Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Port-of-Spain May­or Ray­mond Tim Kee is ex­pect­ed to ten­der his res­ig­na­tion to­mor­row.

His de­ci­sion comes one day af­ter scores of con­cerned cit­i­zens and hu­man rights ac­tivists staged a protest at Wood­ford Square in Port-of-Spain, call­ing for him to re­sign over com­ments he made on the dis­cov­ery of Japan­ese pan­nist Asa­mi Na­gakiya's body at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on Wednes­day.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day on the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion let­ter­head, Tim Kee stat­ed that he not­ed the con­tin­ued out­rage and hurt over state­ments at­trib­uted to him.

He said he deeply re­gret­ted the con­se­quences of the state­ments and apol­o­gised un­re­served­ly to those who had been af­fect­ed.

On Wednes­day dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at City Hall, the may­or was ques­tioned about the dis­cov­ery of an uniden­ti­fied fe­male mas­quer­ad­er. Lat­er that night she was iden­ti­fied by po­lice as Na­gakiya.

Tim Kee's re­sponse to re­porters at the news con­fer­ence was that women did not need to be­have in a vul­gar and lewd man­ner to en­joy them­selves dur­ing Car­ni­val.

He said, "I spoke of some of the things that I see women do, as­sist­ed by men, of course, but the woman has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that they en­sure that they are not abused. You can en­joy Car­ni­val with­out go­ing through that rou­tine."

Tim Kee added that women need­ed to main­tain a lev­el of dig­ni­ty dur­ing Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties.

Fol­low­ing his state­ments which cre­at­ed out­rage on so­cial me­dia and among dif­fer­ent civ­il so­ci­ety groups, Tim Kee is­sued a state­ment on Thurs­day apol­o­gis­ing, say­ing his state­ments were tak­en out of con­text.

But it's not the first time the may­or has made such re­marks about women's be­hav­iour dur­ing Car­ni­val.

In 2014, speak­ing to re­porters at the Down­town Car­ni­val judg­ing point in South Quay, the may­or said, "I see some women do some things with some men–noth­ing for the imag­i­na­tion, you can't do that."

He said he felt that some of the cos­tumes he had seen then were "un­ac­cept­able–al­most like a beach par­ty on the street. I hate to say this, some women just don't care."

Calls on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for Tim Kee to re­sign fell on deaf ears as the PM said the con­tro­ver­sial re­marks did not war­rant a dis­missal.

Row­ley said Tim Kee may have "mis­spo­ken" and his Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment (PNM) did not sup­port vic­tim blam­ing.

Wom­anTra TT start­ed a pe­ti­tion on Wednes­day call­ing for Tim Kee's res­ig­na­tion and up to last night the pe­ti­tion had reached over 10,000 sig­na­tures.

Tim Kee is al­so the trea­sur­er of the PNM.

In No­vem­ber 2013 he was elect­ed un­op­posed as may­or. He was al­so the pres­i­dent of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, but was vot­ed out last No­vem­ber.

When Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed Tim Kee yes­ter­day he said his res­ig­na­tion state­ment had been is­sued to all me­dia hous­es and that he would be en­gaged in a meet­ing that would last an hour.

He asked that the news­pa­per call him back but sev­er­al calls there­after went unan­swered.

Tim Kee: I re­spect women

In the 12-line re­lease, Tim Kee said, "I con­sid­er the re­ac­tion has been suf­fi­cient to cause dam­age to the Of­fice of the May­or of Port of Spain, which any hold­er of this of­fice should be con­cerned to pro­tect at all costs. It is in these cir­cum­stances, why I in­tend to call an emer­gency meet­ing of Coun­cil, and ten­der my res­ig­na­tion as May­or, and as an Al­der­man."

He added that it was im­por­tant for him to point out as a cit­i­zen of T&T, a man and a fa­ther, he re­it­er­at­ed his un­re­served re­spect for women, and in fact for all peo­ple, re­gard­less of their race, gen­der or re­li­gion.

"It is hoped that with this de­ci­sion, the Of­fice of the May­or is now pro­tect­ed, my un­re­served apol­o­gy ac­cept­ed by my fel­low cit­i­zens, and that the fo­cus can now be placed ful­ly on solv­ing the mur­der of a vis­i­tor to our shores," Tim Kee wrote.

It does not rise to the lev­el

of res­ig­na­tion–Cuffie

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Max­ie Cuffie, when con­tact­ed last night, re­ferred all ques­tions to Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Franklin Khan, who is al­so chair­man of the PNM.

How­ev­er, calls to Khan's cell­phone went unan­swered.

Ear­li­er in the day, Cuffie told re­porters dur­ing a walk­a­bout in La Hor­quet­ta that Gov­ern­ment had no in­ten­tion of re­mov­ing Tim Kee from of­fice. Cuffie re­ferred to Row­ley's ear­li­er com­ments on the is­sue, say­ing that while Tim Kee's state­ments were un­for­tu­nate, they did not war­rant his re­moval from of­fice.

"It (Tim Kee's com­ments) does not rise to the lev­el of res­ig­na­tion and I wouldn't want to go fur­ther than that," Cuffie said of the gov­ern­ment's po­si­tion.

Row­ley did not re­spond to a mes­sage sent by the Sun­day Guardian last night.

AG: Tim Kee is a com­pas­sion­ate man

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi pub­licly com­mend­ed Tim Kee for act­ing as quick­ly as he did in of­fer­ing his res­ig­na­tion.

Asked by re­porters at the scene of a busi­ness fire at High Street, San Fer­nan­do, last night to com­ment on the sit­u­a­tion, Al-Rawi said, "I think that May­or Tim Kee is a man who knows very well what pub­lic sen­ti­ment looks like. It is a very un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent. I mean the death of the Japan­ese na­tion­al...a woman who loved T&T is cer­tain­ly a great tragedy for this na­tion."

Al-Rawi said he knew Tim Kee per­son­al­ly and that he was a very com­pas­sion­ate man.

"There is no ex­cuse or hold­ing wa­ter in your mouth in re­la­tion to the state­ments that were put in the me­dia.

"I am not say­ing what he ought to do or ought not to do, but what I can tell you is that pub­lic sen­ti­ment is re­al and I give May­or Tim Kee a se­ri­ous pub­lic com­men­da­tion for act­ing as quick­ly as he had in this man­ner."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar: Vic­to­ry of the peo­ple

In re­sponse to Tim Kee's in­ten­tion to re­sign, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day hailed civ­il so­ci­ety groups and as­so­ci­at­ed in­di­vid­u­als who, af­ter days of ac­tivism, com­pelled the may­or to of­fer, al­beit be­lat­ed­ly, an un­equiv­o­cal apol­o­gy for his reck­less and of­fen­sive com­ments.

"This is a true vic­to­ry of the peo­ple and I hearti­ly com­mend the prin­ci­pled men and women who took up this strug­gle and spoke out against Mr Tim Kee's vile sen­ti­ments, for their courage, per­se­ver­ance and com­mit­ment," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She added that it served as a les­son to Row­ley and his Gov­ern­ment that they can­not cal­lous­ly dis­miss the voice of the peo­ple, "since true pow­er lies in the col­lec­tive will of the cit­i­zens of this great na­tion."

Lee Sing: PNM plac­ing bur­den of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on PoS coun­cil

In a Face­book post at 6.27 pm, for­mer may­or Louis Lee Sing said, "The May­or's res­ig­na­tion let­ter I have read close­ly and on the sur­face I hold the view the PNM is once again plac­ing its 'bur­den of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,' on the laps of its Port-of-Spain Coun­cil.

"Let's think this out!

"The May­or con­venes his meet­ing and mem­bers (all PNM) are giv­en the of­fer of res­ig­na­tion, but pri­or to the meet­ing Coun­cil Mem­bers are in­struct­ed NOT to ac­cept the res­ig­na­tion. The May­or stays and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the may­or re­main­ing in of­fice be­comes the hot pota­to of mem­bers of Coun­cil!

"In such a sce­nario the PM and May­or are re­lieved of their bur­den of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and Democ­ra­cy suf­fers a mighty blow!

"I am hope­ful on this oc­ca­sion the PNM will re­mem­ber the im­por­tance of the will of the peo­ple!"