SAN IGNACIO/SANTA ELENA, Cayo District, Wed. Aug 4, 2021– A move by the United Democratic Party to hold a press conference to protest the terminations of persons employed by the San Ignacio/Santa Elena Town Council caused a spotlight to be shone on a huge rift within that council that has existed ever since voters in that municipality elected five PUP councilors to a town board headed by longtime UDP mayor, Earl Trapp, who was also elected in the the municipal elections last March. Many believe that the discord within such a divided council was inevitable and was possibly simmering for a while, but a recent announcement by Mayor Trapp that he would be co-hosting a press conference with UDP leader, Hon. Patrick Faber at the San Ignacio/Santa Elena Town Hall on Tuesday caused those tensions to flare up in a very public way.
In response to Trapp’s announcement, the PUP members of the town council promptly sent Trapp a letter which demanded that he change the venue of his conference or be exposed for his “political agenda and lack of reason to proceed with caution”. After receiving the letter signed by all five PUP councilors, the mayor announced a postponement of the press conference and indicated that he would later use his platform to state his position on what he classified as party politics being played by the PUP at the town hall— which he said was evidenced in the termination of twenty employees who Trapp says are being let go to create vacancies at the council for PUP supporters.
During a press conference which took place at the San Ignacio Resort Hotel on Wednesday, Mayor Trapp, who was joined at the conference by Hon. Patrick Faber and attorney Orson Elrington, said that he received a petition from the PUP members of the council who sought to terminate twenty employees, a decision which he views as both immoral and illegal.
“I cannot and will not participate in any process which proposes any form of illegality and any course of action against any employees of this council that is contrary to the Belize Labour Laws, and I am making it explicably clear, I will not entertain such actions. A move to fire members of staff to make way for their loyalists is political, petty, and vindictive. As a responsible council, we should be thinking outside the box. We must be creative and innovative in creating more economic opportunities for our people,” Trapp went on to say.
Mayor Trapp further mentioned that one of the PUP councilors even suggested firing fifty percent of the staff. The mayor said that, in contrast to what has taken place in surrounding municipalities, where members of the PUP occupy all municipal seats and have engaged in numerous terminations, he will not stand by and watch his staff suffer the same fate.
UDP leader Patrick Faber echoed those sentiments and went on to remark that the PUP councilors feel that they do not have to respect the mayor due to the outcome of the general and municipal elections, in which their party enjoyed a historic victory. He then took the opportunity to express the party’s solidarity with Trapp:
“When it is that the PUP won so convincingly in the last municipal elections across the country, they feel like they can disregard you, they feel like they can walk over you, they feel like they can simply dismiss your efforts, and so we today place on record our solidarity with you. And we say to the workers that this UDP mayor has your back, and he is going to fight, you’ve heard him say. And as long as he is there to fight, the entire United Democratic Party, a mass party across this country, will have his back in having your back to ensure that the kind of victimization that we’ve seen happen at the hospital and in other areas in this town, the Ministry of Works and other areas, will not be something that happens at your town council here,” he said.
Attorney Elrington, who since last year has been taking wrongful termination cases to court on behalf of persons let go by the new PUP administration, also had the opportunity to speak. He stated that while he is uncertain of the exact number of persons who have been terminated, his firm has been contracted by at least 400 disgruntled former employees of central government, the municipalities, and the statutory bodies.
Mayor Trapp, while making it clear for the record that he is prepared to “continue the war for the next two and a half years,” also expressed his belief during the press conference that the way forward is for the San Ignacio/Santa Elena Town Council to unite and work together. This, he believes, will first require his councilors to change and do better for their municipality.