7 News Belize

New City Mayor - Did He Try To Send Everyone Home?
posted (March 8, 2018)

And while the UDP are looking for a reset in Port Loyola, the PUP are now resurgent in the city - which was the UDP's stronghold.  

Leading that resurgence is new mayor Bernard Wagner. 

Wagner has many plans to continue Belize City's transformation but what is his first order of business as Mayor? He said he's focused on getting to know his new staff:

Bernard Wagner - Belize City Mayor/PUP
"Ms. Vasquez fantastic win for the PUP. We were the underdogs going into this election, we started in October as the rebirth, we felt that we could not take anything for granted. We had to beat the incumbent at their own game."

Sahar Vasquez
"Sir tell us what will be your first order of business once you get into the office."

Bernard Wagner
"Well, actually I visited the office this morning myself and candidate Oscar Arnold and Allan Pitts and we met with staff. The staff obviously was feeling a little bit anxious and that is understandable but we assured them that listen our council will not take any measures to terminate anyone's service. We ran on the platform about the people and we will continue to always run a policy that is people centered and that means putting people first, putting their needs and we felt that meeting with the staff this morning we want to get to know our staff and like someone told me in the meeting they have a wonderful staff, staff that works very hard and I believe that. Once the team and the staff understands that we are about putting people first about being people centric we'll get along pretty well."

Sahar Vasquez
"There are a lot of veteran employees there Mr. Mark Burns, Joe Bradley, Mr. Shane. So are they safe in terms of will you be able to keep them around comfortably?"

Bernard Wagner
"Obviously those individuals clearly all affiliated. I feel that I wouldn't want to get into much details on those specific individuals. We know the connections they have and we don't want to be hard and fast on any of those individuals but let intelligence prevail."

But, this morning the new PUP slate was already off to a rocky start. Employers of the City Council were escorted out of their office by police. Sounded outlandish, like victimization on steroids, sending home workers just because.  Wagner told us that is the furthest thing from the truth.

Sahar Vasquez
"Can you shed some light on the incident that happened I believe employees of the city council were escorted out by police. Was that something called by the PUP to happen?"

Bernard Wagner - Belize City Mayor/PUP
"We were at another radio station doing a show and when we left we were told there was a fiasco at the city hall. The law enforcement wasn't letting anyone coming into the office and so we visited there, we spoke to the law enforcement, they were very polite, they told us that the instructions came from their high command. Clearly they were trying to protect the environment there."

Sahar Vasquez
"It was people that were working there that were escorted out right?"

Bernard Wagner
"That is what I understood but clearly it was a ploy used to create mischief we were putting people out the office and that was far from the truth. We weren't even aware of this happening, we were on another radio station and so we went there and we talked to the city manager and we resolved that issue to reassure that the people of the city that we wouldn't undertake such. We wouldn't do such things to our staff."

Wagner says he is working on being inaugurated in as early as next week Tuesday.

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