For most of last week, Belmopan Mayor Khalid Belisle and Belmopan City Council dominated the news cycle after the story broke that they had sold off the Hilltop property that the Public Service Union had called home for almost 18 years.
By now, viewers know the two sides of this dispute very well. The PSU's Hilltop Headquarters was a property for which the union was granted a lease, which should have lasted 20 years. The Belmopan City Council is the owner of the property, and in 2017, they checked their records, noting that the PSU had long defaulted on lease payments. The PSU's counter-point to that is that since 2001, they've made payments of between $50,000 and $60,000, but the Council asserts that the PSU can only show records of only 4 payments, totaling $2,000 dollars.
So, the Council treated it as a lease in default, and they sold the land to a Chinese owned shell company for $400,000. This dispute was quickly gaining traction, putting the Barrow Administration on track to another union fight. So, the Prime Minister stepped in and today held a meeting with the leadership of the PSU, to find out if a resolution could be reached.
The press was at the Laing Building, where these talks happened, and when the principals exited, it was with the news that the sale of the land will be reversed, and that the PSU will get back their Hilltop Headquarters. Here's what the two sides had to say to us about their discussions on the topic:
So, the Prime Minister's intervention in this dispute possibly allows for an amicable resolution of the very first national controversy that the Belmopan Mayor finds himself in. We asked the PM, who has publicly applauded Belisle as a promising young politician in the UDP, about the Mayor's road to recovery from the fallout for this one. Here's how that conversation went.
The PSU will now hold membership meetings at the branch level to report back to their membership, on how today's discussions went with the Prime Minister. We'll keep following to see how the dispute continues to play out.
