New­ly in­stalled Port-of-Spain May­or, 38-year-old Chin­ua Al­leyne, has pledged to in­ject youth in­to the op­er­a­tions of the City Cor­po­ra­tion, all aimed at im­prov­ing the na­tion’s cap­i­tal.

Dur­ing his maid­en ad­dress at Port-of-Spain City Hall on Wednes­day, Al­leyne ac­knowl­edged the task ahead and what was nec­es­sary to meet ob­jec­tives iden­ti­fied by the cor­po­ra­tion’s coun­cil.

“We will con­tin­ue the works start­ed more than two cen­turies ago to pos­i­tive­ly im­pact the lives the peo­ple of Port-of-Spain, that work will be led by what is quite like­ly the youngest May­or and Deputy May­or com­bi­na­tion ever to lead the cap­i­tal city,” he said.

Al­leyne and 36-year-old Deputy May­or Abena Hart­ley were sworn in af­ter be­ing elect­ed un­op­posed. Al­so tak­ing their oath of of­fice as al­der­men were Wade Cok­er, Bri­an Lewis, who served as the for­mer pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee, and Dr Kong­shiek Achong Low.

Al­leyne al­so recog­nised and ap­plaud­ed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for en­dors­ing the na­tion’s youth and cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in lead­er­ship.

“This de­ci­sion of our po­lit­i­cal leader and Prime Min­is­ter to el­e­vate two young peo­ple to the high­est of­fice at the lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el in the cap­i­tal city is a mes­sage to all young peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go that you have a home in the PNM,” Al­leyne said.

The May­or, who is al­so the nephew of for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to praise the role of his moth­er, pae­di­a­tri­cian Dr Petronel­la Al­leyne for steer­ing him in the right di­rec­tion.

“I would like to thank my moth­er, a woman who like so many oth­er moth­ers in Port-of-Spain faced chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances in qui­et dig­ni­ty and lived a life to see bet­ter­ment of her chil­dren. It is my sin­gle hope that as I em­bark on this jour­ney, I can make you and the peo­ple of Port-of-Spain proud,” he said.

Al­leyne said he was aware of the chal­lenges his coun­cil would face and iden­ti­fied an ac­tion plan that was tai­lored to over­com­ing the ob­sta­cles.

“As May­or some of my pri­or­i­ties that will form part of our agen­da in­clude dri­ving the im­ple­men­ta­tion of lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form in Port-of-Spain as it is rolled out through­out Trinidad, re­view­ing and re­con­sid­er­ing the ac­com­mo­da­tions re­quired to staff the cor­po­ra­tion, ad­dress­ing the is­sue of lit­ter­ing and in­dis­crim­i­nate dump­ing and im­prov­ing san­i­ta­tion in the city, re­view­ing our re­sources and em­bark­ing up­on an ag­gres­sive road re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gramme, (and) en­gag­ing with cen­tral Gov­ern­ment in sup­port to de­vel­op an as­sess­ment cen­tre and cre­ate leg­isla­tive arrange­ments to prop­er­ly tend to the home­less in the city,” said Al­leyne.

Mean­while, for­mer May­or Joel Mar­tinez, while re­flect­ing on his six-and-a-half-year tenure, stat­ed that it was with “both charm and grace I bid you farewell”.

Mar­tinez said his coun­cil was able to deep­en re­la­tions with oth­er na­tions and de­vel­op so­cio-eco­nom­ic plans for the city.

“It was al­ways coun­cil’s vi­sion for Port-of-Spain as one of ex­pan­sion and re­new­al, to see the city stretch­ing east­ward and south­ward. Pedes­tri­an­is­ing Char­lotte Street will breathe new life in east Port-of-Spain fos­ter­ing growth and vi­bran­cy for the peo­ple of this pro­gres­sive city,” he said.