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“[…] Seek feedback about the performance of your councillors, ask the right questions and most of all ensure that people feel safe to share their views. Do not only focus on councillors and the Corporation’s Facebook pages as community engagement. Getting feedback allows for lateral and divergent views to enhance the celebrations.
“[…] I suggest that as a well-established business titan in Arima, you can use your good office to engage corporate Arima to engage in conventional fundraisers, given your access to the needed resources…”
The following Letter to the Editor, which suggests how Arima Mayor Balliram Maharaj could improve Arima Borough Day celebrations, was submitted to Wired868 by Jairzinho Rigsby, a former UNC local government election candidate and ex-part-time UWI economics lecturer from Dundee Village, Arima:
As a proud son of Arima, I would like to respond to Newsday’s article dated Monday 11 August 2025, written by Janelle De Souza titled: Arima Mayor: Insufficient funds for Borough Day festivities.
When I read this article, I was rather taken aback by the responses proffered by Mayor Balliram Maharaj by firstly stating there was a lack of funds, then alluring to the fact that the military parade costs $250,000.00 to organize and credit is not available to them.
The rest of his comments in the article, with all due respect to Your Worship, was just rambling about Arima’s nostalgia—lacking any empirical evidence, or methodological plan to re-start Arima’s ascension to being a smart city.
Photo: Annalicia Caruth/ Wired868.
As customary, I seek your space so I can offer some recommendations to his Worship Alderman Balliram Maharaj to reverse Arima’s ill-fated Borough Day celebrations going forward.
Firstly, on your municipal website your mission statement utilizes the words: partnerships with all stakeholders.
Instead of letting persons put their names down for appointments which in my view is non-productive. I suggest you personally engage along with your councillors and MP Pennelope Beckles in each of the seven electorial districts via town hall meetings every quarter.
Seek feedback about the performance of your councillors, ask the right questions and most of all ensure that people feel safe to share their views. Do not only focus on councillors and the Corporation’s Facebook pages as community engagement. Getting feedback allows for lateral and divergent views to enhance the celebrations.
Secondly, with all due respect Your Worship, the average Arimian knows that it is not now the ABC has cash flow issues—but what have the PNM controlled corporation done about it?
The Town Hall has been closed for all these years, so why has the Corporation engaged in utilizing credit when the cash flow cannot allow such credit?
In my humble opinion I consider this behavior to be fiscally irresponsible. I suggest that as a well-established business titan in Arima, you can use your good office to engage corporate Arima to engage in conventional fundraisers, given your access to the needed resources.
This revenue can go towards Borough Day celebrations thus improving cash flow for the celebrations, which you know is a yearly celebration. It will create an avenue to allow the corporations workers to earn extra income.
Just putting your hand in the air and complaining does not auger well for the ABC brand. This recommendation can also be extended to the seven councillors as well. Your Worship, you must lead from the front!
(via Newsday.)
With respect to the Borough Day celebrations, the usual model of celebrations has lost its impact on the people of Arima. I want to suggest that at every Borough Day you utilize different themes honouring our sporting, cultural, social and academic heroes.
For example, to honour our sporting heroes one year, you could, as a tribute, keep an athletic sporting event for all the primary and secondary schools both at the Velodrome and Larry Gomes stadia during the Borough Celebrations week.
You can then close the celebrations on the weekend by using the usual carnival-styled celebrations. This can be done for our cultural, social and academic heroes as well.
Photo: IPL.
I am sure that $250,000.00 well managed could achieve this venture. It’s about creative, lateral and divergent thinking. We have gone way beyond the concept of out of the box thinking.
Another avenue the ABC could look to generate revenue for the Borough Day celebrations is by prioritizing economic development. To Your Worship I would like to suggest that the street vendors could be relocated to the area within the circumference of the Velodrome—that is the fencing to the wall where the cars park on the inside—at a very subsidized cost.
This initiative will involve open, respected and transparent dialogue with the vendors. This will improve Borough Day celebrations revenue once it is marketed properly.
Photo: Shaun Rambaran.
Eventually, with improvements and constant support from the MP and ABC, this initiative can become a sustainable economic rent for the ABC through youth entrepreneurship.
Further funding for the Borough Day celebrations involves the accessing of international grants that are designed to enhance tourist attractions. This can be done by setting up a dedicated grant proposal committee.
Finally, complimentary assets are also critical to attract donors. Public/private partnerships with NGOs and university final year engineering students can help with recycle bottles and tyres to pave secondary roads as pilot projects and drain/bridge rehabilitation respectively. (Triple Helix Model of Innovation.)
Arima North won 2-0.
Photo: Nicholas Bhajan/ Wired868.
In closing, the ABC under your leadership must adopt an agile community engagement strategy in order to respond to the community’s evolving landscape. Hence engaging feedback must be timely and genuine.
And most of all: Stop the Party Politics! Think Arima!
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