Former Port-of-Spain mayor Louis Lee Sing says Woodbrook residents will never see residential real estate in the area again, and their neighbours who had sold to bars had done them a disservice, as had the city corporation before his tenure. He said there should have been stipulations that Woodbrook remained a residential community and businesses had to support its needs. Bars changed a community’s chemistry, he said, and if he were MP, he would give residents land tenancy.
He spoke at a meeting at St Crispin’s AC School, Ariapita Avenue, Woodbrook, part of his campaign to be nominated for the Port-of-Spain South candidacy by the PNM. Defending his defunct Woodbrook traffic plan, Lee Sing said a plan was necessary and those businesses which complained about it were mainly bars. He said he had strong reservations about having bars near schools and as MP would “do what I must to discourage courts from granting licences to drinking holes near schools.
“I have nothing against alcohol but I believe in standards and using successful models of other societies. “If we have lawlessness in T&T, it’s because we are allowing some to do as they please without the proper checks and balances.” Residents braved wet weather on Thursday evening to express their views at the meeting. Several took issue with city corporation moves. Lee Sing fielded similar complaints from Piccadilly Street residents at a meeting earlier this week.
Climaxing the Woodbrook meeting, he said: “One thing I heard you say to me more than anything else is: you want representation that will listen.” He said he recognised many were saying that if he became MP, they would need to know he would be accessible and there was the possibility to meet on the area’s challenges.
He said if he were chosen as candidate and successful in becoming MP, the town meeting would become institutionalised to treat with matters between elections and respond to constituents’ needs. He recalled, as mayor, holding 22 town meetings in 36 months. He said the only way for an MP to learn from constituents was to have mechanisms ensuring two-way communication.
As MP, he also said, he would hold town meetings on contentious legislation to get constituents’ views since the MP alone did not have all the answers.
Pledging to launch residential associations in South Port-of-Spain to meet annually on issues and build the area, he added he would do what was needed to get “people to understand they have to stop putting their hands out expecting someone will fill it and instead create the ability to earn for themselves.” He said the “handout syndrome” had caused people to “be on money rather than personal development.”
Lee Sing said Port-of-Spain South must “ask hard questions of our MPs, including why no government had fixed Licensing Authority, regulated casinos, built Pan Trinbago’s Trincity head office or a Sea Lots health facility.”