By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

DESPITE progress in talks, the RM Bailey Park Association is still fighting for bathroom facilities and properly paved roads.

Association president Karen Brown told Tribune Business members have been in talks with the Bahamas Public Parks and Public Beaches Authority, Labour Minister Pia Glover-Rolle and Works Minister Clay Sweeting.

Ms Brown said there had been agreement to “everything else” except the facilities and roads. Ms Brown said. “So, I’ve been in meetings with the labour minister since. She tried to do a follow up because Clay Sweeting did call me, and when he called, I didn’t know she had spoken to him at that time. This was earlier on. She asked him to call me, but he didn’t indicate that. All he said was, ‘Good afternoon, Miss Brown, how are you? This is Clay Sweeting here. So for RM Bailey Park, you need a bathroom, and you need the grounds to be fixed and the roadways to be fixed’. And I was like, ‘Yes sir.’ He said, ‘Okay then’ as if somebody mentioned it to him or told him to do that and that was it.

“When I met with her, she said, No, I told him to call you and to speak with you and to see what all was necessary. I was trying to reach him and to send message. But then when I met with her, she told me that he was actually currently off the island. And in the meeting, she actually tried to reach out to him, WhatsApp him and everything, and she said she sent him a message. But to this day, I still haven’t heard anything yet.

“But we had Easter holiday, and then Mother’s Day was like two weeks behind, so I really didn’t have time to be running up and down trying to deal with that. So I have to get right back on that again.”

Ms Brown noted having brought up a bathroom facility and proper roads and ground area on the park to the authority who directed her to the Ministry of Works. She made the complaint that the authority falls directly under the Ministry of Works and “as government ministries, you should be able to communicate and get the problem solved”.

Ms Brown said because the authority governs the association, it is the authority’s responsibility to communicate with the Ministry of Works what is needed for RM Bailey Park. Ms Brown also said she was questioned on who would care for the restroom facilities if they were to be provided to which Ms Brown responded “that shouldn’t be a problem for the RM Bailey Park Association” and that association vendors aren’t the only ones using the park.

“I don’t know who said it,” Ms Brown said. “But when it was first brought up, Bernard Evans, he was in the meeting with the PM originally, and he was acting as the labour person for the government. And he had spoken to Parks and Beaches…I can’t say for sure who said it. But that was his thing when he came back to me. He says, ‘They want to know, to get bathroom and stuff, who’s going to take care of the bathrooms. Or whose job it will be.’ But more than us use the park, and I’m sure if [a] bathroom is constructed, and other persons pay to use the park, they will have access to the bathroom as well. The public should have access to the bathroom as well. So that shouldn’t be a problem for the RM Bailey Park Association. That’s a government problem. We’re not the only persons that use the park.

“But I’m not going to let up, because, you know, when you look around RM Bailey Park is one of the most used parks. They collect funds for this park. So I don’t understand that someone mentioned that, if they construct bathrooms, who’s going to maintain the bathrooms. But people paying you a fee. They have events out there all the time, and people have to pay. If it’s one day, it’s under $110. If it’s a week, it’s $110. So all the funds you collecting, they giving people contracts, left, right and centre, give someone a contract to keep the bathroom clean.

“I said a bathroom isn’t something new, because if you look, Windsor Park have a bathroom. Christie park have a bathroom, South Beach Park have a bathroom. I say y’all, y’all don’t have no business sense because if y’all were to put a bathroom on the park, then you all will have more people trying to use RM Bailey park. Plus, the walkers who come there every day. They must be think I’m in charge of the park. A lot of the walkers get to know me, you know, the regulars. And they be like, ‘Y’all need to tell them put a bathroom on this park. So the public uses it as well. People are on that park from before 5am in the morning. And if you go there, ten at night, people still using the park.”

Ms Brown spoke to the ground sof the park noting issues with flooding and potholes.

“We have a big problem with flooding,” Ms Brown added. “I don’t know if you’ve seen RM Bailey Park during the rainy season. It’s like a lake. The area near the entrance of the field, there’s no grass in that area... It needs filling in. For years, we had asked to keep it filled or to fill it and under both governments. And they were like, this is a government property. You all can’t bring no truck to bring no fill inside there. Two years ago, they came with a truck with one yard, I say y’all come with one truck with this little bit of fill to do what?

“So the place is messy. I know, in the back of my stall, in the back of some of the other vendors’ stalls, you have to walk in water to get in your stall. And that old dirty water, you have to be walking in water to get in your store. And when it really rains, although you have the pallet down, the pallet starts to float. I have videos, I have pictures. I showed them over and over, and they just have the park neglected. Half of the wall is breaking down. So either take down the wall or fix it, do something. The park is in a mess and this is, this is a park that y’all make money off. It’s in a state of repair. It needs to be repaired.”