RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Short­ly af­ter be­ing sworn in as the new May­or of Point Fortin, Kennedy Richards Jr urged his team to work hard to re­vive com­mu­ni­ty spir­it through vil­lage coun­cils.

Richards, who will head the Bor­ough’s 11th coun­cil, said un­der his stew­ard­ship he will en­sure every vil­lage gets good rep­re­sen­ta­tion. He said the coun­cil’s mis­sion will be “in­clu­sion, par­tic­i­pa­tion and con­sul­ta­tion”

“This will be used to guide the bor­ough over its three-year term,” he said

Richards added that he in­tend­ed to hold con­sul­ta­tions with all stake­hold­ers as part of his in­clu­sive mis­sion.

“It is our vi­sion that the con­sul­ta­tion process will com­mence some­time in Jan­u­ary and take place through­out every elec­toral dis­trict, “ he said.

“Go­ing for­ward let us pound the pave­ment the same way you did dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign. Let our pres­ence be felt in our com­mu­ni­ties in every­thing that we do, let us use those op­por­tu­ni­ty to guide the youths in our dis­tricts, to in­spire oth­ers and re­vive vil­lage coun­cils.”

He al­so had a mes­sage for every coun­cil­lor.

“It is my wish that each coun­cil­lor will be ac­tive­ly in­volved in their re­spec­tive vil­lage coun­cil. Point Fortin has al­ways been the safest bor­ough and ex­pressed op­ti­mism that it would re­main that way, “ he said.

Point Fortin MP Ma­jor Gen­er­al (Ret) Ed­mund Dil­lon said al­though the PNM had won the bat­tle of lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions it must now be pre­pared for the war of 2020. He said lead­er­ship and man­age­ment are need­ed.

“You need de­ter­mi­na­tion and per­se­ver­ance. Re­sources to man­age and peo­ple to lead, “ Dil­lon added.

For­mer May­or Ab­don Ma­son said he was hap­py with what he achieved and called on the new coun­cil to em­brace the chal­lenges of the fu­ture un­der­stand­ing that it was the work of God.