Res­i­dents of Char­lot­teville are di­vid­ed on plans by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) to beau­ti­fy the beach­front at Man-o-War Bay. At a three-hour town meet­ing on Mon­day night with mem­bers of the THA Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil, head­ed by Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don, res­i­dents of the east­ern To­ba­go vil­lage failed to come to a con­sen­sus on what was re­quired to im­prove their eco­nom­ic lives.Lon­don and THA rep­re­sen­ta­tive, As­sem­bly­man Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine, pre­sent­ed beau­ti­fi­ca­tion plans that in­clude con­struc­tion of a two-storey con­crete build­ing to re­house ten or 12 ex­ist­ing road­side ven­dors, a restau­rant, fish­ing fa­cil­i­ties, board­walk and a walkover, as well as up­grade and ex­ten­sion of the jet­ty to serve the fish­er­folk and cruise ves­sels and up­grade of the pavil­ion and com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

Lon­don told the meet­ing the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil want­ed to be in­formed of what the peo­ple of Char­lot­teville want­ed and he had no in­ten­tion of go­ing against the de­ci­sions of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA). In re­spond­ing to one vil­lager, Lon­don said there was no ques­tion of the am­bi­ence of Char­lot­teville chang­ing and re­gard­less of what op­tion was agreed on there would al­ways be ob­jec­tions. The Chief Sec­re­tary said the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil was will­ing to con­sid­er any sug­ges­tions from the com­mu­ni­ty and urged vil­lagers to dis­cuss what they want­ed among them­selves and raise it at the next meet­ing. "It seems the beach­front is an is­sue and there­fore some­thing has to be done about it. We are dis­cussing, we are not at war," Lon­don said.

The up­grade of the jet­ty in time for the 2011/2012 cruise ship sea­son, which starts at the end of Oc­to­ber, hinges on the re­sump­tion of calls by the "Sea Dream" and the "Wind Surf", as well as a new ves­sel from the Club Med Line. Be­sides dis­cussing the beau­ti­fi­ca­tion project, vil­lagers raised con­cerns about drainage, in­ad­e­quate wa­ter sup­ply, the qual­i­ty of the wa­ter in their taps, road con­di­tions, pol­lu­tion of the wa­ter by cruise ships and yachts, en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues, flood­ing, in­ad­e­quate land space for de­vel­op­ment, ac­qui­si­tion of part of the Turpin Es­tate for hous­ing de­vel­op­ment and health care. The meet­ing, held in the air-con­di­tioned au­di­to­ri­um of the Char­lot­teville li­brary, be­came row­dy at times, with com­ments and sug­ges­tions be­ing shout­ed across the floor to the head ta­ble.

Health and So­cial Ser­vices As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary Huey Cadette told the meet­ing the new $21 mil­lion Char­lot­teville Health Cen­tre would be com­mis­sioned in Au­gust and the Chil­dren's Day Care Cen­tre at the back of the health fa­cil­i­ty would be re­built in three months at a new lo­ca­tion. He said the is­sue of the ini­tial ser­vices to be of­fered at the health cen­tre was be­ing dis­cussed with the vil­lagers but he as­sured it would ser­vice the pub­lic with doc­tors and nurs­es from 8 am to 4 pm in the ini­tial stages. Cadette added there al­so would be a walk-in clin­ic dur­ing the same open­ing hours to cater for per­sons with­out ap­point­ments. Agri­cul­ture, Ma­rine Re­sources, Mar­ket­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary Hilton Sandy said his di­vi­sion was work­ing with the EMA for ap­proval for the beau­ti­fi­ca­tion project, in­clud­ing ex­ten­sion of the jet­ty.

He ex­plained that the jet­ty was im­por­tant for the eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of Char­lot­teville and since it was the largest fish­ing area on the is­land there was need for mod­ern fa­cil­i­ties. In­fra­struc­ture and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Sec­re­tary God­win Adams said WASA was in­stalling a boost­er pump to im­prove the wa­ter sup­ply to the vil­lage, while T&TEC was work­ing on im­prov­ing the elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply to pro­vide street light­ing on roads lead­ing to the vil­lage.