Yvonne Webb

San Fer­nan­do May­or Mar­lene Coudray said yes­ter­day she would not be held to ran­som by greedy peo­ple. Coudray's com­ment fol­lows a pan boy­cott of San Fer­nan­do's cel­e­bra­tion of 22 years of city sta­tus. Dis­agree­ment over the ap­pear­ance fee caused San Fer­nan­do steel­band play­ers to boy­cott "Pan in the City" on Sun­day on Cof­fee Street.

Chair­man of Pan Trin­ba­go South/Cen­tral Zone El­ton Bain said, yes­ter­day: "We sent in a bud­get for an ap­pear­ance fee of $5,000 and they coun­tered it with $3,000 and pan­men re­fused it." May­or Coudray apol­o­gised for the can­cel­la­tion of the pan and to the dis­ap­point­ed fans who came out to par­tic­i­pate.

She said: "We had an arrange­ment with them (Pan Trin­ba­go) and two days be­fore the event some­one tried to change it." Say­ing she had to strug­gle to get the mon­ey to pay the $3,000 ap­pear­ance fee to 12 bands since the cor­po­ra­tion got a bud­get cut, Coudray said a last-minute de­ci­sion was tak­en to can­cel the event.

Sug­gest­ing pol­i­tics was at play, Coudray sound­ed a warn­ing: "The cor­po­ra­tion will not be held to ran­som. I deal with peo­ple who want to play pan, not with peo­ple who want to play pol­i­tics."