When we learned at the close of Municipal Elections 2006 that the Punta Gorda Town Council was split 5-2, with a United Democratic Party majority and a People’s United Party mayor, we suspected that it would be stormy sailing for that council. As we had expected, relations have been tense since, but this week things reached a head when the local UDP executive of Toledo East publicly called on one of its own to resign from both the council and the party, on allegations that he has been siding with his PUP brother.
On March 16, the UDP majority terminated the mayor’s wife, and last week they are alleged to have replaced the locks to the council building only days after the mayor had changed them. At the end of March, things got so volatile at the Council that the police were called to the premises to keep the peace. Most recently, in April, the Director of Local Government was called in to intervene.
If you ask the UDP side what has led to this rift between the councilor in question – Wilfredo “Wil” Galvez, P.G. councilor for economic and human development, tourism and culture, and his party colleagues, they will tell you that it is because he has abandoned UDP principles and sided with his PUP brother – Mayor Charles “Obeah” Galvez. If you ask the Galvez brothers, they will tell you that it has nothing to do with UDP principles, and everything to do with an internal struggle for political power.
By the simple majority rule, the UDP should be able to steer the ship independently of the mayor, and that, according to Mayor Galvez, is just what has been happening when he has had to leave town. In an interview with our newspaper on Tuesday, April 10, Galvez said that while he was out of office, deputy mayor, UDP member, Floyd Lino, wrote his wife a termination letter and, ironically, signed it Floyd Lino for the mayor. Galvez said that he did not authorize his wife’s termination, and furthermore that the decision to terminate her was taken behind his back.
Galvez’s wife, Mrs. Nadia Galvez, who was the assistant administrator, had been working with the Council for 12 years under both UDP and PUP administrations. Relatives told us that it was a UDP council that hired her, and felt it strange that the UDP’s on this new council, just a year into its term, would not want her there any more.
When we spoke with Lino today, he had no apologies for Nadia Galvez’s termination. He said that last September she was paid a pension of $21,000, but the mayor continued to insist that he would keep her on-board.
Mayor Galvez told us that the UDP councilors are contending that his wife has been paid her gratuity for her years of service and that she had agreed to resign, but she was given a new 2-year contract and was only 9 and a half months into that contract when she was terminated. Galvez said that on the day his wife was fired, on March 16, he was in Belize City on official council business, trying to get sponsorship for the town’s Easter Fest.
He contends that the decisions to terminate his wife and to add a new alternate signatory to the bank account, were taken at the March 15 meeting he claims was illegally held in his absence. According to Galvez, adding a third signatory would mean that the other two (who are UDP members) could sign cheques without him, when he, as the CEO of the council, is responsible for its finances.
Galvez said that he later suspended the administrator who had sent the letter to the Belize Bank requesting the addition of the new signatory, because, he contends, his approval was required for the change. However, the administrator wrote Galvez back, challenging the suspension, and his petition letter, according to Galvez, was supported by the 4 UDP councilors, Wil Galvez excluded.
Wil Galvez has been a UDP for 15 years, and a member of the council for just over a year, and with his dissenting stance of some of these issues, his local party executives want him out. The UDP’s Toledo East Committee issued a press release on Tuesday, April 3, 2007, making that clear.
However, Galvez told Amandala this evening that he will not, for any person on “the so-called Toledo East executive,” resign from the Council, and will only resign from the UDP if he gets an official correspondence from the party from “the competent authorities,” asking him to do so. Galvez also told us that this is his last public statement on this “unfortunate and sorry event,” because he does not wish to get into a back and forth with his accusers.
The UDP release says, “The position taken by Wil Galvez in support of his brother, the mayor, on issues regarding project financing, project reports, contracts and employee staffing which adversely impact on the performance of the Punta Gorda Town Council are in direct contravention of the UDP’s efforts to provide good governance to all Belizeans.”
Deputy Mayor Floyd Lino said that the call for Galvez’s resignation came after a letter he wrote to Mose and Kalilah of the KREM WUB Morning Vibes, appeared in the April 1, 2007, edition of the PUP’s newspaper, The Belize Times. He questioned why the letter appeared in the PUP newspaper rather than the independent newspapers.
That letter, forwarded to the KREM WUB on March 16, expressed a number of concerns, which Wil Galvez asked to be aired on the morning show.
The first he raised was the decision by UDP councilors to call a meeting on March 15 without the mayor. On March 14 and 15, the mayor reportedly had official business in Belmopan, so via a notice, he had pushed back the meeting one week, when he would have been in office. But the meeting was still held while the mayor was absent. Only four UDP’s, excluding Wil Galvez, attended the meeting, where some key decisions were reportedly taken – including the termination of the mayor’s wife.
Wil Galvez’s letter also spoke of a $16,000 fee that he said was paid for a financial consultancy report that had yet to be tabled at a council meeting, and the losses in revenues he claimed were caused by the unilateral dismissal of garbage fee collectors and the suspension of the program.
When we spoke with him today, Lino contended that the allegations in the letter are “inaccurate” and that Galvez’s actions are “contrary to party policy.”
Lino said that the UDP Toledo East press release was issued after the local executive, led by standard bearer, Eden Martinez, met to discuss the issue. We were unable to reach Martinez subsequently for comment.
Lino told Amandala that the rift between Councilor Wil Galvez and the other UDP’s in the P.G. Town Council began after their monthly meeting in February, when Lino says he was re-elected to serve a second one-year term.
He claims that Wil Galvez wanted his position, and his party opposed that because his brother, Charles, is already the mayor. Lino said that this would have meant that there would be three members of the Galvez family – the mayor, his wife and the councilor, holding key positions in the council.
We understand from other council members, however, that there was a previous agreement that the deputy mayor seat would have been rotated every year so that other councilors would get the opportunity to serve in the post. One source told us that only two of the remaining 6 councilors had expressed uncertainty or doubts about their ability to fill the seat.
The Director of Local Government, Eugene Palacio, has reportedly been trying to mediate the dispute between the opposing members of the Council. We were also unable to reach him for his input.
The parties both confirm that Palacio visited P.G. on Monday, April 2, and again on Thursday, April 5, to try to get them to come to a truce. At the last meeting, a memorandum of understanding was drafted, and according to Lino, they are due to meet with Palacio again on April 17 to try to bring the talks to a close, and seal their peace accord.
But things might take a new turn before then. Lino reports that the Toledo East executive of the UDP will meet again shortly to further discuss Wil Galvez’s case.
(Wil Galvez is also the director of operations for TIDE – the Toledo Institute for Development and the Environment, in Punta Gorda.)