On our newscast of the 23rd. August we showed you what a squall had done to the beach in Placencia which was awash with garbage, presumably from Honduras.
That was the product of a squall which descended on the peninsula on August 21st. But on august 22nd, there was a similar storm in the city - heavy, gusting winds, sustained for over 3 hours, with no rains.
Those winds peeled back the roof on the Memorial Park's main stage and with the events of the September season upon us- we wondered will the roof be repaired? Here's what I found out:….
Like the falling star that sits atop this Gazebo just behind me, most of what made this historic of city parks a huge attraction for thousands of Belizeans, now seem to be all falling apart.
From the many broken sponsored chairs, to the monuments that pay homage to Belize's fallen soldiers, the entire park seems to be in a state of disrepair. And the grand stage that overlooks the entire park and has hosted thousands of memorable events, its roof and entire structure seem to be collapsing from neglect and to some extent, old age! And so as Belizeans gear up for the celebration of the country's 29th birthday, the question is: "will this venue that holds such great memories and a thousand sentiments….be in a position to host one more? "(in its old glory days)
Dion Leslie, Councillor in charge of Parks & Recreation
"As you can see right now we have the works department from Belize City Council presently doing work on it. We receive the funding to fix roof. A piece of it blew off about 2 weeks ago right after we had the patriotic song and carnival competition. If you remember Sunday night going into morning we had some strong winds and rains and it blow off piece of the roof. Something similar to my knowledge had happen 3 years ago on the other half and we fix it. We have the guys out here working and it should be ready. The next main event out here is the 10th celebration so by then we expect this to be finish by week's end. I don't believe we will have any problem reaching the time for it to be finish and ready for it to be use."
Jim McFadzean
"Councilor, this whole park seems to be in a state of disrepair. Why so?"
Dion Leslie, Councillor in charge of Parks & Recreation
"it's a big park, the councilor in charge of parks councilor Peyrefitte; we've been trying to get this park adopted for some time now. Apart from BTL its one of the biggest parks in Belize and every business house that we have approach to adopt the park we've encounter some problems because the park did need some help and Councilor Chan when he had the portfolio of parks he did plant some trees fix the benches and also repair piece of the fence and we've been trying to do the same to find a sponsor for the park to adopt it so I can make a plea here if anyone would like to adopt Memorial Park; its one of the most historic parks in our city and in the country. It will be good to have your name attached to a piece of history as a business house."
But whether or not John Public is willing to take Leslie up on the offer of sponsorship, there are megabucks slated to come out of the Tourism development project that's expected to give a major facelift to the whole northeast tourist village area, and yes, that will include Memorial Park.
Dion Leslie, Councillor in charge of Parks & Recreation
"The long term plan for the park at this moment is under the sustainable tourism project that's been brought forward. This entire area will be zone as a tourism zone and in their plans they have a complete refurbishment of Memorial Park from stage to roof to the benches to the landscaping itself. So we don't want to step on that right now so we are just proceeding with caution and waiting for that project to come in and in that project we will probably do a brand new roof, refurbish the stage completely, so we are looking forward to that."
The 30 million dollar Tourism development project Leslie refers to is expected to roll out sometime around the end of this year….
Email
Print