KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Forty years af­ter the town of Point Fortin was up­grad­ed to bor­ough sta­tus, Al­der­man Saleema Thomas is now chang­ing the sta­tus quo as the first woman to serve as may­or of T&T’s cul­tur­al cap­i­tal.

Fol­low­ing a brief cer­e­mo­ny at the Point Fortin Town Hall in Ma­haica yes­ter­day, Thomas donned her may­oral chain and got down to busi­ness, chair­ing her first statu­to­ry meet­ing.

As the for­mer deputy may­or, she suc­ceed­ed for­mer may­or Kennedy Richards Jr, who won the Point Fortin seat for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment in the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. Speak­ing to re­porters in cham­bers, Thomas said she hopes the ho­n­our of be­ing the first woman to gov­ern the bor­ough’s af­fairs will in­spire oth­er young women to as­pire to lead­er­ship roles.

“I feel hum­bled and ho­n­oured for the op­por­tu­ni­ty. It is a his­toric mo­ment for the peo­ple of Point Fortin, be­ing the first fe­male may­or. It gives our young women the in­spi­ra­tion and that em­pow­er­ment to know that they too can as­pire, one day, to be­come may­or, prime min­is­ter, pres­i­dent or what­ev­er they as­pire them­selves to be,” Thomas said.

Thomas said she feels no pres­sure ei­ther, as this is her sec­ond term in the coun­cil, adding she has not ex­pe­ri­enced any prob­lems with her col­leagues and burgess­es up to now. She al­so plans to con­tin­ue the projects start­ed by the coun­cil led by Richards. How­ev­er, she en­vi­sions the bor­ough di­ver­si­fy­ing its sub-econ­o­my and ex­plor­ing ar­eas like agri­cul­ture and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

“I en­vi­sion Point Fortin, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing these try­ing times, that we look to­wards agri­cul­ture, we look to­ward di­ver­si­fy­ing and en­cour­ag­ing our burgess­es to be­come more self-re­liant. As the Prime Min­is­ter once said, ‘eat what you grow’,” she said.

“We will want to en­cour­age more home gar­den­ing. It is a project the coun­cil pre­vi­ous­ly want­ed to em­bark on, but due to COVID, we had to stop. So def­i­nite­ly, un­der my tenure, I would want to pur­sue that project so we can en­cour­age our burgess­es to eat what they grow.”

Thomas said while it is good for young peo­ple to go to school and study law, med­i­cine and en­gi­neer­ing, they should not lim­it their skill-set. She is en­cour­aged them to start their own busi­ness­es, adding the cor­po­ra­tion will sup­port them by util­is­ing the var­i­ous gov­ern­ment fa­cil­i­ties.

The coun­cil will al­so work on re­nam­ing the mar­ket square the John Cu­pid Mar­ket Square in ho­n­our of the man who start­ed the ac­claimed Eman­ci­pa­tion Day fes­tiv­i­ties in the bor­ough.

There will al­so be an up­grade of the Vic­tor Chin Kit Park and the round­abouts.

The 35-year-old Hu­man Re­source and Mar­ket­ing grad­u­ate is a moth­er to two chil­dren, ages nine and five. Boast­ing of a young coun­cil with in­no­v­a­tive minds, she said their work to up­lift the bor­ough can one day see it el­e­vat­ed to city sta­tus.

While COVID-19 is tak­ing a toll on the state’s re­sources, Thomas said the cor­po­ra­tion will seek part­ner­ships with cor­po­rate cit­i­zens. She said the cor­po­ra­tion will al­so en­sure the Gov­ern­ment’s COVID-19 mea­sures are fol­lowed, and she ad­vised every­one to stay in­formed of all the mea­sures in place for their safe­ty.

“We can­not take our health and our fam­i­ly’s health for grant­ed. If you do not have to be out, it is my ad­vice that you stay home and not try to add to the num­bers. Those who have to go out, go, do what you have to do. Do it safe­ly, fol­low the mea­sures, prac­tice your so­cial dis­tanc­ing, wear your mask, wash your hands, sani­tise be­fore and af­ter so that when you go back home to your fam­i­lies, you do not car­ry back the dis­ease.”

The po­si­tion of deputy may­or re­mains open. When Richards took up his Par­lia­men­tary role, he re­signed as may­or and coun­cil­lor for the elec­toral dis­trict of Hol­ly­wood. It trig­gered a by-elec­tion that is due with­in the next three months. Thomas said when the elec­torate elects a new coun­cil­lor, the coun­cil will vote for a new deputy may­or.