerate that. We nuh want to go break into nobody’s house and thief nobody.”

Jeffrey Trapp,
“Some of the things that we have to deal with as supervisors, these explosive workers, they are creating these kind of monsters with this thing and they need to pay these workers. They need to pay them, even if the Prime Minister has to step in or the councilors get their salaries cut but they need to pay the sanitation workers.”

Jules Vasquez,
“Mr. Willoughby there is close to 100 protestors out there. They are saying the City Council hasn’t paid them for two months.”

Phillip Willoughby,
“That is correct, that’s true.”

Jules Vasquez,
“So by rights, they have all rights to be out there protesting, these people have lost their jobs because of the city council’s non payment.”

Phillip Willoughby,
“To a certain extent but…”

Jules Vasquez,
“If you didn’t get paid for two months you would be protesting.”

Phillip Willoughby,
“Yes but I said to a certain extent.”

Jules Vasquez,
“But the matter is a money matter, there is massaging that needs to be used. Show me the money, that’s what they are asking.”

Phillip Willoughby,
“We have always had a common understanding that the funds that council received would be programmed to meet the needs of the sanitation companies. That was a common understanding.”

Jules Vasquez,
“But according to Mr. Ellis he has laid off 150 people, he just can’t pay them and the city is suffering because of it. You when you were elected, reelected and you said that with the garbage portfolio you would make a difference and it is the same ole same ole, they protested before and they are protesting again.”

Phillip Willoughby,
“The work in terms of keeping the city clean is one issue, the aspect of dealing with the financial side is a different matter. The restructuring of keeping the city clean was accomplished. On the flipside of that is a financial matter.”

But when it comes to finance, this council is dead broke. And Willoughby’s solution? Sell City Hall! 

Jules Vasquez,
“We’re dealing also with a council who owes these people $170,000. Obviously these people know that, they know that unu the under-deposit, people feel like that is fraudulent, like they are stealing public funds, that is what they feel and now they are saying if unu could thief that how come unu can’t pay we. That is what is in their minds.”

Phillip Willoughby,
“Let me clarify and explain my position with this under-deposit thing once and for all. I have heard it in the media, I have been busy dealing with matters, hadn’t called into the talk shows for some time but this is my clarification on it: the financials of the council are posted in the newspapers. Does it say anywhere in those postings that under deposits occurred?

Wait secondly, whenever we have our monthly council meetings and the Mayor presents the financial positions of the council, does it state anything about under-deposits? So how now then media houses take the position to say that the council or councilors should have known while it took a forensic audit of that sort or magnitude to reveal such a thing. You get on the media and you disrespect the integrity, especially my integrity, you disrespect my integrity to say that I should have known and I can only go based on the reports and the postings of the financial position of the council at any given point in time and once it doesn’t say under-deposits, how do the councilors know.”

Jules Vasquez,
“Mr. Willoughby I am not holding you accountable for that. I am saying these people are because all they know is $271,000 gaan under-deposit, that is what they know, and then they are owed, lose their job.”

Phillip Willoughby,
“But the same way I am taking this opportunity to explain to you, I will have to break it down and explain it to them.

But again who indicted in the allegation won’t be maybe the faces or the persons who go and take this matter….”

Jules Vasquez,
“But Dwain Davis, I don’t seem him coming out that door, you are here. We are asking you, you can’t solve this problem because it takes $2.7 million, $1.7 million at least is your responsibility.”

Phillip Willoughby,
“My recommendations to the council will be at the end of the day, what I will table and suggest because we will meet tomorrow to discuss sanitation matters. Listen to me, might as well to start new and fresh, consider or contemplate selling the commercial center, getting rid of that, selling this, yes it is mortgaged but at a fair cost, sell the City Hall, pay off what we have to pay, and build a new building and move on and reconcile.”

Jules Vasquez,
“You realize that sounds crazy? Sell City Hall, unu wah mek a new building out of plywood?”

Phillip Willoughby,
“No we are not saying that, we are saying that, I am suggesting that if there is a fair market value that we can attain for the property and premise and there is absolutely no other way out then the council will then have to exercise whatever options and that is only one. I am certain other people have other ideas to generate revenues and immediate revenues to settle the council’s debts or indebtness.”

And while Willoughby’s suggestion has shock value if only for it’s implication of desperation and utter destitution of a municipal body – again – the council’s woes – much of it self induced - are trumped by the real world woes of these protestors.

BML also has a permit to protest tomorrow, Tuesday.