Without much fanfare, Belize City’s Battlefield Park has undergone a remarkable transformation. But there were no speech giving elected representatives from City Hall. There were no environmentalists marching around the park with signs crying out to save our city’s historic trees. There were only the workers of the Belize City Council cutting down the beautiful trees in a historic part of downtown Belize City, against the backdrop of a lone City Councilor, Wayne Usher, who was explaining away quite an inexplicable act of his Council’s shortsightedness.
When it comes to the reason why the de-beautification of the park was done, it appears almost as desperate duplicity: to move the street vendors from off Albert Street. But no one is complaining too loudly that the last projected completion date for the resurfacing of Albert and Regent Streets is now days behind the latest schedule when the City Council and the Ministry of Works, along with the private contractors, were to complete them. City residents just want to see the job done and get over with it. No more excuses: just finish the job that was started almost one year now.
Not so long ago, Belize City Engineer, Robert Allen, was making a move to put the street vendors inside the park on a temporary basis so that the work of paving the street could get underway. He ended up getting two weeks suspension, without pay, from Mayor Zenaida Moya. Perhaps he did not know about the plans to cut down the trees and build about two dozen booths, from which the vendors, who pay the city council fifty dollars per month is going to work.
Councilor Wayne Usher, who has responsibility for public health, sanitation, environment and HIV AIDS, told Amandala on Tuesday evening that the homeless who populate the park are going to be removed and the street vendors will be located in the park. The city is building twenty-two booths. And that is why, according to Usher, that the council had to “limb” the trees, to make way for the food vendors. Usher said that the vendors will be put in the park on a temporary basis.
It did not matter to the council that a Flamboyant tree or a Mayflower tree take in excess of ten years to mature, and that no amount of food vendors’ revenue that the City Council collects can replace the natural beauty that came with these trees.
Councilor Usher pointed to the fact that bird droppings and food don’t go together very well. Well, they don’t. But who says that it is written in stone that the vendors must be placed inside Battlefield Park?
Many people who were going home from work when the trees were being “limbed,” expressed shock and outrage at the City Council for doing that. Their sentiments are best summed up in the words of young Sharon Pitts from the Youth Advocacy Movement, “It was a bogus idea to cut down the trees.”