Perched on the bank of what is known to­day as the Ari­ma Riv­er, the east­ern bor­ough re­ceived its name from an Amerindi­an word which means wa­ter. How­ev­er, to­day, a sim­ple thing like tak­ing a bath is now con­sid­ered a lux­u­ry for some Ari­ma res­i­dents who have been suf­fer­ing for the es­sen­tial com­mod­i­ty.

The wa­ter cri­sis has been af­fect­ing more than 30,000 burgess­es through­out the sev­en elec­toral dis­tricts of Ari­ma—Ari­ma Cen­tral, Ari­ma North­east, Ari­ma West/O'Meara, Cal­vary, Mal­abar North, Mal­abar South, and Tumpuna.

Res­i­dents cit­ed the lack of wa­ter; poor drainage; a mos­qui­to and ro­dent in­fes­ta­tion; and the gen­er­al ab­sence of coun­cil­lors as the ma­jor prob­lems plagu­ing the elec­toral dis­tricts.

Ap­peal­ing to their re­spec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tives to ad­dress oth­er press­ing is­sues such as the high crime and un­em­ploy­ment rates, res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers said they have had enough and are now de­mand­ing the elect­ed of­fi­cers act im­me­di­ate­ly.

Con­trolled by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), the cor­po­ra­tion is head­ed by May­or Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian who has a green vi­sion for the bor­ough.

In the 2016 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions ( LGE), the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion record­ed 28,960 vot­ers in the Ari­ma dis­trict, of which on­ly 9,230 elec­tors cast their votes. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has promised this year’s LGE which is due by No­vem­ber, will take place as sched­uled.

Both the PNM and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) screened nom­i­nees for the Ari­ma Cor­po­ra­tion last month.

Res­i­dents com­plain

MAL­ABAR NORTH

At All Stars Cres­cent in Mal­abar North, Ste­fan Her­nan­dez point­ed to the over­grown grass in his neigh­bour's back­yard as he said the mos­qui­toes were un­bear­able and there was a rat in­fes­ta­tion.

Her­nan­dez, a car-wash own­er said, “Al­though I re­port­ed it to the bor­ough, no one is ever at home when of­fi­cers come to do a site vis­it. Be­sides the mos­qui­toes, the rats from the near­by fac­to­ry will run across so they will use my yard as a thor­ough­fare.”

Con­firm­ing his three-year-old son was hav­ing a hard time with the mos­qui­toes, Her­nan­dez who has been liv­ing there for over 20 years, added, “When­ev­er it rains, the slush from the fac­to­ry ends up clos­est to us so when­ev­er rain falls, this whole area smells.”

He said he has been com­plain­ing since the last gen­er­al elec­tion. “I don’t know what they did and on­ly now when the rain falls heav­i­ly we get the scent, but it is en­cour­ag­ing the mos­qui­toes.”

He said the res­i­dents had pre­vi­ous­ly spo­ken to coun­cil­lor Linette Ram­cha­ran who had ad­dressed the is­sue of the stench. But he said more needs to be done now to ad­dress the is­sues.

Mean­while, res­i­dents at Stephen Trace off Subero Street raised con­cerns about crime in the dis­trict.

One busi­ness­man said, “We are vul­ner­a­ble here.”

Claim­ing busi­ness had de­clined by as much as 40 per cent in the last year, the own­er who re­quest­ed his name not be used, at­trib­uted this to sev­er­al fac­tors in­clud­ing the eco­nom­ic down­turn and the de­cline in the stan­dard of liv­ing.

He said, “We want to see more po­lice pa­trols in the area be­cause every day you hear things are hap­pen­ing all over. I am not a limer so I don’t be out, but I have had to cur­tail fish­ing ex­pe­di­tions as it is not safe out in the sea ei­ther.”

Liv­ing there for close to 40 years, one man said af­ter be­ing robbed years ago, he was forced to in­stall CCTV cam­eras around his prop­er­ty to en­sure the safe­ty of his fam­i­ly.

Ron­nie Khan, 36, of North Stars Av­enue, said, “We al­ways get­ting prob­lems for wa­ter. Days go­ing by and we not get­ting any wa­ter, so it’s hard to sur­vive.”

Ad­mit­ting crime was a ma­jor con­cern, he said it was not some­thing that any sin­gle ad­min­is­tra­tion could solve. Many oth­er res­i­dents raised sim­i­lar is­sues.

May­or re­sponds:

Re­spond­ing to the rash of con­cerns, Mal­abar North Coun­cil­lor Linette Ram­cha­ran said even though there was spray­ing op­er­a­tions by the bor­ough to elim­i­nate mos­qui­toes, home­own­ers al­so had to take per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and clean their premis­es as well.

She said, “We have been fight­ing this for years, it is not on­ly now.”

Claim­ing that fund­ing was an is­sue, she echoed pre­vi­ous con­cerns that the wa­ter sit­u­a­tion had reached a cri­sis point where a show­er was now be­ing re­ferred to as a “lux­u­ry.”

How­ev­er, she said more needs to be done to rec­ti­fy what can on­ly be de­scribed as a peren­ni­al is­sue.

In­di­cat­ing she has been fac­ing chal­lenges to en­sure va­cant lots are cleaned by ab­sen­tee own­ers, Ram­cha­ran said at the last statu­to­ry meet­ing, a mo­tion was passed to have own­ers billed for the cost of cut­ting the lots and al­so ab­sorb the ad­min­is­tra­tive costs at­tached.

Hop­ing to re­turn for a sec­ond term, Ram­cha­ran said crime was an is­sue be­cause, “Young peo­ple pre­fer the eas­i­er, faster, quick­er way to get mon­ey.”

She said de­spite the nu­mer­ous so­cial pro­grammes be­ing of­fered by the Gov­ern­ment where peo­ple could earn a stipend whilst learn­ing a skill or trade, crime re­mained a per­son­al choice and sad­ly, not all peo­ple made the right one.

ARI­MA WEST/O’MEARA

At Fac­to­ry Road, Print­eryville in Ari­ma West/O’Meara, an el­der­ly woman cried, “Every time it rains heav­i­ly, my whole house floods.”

Re­fus­ing to give her name, the moth­er and grand­moth­er who has lived there for the past 35 years said, “When it rains and the wa­ter comes down in the drain, it can­not hold the vol­ume of wa­ter and it comes gush­ing in­to my yard.” She said the in­fra­struc­ture was in­ad­e­quate to cater to the needs of the chang­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

Al­so echo­ing the call for a reg­u­lar sup­ply of wa­ter, the woman said, “Right now we have no wa­ter and we can’t do any­thing. It is dif­fi­cult to wash or cook or clean be­cause you need wa­ter for all these things.”

Lend­ing a hand to her neigh­bour who was busy clean­ing her yard, both women claimed to be dis­il­lu­sioned by the pol­i­tics. “From one gov­ern­ment to the next, it is the same. No­body does any­thing for us here.”

Mean­while, Cur­lene Mod­este lament­ed the lack of ed­u­ca­tion­al and train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for youth in the area.

Res­i­dent in the com­mu­ni­ty for more than 35 years, Mod­este called for some­thing more to be done to as­sist the sec­ondary school stu­dents who have lit­tle to no hope of im­prov­ing their cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.

In­di­cat­ing she was not af­fect­ed by flood­ing or oth­er so­cial ills, Mod­este’s on­ly con­cern is en­sur­ing the youth have a fu­ture even if they drop out of school.

Coun­cil­lor re­sponds:

Ad­mit­ting the wa­ter cri­sis was not an iso­lat­ed oc­cur­rence but rather a na­tion­al is­sue, Ari­ma West/O’Meara Coun­cil­lor An­tho­ny Davis said, “There is a lit­tle bit of wa­ter in the dams and they have been load shed­ding.

Some ar­eas will get to­day, some will get to­mor­row. Peo­ple have to un­der­stand there isn’t suf­fi­cient rain to fill the dams and that is why we have a wa­ter prob­lem.”

Re­it­er­at­ing that coun­cil­lors do not deal with un­em­ploy­ment as that was not part of their port­fo­lio, he em­pha­sised, “We don’t hire peo­ple.”

He crit­i­cised some who claimed they were un­able to se­cure work. “Peo­ple want to work in the bor­ough…come to work eight o’clock and fin­ish nine o’clock or come six and fin­ish sev­en. They don’t want to work an eight-hour job like we are ac­cus­tomed to.”

On the is­sue of crime, he said it was a re­peat­ed cry by pen­sion­ers who were tar­gets of un­scrupu­lous youths dur­ing the month-end pe­ri­od.

How­ev­er, Davis said ad­di­tion­al po­lice of­fi­cers had been as­signed to the bor­ough and with an­oth­er 25 slat­ed to be added in the com­ing weeks, it should be a de­ter­rent.

Ques­tioned about a bar­ri­er erect­ed along Fac­to­ry Road to pre­vent mo­torists from ac­cess­ing the road­way which leads off the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way, Davis con­firmed it was an is­sue the may­or was cur­rent­ly look­ing in­to.

He said, “That was in­stalled by Na­tion­al Can­ners and has noth­ing to do with us.”

Pro­vid­ing some con­text, he said roads could not be con­struct­ed with­out the per­mis­sion of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port and ef­forts were un­der­way to de­ter­mine if per­mis­sion had ever been grant­ed for that road to be built and sim­i­lar­ly, for the bar­ri­er to be in­stalled which was a re­cent de­vel­op­ment.

His list of ac­com­plish­ments in­cludes in­fra­struc­tur­al up­grades at Print­eryville; the repaving of sev­er­al roads in the dis­trict; and the pro­mo­tion of a re­cy­cling com­pe­ti­tion among pri­ma­ry school stu­dents.

On the cards is the re­con­struc­tion of a drain which runs from the Ari­ma Old Road down to the Mau­si­ca Riv­er, which he said was cur­rent­ly be­ing erod­ed every time it rained.

“If I could get that drain fixed, that would al­le­vi­ate most of the is­sues with mos­qui­toes and ro­dents that most of the res­i­dents com­plained about.”

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, two more drains are to be built in Print­eryville which should help to re­duce the flood­ing cur­rent­ly be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced by some of the res­i­dents.

Davis ex­pressed anger over the theft of a wa­ter tank from a URP job site at Print­eryville where a box drain is still un­der con­struc­tion. “I have done my best to treat the peo­ple with­in my elec­toral dis­trict as best as I can, with the fund­ing that was made avail­able to me.”

MAL­BAR SOUTH

Go­ing by the alias Lor­ry, a Phase Four, Mal­abar res­i­dent said, “I re­al­ly want to see more jobs for peo­ple.”

The self-em­ployed welder/fab­ri­ca­tor was busy mix­ing con­crete as he was be­ing in­ter­viewed.

The fa­ther of a three-year-old girl ex­plained, “I nev­er vot­ed in my life and I don’t plan to vote be­cause re­gard­less of who’s in pow­er, I still have to work hard. I don’t know what oth­er peo­ple are say­ing but I could do with more jobs and for the roads to be fixed…oth­er­wise, we good.”

Kevin, who has been liv­ing at Hol­ly Be­taudi­er Av­enue for the past nine years, said his im­me­di­ate con­cern was for a reg­u­lar wa­ter sup­ply.

Re­veal­ing the area was cur­rent­ly on a three-days-a-week sched­ule, the busi­ness own­er who op­er­ates a car-clean­ing com­pa­ny com­mend­ed the Ari­ma Bor­ough for en­sur­ing the garbage col­lec­tion and main­te­nance of roads and oth­er in­fra­struc­tur­al works were up-to-date.

How­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged, “Things have slowed down busi­ness-wise and the neigh­bour­hood is rel­a­tive­ly qui­et in terms of crime.”

At Eu­stace Drap­er Av­enue, Michael com­plained of pet­ty crimes in the area.

He said, “There are se­cu­ri­ty is­sues be­cause every now and then, you will hear some­body’s house was bro­ken in­to. The wa­ter is an is­sue but I have grown ac­cus­tomed to it and op­er­ate ac­cord­ing­ly.”

He said many home own­ers had been forced to in­stall wa­ter tanks but it was still a prob­lem as the sup­ply was some­times a trick­le which was un­able to fill the tanks.

A fe­male shop own­er said she had adopt­ed an at­ti­tude of “do­ing for her­self” and not be­ing de­pen­dent on the coun­cil­lor whom she com­plained was ab­sent year-round.

Coun­cil­lor re­sponds:

Re­spond­ing to the is­sues raised by burgess­es with­in his elec­toral dis­trict of Mal­abar South, Coun­cil­lor Bertiney Pol­li­dore said, “Most of the is­sues raised there aren’t ac­tu­al­ly lo­cal gov­ern­ment is­sues. How­ev­er, as lo­cal gov­ern­ment prac­ti­tion­ers, we try to as­sist res­i­dents where and when we can.”

Liv­ing in the area him­self, Pol­li­dore is fa­mil­iar with the wa­ter woes as he too has ex­pe­ri­enced the prob­lems many times.

He said, “My elec­toral dis­trict is on a sched­ule and I live in the area as well so I too have had prob­lems at times, where wa­ter is con­cerned.”

Claim­ing he has had to con­tact WASA on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions to sup­ply the area with wa­ter, he said the ac­tion was usu­al­ly swift but there was no es­cap­ing the fact that this pre­cious re­source re­mained a sched­uled com­mod­i­ty.

Re­gard­ing oth­er is­sues such as crime and un­em­ploy­ment, Pol­li­dore said he has per­son­al­ly helped in the for­ma­tion of sev­er­al neigh­bour­hood watch groups; got the po­lice to as­sist with more pa­trols and even in­stalled cam­eras in cer­tain ar­eas. Hav­ing served for close to three years, Pol­li­dore’s list of ac­com­plish­ments boasts of over 15 roads be­ing repaved and sev­er­al foot­paths re­done; a more com­pre­hen­sive drainage plan to mit­i­gate against flood­ing; and in­creased re­cy­cling ini­tia­tives.

Should he be se­lect­ed to serve again, Pol­li­dore said his plans in­clud­ed the de­vel­op­ment of a com­mu­ni­ty park for res­i­dents at Phase Three, along with the in­stal­la­tion of ex­er­cise equip­ment near the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um; an en­hanced street-light­ing pro­gramme; and the con­struc­tion of a net­ball/lawn ten­nis court for the peo­ple of the area.

CAL­VARY

In the elec­toral dis­trict of coun­cil­lor Michael Castel­lano, burgess­es in Cal­vary vent­ed their feel­ings about the poor dis­tri­b­u­tion of pipe-borne wa­ter.

In­di­cat­ing it was a prob­lem which they have grown ac­cus­tomed to, Marie Street res­i­dent Daisy Bas­combe could not hold back her tongue.

Claim­ing the com­mu­ni­ty was on the verge of a wa­ter cri­sis even in the rainy sea­son, Bas­combe said she had not seen wa­ter in her tap for two weeks.

"It came this morn­ing for an hour and left. How much you could do in an hour? I couldn't even wash my chil­dren's clothes. This thing in­fu­ri­at­ing me now, man," she com­plained.

The moth­er of five con­serves wa­ter in her 500-gal­lon tank by ra­tioning.

"I am not ashamed to say I don't bathe every day. And on the days I bathe, I use on­ly half a buck­et. I have been try­ing to save the wa­ter for more im­por­tant things like cook­ing. Oh gosh, man! How much peo­ple could take?"

Bas­combe al­so re­stricts her chil­dren from open­ing the taps in her two-bed­room house and flush­ing the toi­let.

At May­pole Dri­ve, Davia Ri­ley said he was at her wits' end.

"Peo­ple so frus­trat­ed not get­ting wa­ter in Cal­vary this could make the PNM lose this elec­toral seat in the com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions. Peo­ple are fu­ri­ous and frus­trat­ed. Our pa­tience is run­ning thin," Ri­ley said.

Jerome Grimes of Wal­nut Street said the sit­u­a­tion war­rant­ed in­ter­ven­tion.

"Is like we don't ex­ist when it comes to wa­ter. We ain't get­ting noth­ing. To make mat­ters worse, we don't even see the coun­cil­lor so we could vent our feel­ings."

Coun­cil­lor re­sponds:

Dur­ing his three-year term, Cal­vary coun­cil­lor Michael Castel­lano boast­ed of ac­com­plish­ing a lot and im­prov­ing the lives of his burgess­es through en­sur­ing roads are paved and box drains built.

Al­though he ad­mit­ted that un­em­ploy­ment and the lack of sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties were crit­i­cal is­sues in his dis­trict, he said wa­ter has been the biggest chal­lenge.

"I know wa­ter is an is­sue in Ari­ma...es­pe­cial­ly Cal­vary."

To re­lieve the suf­fer­ing of his burgess­es, Castel­lano said he showed WASA a spring which could be tapped in­to to im­prove the wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion.

He al­so rec­om­mend­ed to WASA that they re-com­mis­sion a 44,000-gal­lon tank in the area to "buffer" the wa­ter sup­ply.

"To me, the tank is in good shape. It may need a lit­tle fix­ing here and there. But it was nev­er put back in­to use. It is just there do­ing noth­ing."

Though Castel­lano was screened by the par­ty last month, he was not se­lect­ed.

"I have not been se­lect­ed but I will not turn my back on the PNM. I promise to ral­ly be­hind the par­ty and give them what­ev­er sup­port they need in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions."