Orange Walk mayoral hopefuls share development plans
March fourth is quickly approaching and so far Channel Five’s Open Your Eyes breakfast show has featured mayoral candidates from five of the nine municipalities. Today the P.U.P. and U.D.P. hopefuls made the journey from the Suga City to Church Street to talk about their plans for the future. Current Orange Walk Mayor, Ravei Gonzalez, will not be contesting the upcoming elections, but hoping to refill that seat for the U.D.P. is Phillip De La Fuente, a current councillor. De La Fuente is used to serving the people through his family’s drug store, but now he wants to take on the even bigger task of serving and running the town. Heading the slate for the People’s United Party is accountant by trade, Ramon “Monchi” Cervantes, who is hoping to follow in his father’s footsteps to become mayor. And while De La Fuente and Cervantes are running under different colours, they both have plans for the development of the town.
Orange Walk Resident #1
“I believe that the council was trying its best you know, because they were working with an opposition government and that created a lot of problems for them. But I believe that now that they have the U.D.P. government in power and we elect another U.D.P. town council, I believe that there must be some great improvements in our municipality.”
Phillip del la Fuente, U.D.P. Mayoral Candidate, O.W.
“I believe I have a different style of management, one that would really keep Orange Walk as number one. My vision of Orange Walk Town is one where we would have more tourists coming to Orange Walk Town. That’s one of the ways—one direction I would love to take the Orange Walk Town where we could create more employment in the tourist sector. We do have some beautiful sites to visit in Orange Walk Town and agriculture. That’s where I see Orange Walk could be creating more employment, working with the central government and the municipal government. Orangewalkenos, come March fourth I am asking each and every one of you to think about your town, think about where you want your town to go, what direction you want it to go and how you want it developed. I am a person who is easy to talk with and whatever you guys have to say, I am open, I am willing to listen to you guys and work together with you to get to job done for us to improve our town.”
Orange Walk Resident #2
“More jobs, more action so that we can avoid all this hassling and tassling which we call the heavy crime rate that is going on. It’s out ah control.”
Orange Walk Resident #3
“Mek them fix up the streets because sometimes this one yah seh that they wah work and try do something, but dehn never do anything. All dehn do dah broken promises.”
Ramon Cervantes, P.U.P. Mayoral Candidate, O.W.
“Unfortunately, these past three years have been disastrous for Orange Walk Town. The present Town Council has failed to deliver the basic services which are their responsibilities to the people and I have seen a need for leadership that will take Orange Walk Town to development for all the people. I want Orange Walk to be a good place to live and a good place to visit and to do that, we have to first restore the financial stability to the council. After that, we have to restore back the essential services to the people; have an efficient garbage collection system; that should be something routine. Also, we need to start on the reparation of streets. That is a big problem; they have been deteriorating over the past years and other things such as cleaning the town clean and welcoming. We need to rebuild and renovate our parks; the playing facilities for children so that the youths, our children, our families can go and recreate. We need to have sport centers for our youths to divert their energies in the right and healthy directions. We need to concentrate more, for example, on attracting tourists.”
Tune in to Open Your Eyes this Thursday when the mayoral candidate from is Isla Bonita will showcase their plans for the town.
