Last night, we told you about how the Public Service Union and the Belmopan City Council had reached an out-of-court settlement in their fight over the union's hill-top property.
It was an amicable end to a bitter dispute between the union and council, who accused Mayor Khalid Belisle and his administration of unfairly selling the land right out from under them. The Union later sued the Council, and the new owners to try and get it back.
The PSU president promised that there would be a grand ceremony to announce what the settlement was, and this afternoon, they invited us to the Bull Frog Inn in Belmopan to see for ourselves.
Daniel Ortiz attended, and here's his report:
This afternoon, the leaders of the Public Service Union and the Belmopan City Council exchanged tokens of friendship and appreciation to reinforce that the fact two sides arrived at a peaceful and cordial resolution of their land fight.
By next month, the PSU will have to leave the Hilltop Property, which was the union's home until the Belmopan City Council sold it to Simplex Designs. But, after months of negotiations, the Council has found the union a new parcel of land. The plan is that in a few weeks' time, the Council will finalize this settlement by presenting the union with a full title for the PSU's new property.
Gerald Henry Jr. - President, Public Service Union
"It was an offer that we could not refused and that was the premise that we had mentioned to the council when they offered to settle out of court. They gave us an offer that we could not refuse and I believe they have gone over and beyond."
Khalid Belisle - Mayor, Belmopan City Council
"There is a sense of relief here this afternoon that we can put this behind us, that I know that our council is delivered to the PSU their permanent home going forward."
Today's spirit of compromise and civility was a stark contrast to the adversarial stance that both sides took several years ago. The views on this dispute were so divergent, that the PSU sought the involvement of the Supreme Court to settle the fight.
File: November 12, 2018
Doreth Obermayer - President, PSU
"We are asking that whatsoever city council had done, that that be revoked and that hilltop property and title be handed over to us within a timeframe allotted by the ending of November. Because at no point are we are going to move."
File: November 13, 2018
Reporter
"The sale has been made. There is a lot of opposition. The PSU is receiving a lot of support demanding that this be returned to the PSU. On the council's behalf, is the sale final?"
Khalid Belisle, Mayor - Belmopan City
"In terms of the finality of the sale, at this point the sale is final."
But, the two sides are moving beyond those hurt feelings and past harsh words, with a written agreement, which they consummated this afternoon with signatures from the leadership of both parties.
Khalid Belisle
"The Belmopan City Council has agreed to certain request by the Public Service Union in exchange for any and all claims against the council being dropped. The basic outline of the request from the council carries 3 particular aspects, the first is a parcel of land comprising 1.2 acres which sits just west of Unity Boulevard in the city of Belmopan. For those of you familiar with the construction taking place around the city it's in the vicinity of where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently constructing their new Belmopan headquarters. So that's the land aspect of it. The second aspects is what we called the works wherein the council has committed to undertaking specific works to assist the union in constructing their new headquarters here in Belmopan, basically boiling down to provision of materials white mall and the like as well as equipment hours from the Belmopan City Council equipment garage, its basically the backhoe and the third component is an offset of payable fees that the union would due to the council now and in the future and those are basically the 3 planks on which this agreement is built."
Gerald Henry Jr.
"For 98 years now that the PSU has been in existence. This will be the very first time that it will have a land to call home for its headquarters and certainly it's a good feeling to know that we have achieve this approaching our centennial and so I believe that the land compare to where we were before at hilltop although it has a lot of connections in terms of your emotions and so on, that the land is actually a better piece of land and its more centrally located for our members to access and everything, so I believe that we are in a better position that we were before. The land is valued at around $475,000 and from what we understand is that value will go up significantly as soon as its transferred into property and so hence the reason I'm saying that it's an offer that we could not refuse."
And as for the process actually putting the land title document into hands of the PSU's president, well, the Mayor says that's all up to the Lands Department.
Khalid Belisle
"The agreement that we just signed actually states that immediately upon signing we commence the process of survey. I will disclose to you that we've already started the survey even before the signing today, so that's already under way. We expect that to be submitted to the ministry of natural resources if not by the end of this week, certainly next week and I will actually tell you we are hoping to lean on our friends at the Public Service Union to get that paper work processed as quickly as possible considering its their membership that works at that department anyway, we are hoping to deliver title to them sometime within a month."
The President told us today that he and the union's membership are now looking for funding options to build their headquarters on this new piece of land.
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