MONTEGO BAY — The lenghthy devotion that preceded the first official sitting of the St James Parish Council on Thursday was not enough to deter the shouting match that ensued after Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) councillors passed a motion that will see vendors at the Old Shoe Market remaining there indefinitely.

The JLP’s Heroy Clarke of the Farm Heights division moved the motion to have the vendors remain at the Old Shoe Market, adding that the land at the People’s Arcade, which was originally earmarked for the vendors’ relocation, belonged to the Jamaica Railway Corporation and that no lease agreement had been reached.

“Is capture lan’ dem de pon,” Clarke said.

Shouting followed with the newly elected JLP mayor, Noel Donaldson, struggling to keep control of the meeting. The nine JLP councillors who constitute the majority in council later voted for the motion. Five of the seven People’s National Party (PNP) councillors voted against, while the remaining two opted to abstain.

As a result, the motion was carried, much to the ire of the PNP’s Michael Troupe, returning councillor for the Granville division.

“This is a sad day for Montego Bay and the parish of St James watched by the member of parliament,” he said.

Thursday’s motion comes counter to that of the city council under the PNP-controlled parish council, which only earlier this year served notices on the vendors for them to remove.

It is on this basis that the parish’s former deputy mayor and former head of the city council, the PNP’s Gerard Mitchell, described the JLP -carried motion as a ‘retrograde step’.

“… I will concede that we need to improve facilities both at the market and at the arcade. But people will have to begin to learn that they have a moral obligation to honour undertakings and the people were put there in good faith and we expect that they would have left in good faith,” he told the Observer.

“What is happening there now, it really does not reflect what we want to see in the city. I think it’s real political expediency why the councillors of the Jamaica Labour Party have voted to keep them there,” added Mitchell who has long argued that vending at the Old Shoe Market was not consistent with the council’s plan for the area.

Member of parliament Horace Chang, however, disagreed.

“Where they were located was inappropriate that’s why they were on the streets. Right now we don’t have a problem on St James Street anymore… What we will have to seek to do is to make the place more acceptable to the town because we can’t continue as we have…” he said.

Added Chang: “Sending them back on the street is unacceptable and if we put them somewhere where they can’t make any money then they’re going to go back on the street. That position is not political. It was my position prior to election and I continue to maintain that position…”

Under the arrangement, the vendors are to accommodate the National Works Agency (NWA) in their cleaning of the South Gully, now occupied by the vendors. Sanitary facilities are also to be put at the facility.

Meanwhile, Mitchell made it clear Thursday that he was opposed to mayor Donaldson’s decision to forge ahead with the proposal, accusing him of being disrespectful, autocratic and refusing to follow due process.

That aside, he likened the meeting to a ‘concert’ and called for a meeting to work out a way forward and for both parties to hammer out their differences.

“We cannot go on this way,” he said in an impassioned speech at the end of the meeting.

The JLP’s Charles Sinclair expressed similar sentiments.