Ali­cia Llanos

There is no val­ue in hav­ing a city pa­rade on a Sun­day. This is why Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing has cho­sen to­day to cel­e­brate City Day, rather than on the week­end. In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Lee Sing said the rea­son he chose to hold the City Day pa­rade to­day was sim­ply that there would be no one in the city on Sun­day. Lee Sing said, "What is the val­ue of a pa­rade on Sun­day when the on­ly peo­ple around to see it are the street dwellers." He said the city's na­ture is one where peo­ple come in­to it dur­ing the day and leave in the evening dur­ing the week. With busi­ness­es closed on Sun­day there would be no one in the city to wit­ness the pa­rade.

Lee Sing said as there would be no par­tic­i­pants on the week­end, to­day was an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the city to demon­strate what it does, "giv­en its lim­it­ed bud­get." Re­gard­ing con­cerns raised about the cel­e­bra­tions dis­rupt­ing traf­fic, Lee Sing said with pub­lished pa­rade routes in the dai­ly news­pa­pers, he did not ex­pect any se­ri­ous traf­fic. He said traf­fic re­stric­tions would be in ef­fect, but ad­e­quate per­son­nel would be on the road to as­sist dri­vers and re­duce traf­fic.

Con­cern­ing crit­i­cism he had for hav­ing the cel­e­bra­tion dur­ing the week, the may­or said, "Any­thing you do in this coun­try, there will be peo­ple who will tell you it's wrong." The pa­rade is set to com­mence at 11.30 am at Memo­r­i­al Park, Port-of-Spain and end at Adam Smith Square, Wood­brook. The pa­rade will fea­ture a dis­play of floats demon­strat­ing the ser­vices of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion. Mil­i­tary and para-mil­i­tary groups will al­so be tak­ing part.

The pa­rade route

The pa­rade starts at Memo­r­i­al Park pro­ceed­ing south on Fred­er­ick Street, turn­ing right in­to Hart Street, right again in­to Aber­crom­by Street, left along Duke Street, right in­to Vic­to­ria Square West, left in­to Ari­api­ta Av­enue to be dis­missed at Adam Smith Square.