SPANISH TOWN, St Catherine – People’s National Party councillors in the St Catherine Parish Council yesterday failed in an attempt to have the council declare the Mount Industry seat vacant.

The seat is held by Henry Fisher (JLP) who, according to the local narcotics police, was slapped with drug charges in the United States.

Spanish Town Mayor Raymoth Notice (JLP) aborted a meeting that was specially called to discuss the issue, saying the meeting had been illegally convened.

Referring to Section 18 of the unified bylaws published in the Jamaica Gazette of 1951, the mayor said the chairman or his deputy must be given notice if a special sitting of the local authority is required. Neither he nor the deputy mayor had been notified, he said.

However, speaking with the Observer after the aborted meeting, PNP councillor and minority leader Denise Daley of the Linstead Division condemned Notice’s action.

“It seems to me that there is a deliberate attempt to have some cover-up in respect to this particular councillor because there is no way that a mayor should see it fit to be playing delay tactics in respect to a councillor who has submitted his resignation,” she said.

After yesterday’s failed attempt to boot Fisher, Daley said the PNP side of the council had consulted the Attorney General’s Department in an attempt to find a way to have the issue resolved in time for the council’s next monthly sitting.

That appears to fit in with Mayor Notice’s timeline. He told the Observer that during the next council meeting, he will recommend that the council accepts Fisher’s resignation letter which was dated June 16, 2004.

Under the Parish Council Act of 2002, he said, the letter must be read into the minutes of the general meeting for the seat to be declared vacant.