Collet residents want more amenities
The amazing length people will go to in order to call Belize City home is something that we’ve profiled several times on this newscast. The image of plywood shacks sitting in dirty water connected by rotting, leaning London bridges is a reality several hundred people go home to everyday. This morning, residents of Antelope Street Extension went public with their frustration over sub-standard living conditions and what they say is a promise–now broken–to extend a much needed road into the area.
Lydia Polanco, Antelope Street Extension Resident
“First of all, we have been living back here for the past seven years without no running water. I lately got electricity, pull some strings of course. The electricity is on temporary posts. People have been hooked into it and we have no control of that, because we can’t watch the place at night. Everybody sleeps at night, people have been connecting to your line and use the electricity. The closest pipe for tap water is way over that side. The kids have to go over there, we have to pay people to bring water for us, we cannot get running water. B.T.L. doesn’t even want to give us phone because the area is not developed. We do not have a street, we do not have an address.
This morning when I come out here the guys told me that the street is not going to push that way. And from what I understand from what Mr. Montejo have been telling us, all along everybody back here, the street that follows this one comes this way. And today the street will done this way and go that way, which would be in our area and a lot of people that live back there. What I’m upset about is that Mr. Montejo gave us high hopes. He could have told us that maybe the street is going back there like six months time and we would have waited another six months, because we have been waiting back there for seven years. But he gave us high hopes that this street was going to continue that way. This morning he came here and said the project froze.”
Persistent attempts to contact Collet Area Representative Remijio Montejo were unsuccessful. The residents who had camped out in front of the bulldozer this morning stayed there until early this afternoon until shortly before police arrived.
