BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth – For members of the St Elizabeth Parish Council, it’s a case of a long wait well worth it.

After five years of stops and starts, councillors recently moved into their spanking new council meeting room on the ground floor of what will be a two-storey building when the second phase of the development is done.

As it now stands, the fully furnished council room is complemented by a lobby area, kitchen and bathrooms. Parish council leaders say about $22 million was spent this year on completing the facility. Back in 2011, about $4.9 million was spent before the project stalled when money dried up.

The second floor of the building will accommodate facilities for councillors to work as well as meet constituents; a mayor’s parlour; and additional bathroom facilities. That project is expected to cost $30 million. However, timelines are yet to be determined.

The vacated meeting room — a wooden structure well in excess of 100 years old and which like many other buildings in historic Black River is a protected heritage site — will now be converted to a museum.

“It has always been part of our plans to have a museum in Black River,” Secretary/Manager of the St Elizabeth parish Council David Gardner told the Jamaica Observer at a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony late last month.

Speakers at the ceremony said the development of the new council room demonstrated the long-standing tendency of the St Elizabeth Parish Council to work as a team across political party lines.

The building was started in 2011 at the initiative of the Jamaica Labour Party’s Jeremy Palmer (Pedro Plains Division) then Mayor of Black River and chairman of the parish council, and completed by the current parish council administration led by the People’s National Party’s Everton Fisher (Balaclava Division).

Gardner sought to underline the sense of bipartisan unity, claiming that, “when I came to this parish for the first time… I never knew which councillors belonged to this party and which ones belonged to the other and it took months for me to recognise (the difference)”.

Custos of St Elizabeth Beryl Rochester appeared to suggest that the inclination to cooperate across political party lines at the parish’s local representative level was unique in Jamaican politics.

“The camaraderie which I have observed (among councillors) … is truly remarkable and I don’t know if this exists any place else,” she said.

Palmer praised Fisher for completing the meeting room project and for avoiding partisan bias in the running of the parish council.

“One of the things when I got here as mayor, I said all of the funds must be shared equally, and I also bore in mind that all of us come from parts of St Elizabeth and we have similar problems and similar issues. I want to say — and I say it without fear of contradiction — this mayor (Fisher) has continued this even-handed policy,” said Palmer.

Minister of Local Government and Community Development Noel Arscott urged the council to use their new facilities “to improve and expand your reach to the people of the parish, to communicate with them effectively and to practise every standard of accountability…”

The Black River function also marked the formal handover of the St Elizabeth Sustainable Development Plan by the Jason Henzell-led Parish Development Committee.

Developed over five years with help from local and international agencies including the Sugar Transformation Unit, National Housing Trust and the Canadian International Development Agency at a cost of $57 million, the plan is expected to guide the integrated social and economic advancement of St Elizabeth.

Henzell, a leading Treasure Beach hotelier, told his audience that the development plan includes proposals for sustainable irrigation of St Elizabeth’s arid plains, using water from the Black River.

Fisher described it as a model for sustainable development, and Hugh Buchanan, Member of Parliament for South West St Elizabeth, said it was an invaluable guide for political representation.