Gail Alexan­der

UNC San Fer­nan­do West can­di­date Sean Sobers thinks PNM op­po­nent Faris Al- Rawi is a de­cent guy whose plate is too full to han­dle the seat— but Sobers says he in­tends to “make it re­al” in San Fer­nan­do West with plans in­clud­ing the first Gov­ern­ment Spe­cial Needs School.

Sobers spoke about his plans at UNC’s San Fer­nan­do West meet­ing on Mon­day night. Ear­li­er, he and Al Rawi— both at­tor­neys—“bounced” while on walk­a­bouts.

San Fer­nan­do West is among five mar­gin­als that are of cru­cial im­por­tance to the Au­gust 10 elec­tion out­come. Sobers has been cam­paign­ing since Jan­u­ary when he was an­nounced.

Sobers said he knows Al-Rawi very well. “I think he’s a de­cent guy but he’s ab­sent from the area, he doesn’t live in San Fer­nan­do West . His plate is full as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, and he’s fo­cused his en­er­gy there,“ he said.

Sobers wants to trans­form the con­stituen­cy— not mere­ly change it. “We’re al­ways hear­ing about ‘change and change and change … it’s the eas­i­er things to tell some­body when you meet them. But let’s trans­form San Fer­nan­do West and T&T," he added.

He said he told UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar that he just want­ed a chance.

"And she watch me and said ‘this is peo­ple’s lives you talk­ing about, it’s not Lot­to or bran tub – you need an op­por­tu­ni­ty. And she said she’d give me an op­por­tu­ni­ty, I ‘d like every­one to part­ner with me to give San Fer­nan­do West and T&T an op­por­tu­ni­ty,’’ he not­ed.

Sobers sees the Petrotrin -bereft San Fer­nan­do West be­com­ing a bea­con of hope though en­gage­ment of more youths in ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ing sports, out­fit­ting com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres as learn­ing re­sources lo­ca­tions and hav­ing a Gov­ern­ment Spe­cial Needs school.

Sobers said he had his brush with the lat­ter sit­u­a­tion. “If there was a Gov­ern­ment school to treat with youths who have those prob­lems .... SF West would be the first to have this,” he said.

He added on oth­er plans, “Some­times you’re forced in­to a life of crime, no­body’s lis­ten­ing to you. We have bril­liant sports men and women. We can have more. We plan an­nu­al sports days . Ac­tivist Ja­son of the Mara­bel­la Line has pro­posed the Street Jam plan for com­mu­ni­ty spir­it,”

“One event will be on Sun­day at Na­pari­ma Col­lege grounds, “We’re lis­ten­ing to you and en­gag­ing the peo­ple - that’s mak­ing it re­al,“ Sobers said.

He plans re­struc­tur­ing the Mu­cu­rapo Street mar­ket and Kings Wharf . On the Wa­ter­front Project, he said, ”If some­thing’s good we’ll re­view it and con­tin­ue. If bad, we’ll change it and con­tin­ue . If it’s ter­ri­ble, then we’ll have to stop it."

Sobers said his six- month walk­a­bout showed him deep hurt among con­stituents.

He said, “It was a huge sur­prise to find out how much pain peo­ple are in. And it’s not on­ly in the last five years. It’s been am­pli­fied in that time, but it’s been there longer than that – and we have to take that square­ly on the nose and un­der­stand where we go from there.”

He said he’d been ac­cused by many that as a politi­cian, they wouldn’t see him again for the next five years. "And I’ll be some­one who’ll whis­per sweet noth­ings and won’t de­liv­er. Deal­ing with an elec­torate like that, how does one re­spond and coax them out of a sit­u­a­tion like that filled with hope­less­ness and pain?”

“ I al­so see (hope­less­ness and pain) in the eyes of some of you here tonight. It’s a dif­fi­cult task.....All I can in­di­cate is I’d like your sup­port— just a cou­ple years ago I was just as hurt as you, feel­ing the same pain and T&T was al­so feel­ing it. Our en­e­my is pover­ty, crime job­less­ness , re­peat­ed emp­ty promis­es . It’s our time to halt that.”