And with Skeen set to share the revenue from these machines, likely in perpetuity, it stands to reason that the public should have questions about how he and the owner of the other company in question came to be considered for such a potentially lucrative opportunity.
We'll get to that in a minute but first, we asked him about the details of his contract and the figure he was paid for the machinery's initial installation:
Cherisse Halsall
"Sir let's talk some specifics of your contract, would you be willing to share how much you were paid to install these machines in that location?"
Marlon Skeen - Owner
"Yes, zero. In fact it's less than zero, it's in the minus. The city has not paid or contributed not even a dollar to those machines, they are totally completely owned by myself and my wife. It's our business, its our company, it's not a shared en devour. The arrange is that we provide everything to do with the parking meters, everything, it is not costing the city a dime."
Cherisse Halsall
"So now, who collects the revenue?"
Marlon Skeen
"It's a shared revenue."
Cherisse Halsall
"Was there a tendering process for who would?"
Marlon Skeen
"I'm glad that you brought that up. The short answer is no but I have been after these parking meters for the past 10 years and I'm not a political person, in fact I thumb my nose at both parties years ago when I ran for mayor in Belmopan and I ran independent, so in no way shape or form I'm a political person and both parties are very cautious of me, so I don't certainly get any type of preference, I'm a business man and what I do is from a point of business but from years ago I've been after these meters, I do a lot of business in Mexico City and these meters are very prevalent in Mexico City. I've been lobbying for these things and I brought in engineers from Mexico, I brought in engineers from France that is where my parking meters are from, they are not these old looking antiquated yellow looking things, mines are the modern device that is used globally. New York City just signed a contract with the same company for 13,000 parking meters for New York City, so there phasing out all these old antiquated ones and putting in the exact same meters that I have but I have been lobbying for that for years and I did these analysis of all the districts, brought these engineers and we looked at whether it was a viable project or not and the answer was yes. So, I've been meeting with the mayor association for years and years and finally it happened but the other group got involved, you tell me."
Cherisse Halsall
"Also, if your machine so good, sir why didn't they just let you do the whole thing?"
Marlon Skeen
"You just said it, political influence."
We are told the company responsible for the parking meters on Albert Street - "Parking Solutions" may have a political connection - and we'll be investigating.
