Bernard Wagner, he's the Belize City mayor who, thanks to Covid found himself at the helm of what some have referred to as a lame-duck council, one that due to financial constraints finds itself merely a placeholder.
Now, given the circumstances, some might call that classification unfair, among them the Mayor who balked when he heard it today.
We asked him for his re-cap of 2021 and what he feels they've been able to accomplish, despite all the pandemic time challenges.
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
"The big overarching picture has always been the impact of covid and so while you have your plan, your vision - each year you have your goals, your objective, you have short term, you have long term, but sometimes things happen and covid is a event nobody foresee that this would have come and really disrupt not only my organization, it disrupted your organization, it disrupted channel 7. I believe channel 7 may have had to reduce wages along with many other companies across the country had to reduce wages and so when you reduce wages and you don't collect the revenues that you had plan on your short term and long-term plan, then you have lesser resources to achieve what you set out to achieve and that is the single most factor that we have dealt with. The one thing that I will continue to maintain that if any other council and Jules refer to us a lame duck council, but one thing we have never done is being unable to pay our workers. Any other council, any of the previous council under the UDP would have had to lay off. Many times, would have found themselves without the capacity or without the resource to pay their workers. We never faltered in that area and that is one reason what I am proud; being about my people, being about my staff."
