KEVON FELMINE

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris is call­ing on res­i­dents to keep the city clean as the cor­po­ra­tion pur­sues its tourism thrust.

At an in­ter­faith ser­vice cel­e­brat­ing San Fer­nan­do’s 36th an­niver­sary of city sta­tus, Par­ris shared plans for a re­vi­talised city econ­o­my, now that the icon­ic San Fer­nan­do Hill is un­der the man­age­ment of the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion (SFCC).

“Do your part, and we will do ours in mar­ket­ing San Fer­nan­do’s po­ten­tial,” Par­ris said at St Paul’s An­gli­can Church yes­ter­day. He ex­plained that the SFCC and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land, and Fish­eries re­cent­ly signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing, grant­i­ng the cor­po­ra­tion rights to ex­plore eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties at San Fer­nan­do Hill. It paves the way for the de­vel­op­ment of tourism-re­lat­ed busi­ness­es which Par­ris said will ben­e­fit lo­cal cit­i­zens and boost the city’s pro­file.

“We see po­ten­tial for tourism sub-sec­tors to ef­fec­tive­ly mar­ket San Fer­nan­do as a hub for busi­ness­es that serve both vis­i­tors and res­i­dents.”

The SFCC is al­so co-or­di­nat­ing with the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture, and the Arts, and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port to cap­i­talise on the up­com­ing cruise ship sea­son, which be­gins in No­vem­ber. He said cruise vis­i­tors ar­riv­ing by wa­ter taxi will have guid­ed tours of San Fer­nan­do’s no­table sites, cre­at­ing what he called “much-need­ed eco­nom­ic stim­u­la­tion for the city.”

Par­ris ad­dressed a re­cent de­bate about the suit­abil­i­ty of the foot­ball field at the re­cent­ly re­fur­bished Skin­ner Park, which un­der­went a $131 mil­lion up­grade. He said that the fa­cil­i­ty is al­ready be­ing ac­tive­ly used by pro­fes­sion­al, se­mi-pro­fes­sion­al, and de­vel­op­ment foot­ball teams week­ly. He al­so high­light­ed the coun­cil’s ef­forts to ad­dress long-stand­ing chal­lenges, in­clud­ing unau­tho­rised vend­ing around the High Street shop­ping dis­trict. While San Fer­nan­do Po­lice and Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice of­ten chase or re­move er­rant ven­dors, Par­ris said the SFCC will cre­ate des­ig­nat­ed eco­nom­ic zones through­out the city in a struc­tured man­ner.

Ac­cord­ing to Par­ris, the coun­cil’s goal, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi and San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning, is to pro­mote de­vel­op­ment across the city’s nine elec­toral dis­tricts. He boast­ed that each coun­cil­lor over­saw projects aimed at im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty of life in their com­mu­ni­ties.

“San Fer­nan­do can proud­ly re­port that 95 per cent of all de­vel­op­men­tal con­tracts across the city have been com­plet­ed.”

Par­ris said the SFCC al­so host­ed two ma­jor sport­ing events, part­ner­ing with the South­ern Games Com­mit­tee on what he de­scribed as “San Fer­nan­do’s Olympics” for track, field, and cy­cling. The city al­so worked with the South­ern Foot­ball League and the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion to launch the in­au­gur­al May­or’s Cup.

Dur­ing the ser­vice, Fa­ther Wayne Maugh­an en­cour­aged the SFCC to use the city an­niver­sary as a time for re­flec­tion on their work and to en­sure they are meet­ing the needs of San Fer­nan­do’s cit­i­zen­ry.

Maugh­an com­mend­ed the ded­i­ca­tion of those serv­ing in lo­cal gov­ern­ment, not­ing that “the ser­vice of oth­ers is the high­est call­ing to which one can ded­i­cate one’s life.” He urged the city to con­sid­er its role in ad­dress­ing glob­al chal­lenges that im­pact T&T’s econ­o­my, in­clud­ing is­sues of re­source scarci­ty and pop­u­la­tion shifts.

“We must con­sid­er our re­sponse to glob­al trends, such as grow­ing mi­grant pop­u­la­tions and their im­pact on our com­mu­ni­ties.”