PHILIPSBURG--New Minister Angel Meyers says he is taking the traffic congestion in and around Philipsburg head on with the planned opening of the ring road, possibly to two-way traffic, in the coming days. The packed-sand road was opened recently to one-way traffic heading out of Philipsburg.
Meyers told The Daily Herald the traffic situation, a combination of the holiday season rush and the high tourist season, had not escaped his attention. The Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning Environment and Infrastructure VROMI, which he heads, is working diligently to being traffic congestion relief.
He said the approach was not one dimensional. Together with the planned two-lane opening of the ring road, the Ministry will ensure there is additional parking available between W.J.A. Nisbeth Road and the ring road. People “should be able to park easily and walk into town to do their shopping,” Meyers said.
A huge challenge for Meyers is financing to carry out needed projects.
In spite of the instruction from Finance Minister Richard Gibson for all ministries and departments to cut their budgets by 10 per cent, Meyers said projects beneficial to the community had to go ahead as soon as possible and the Ministry would have to find ways to execute and complete them.
One pending project is the construction of a sewage plant in Cole Bay. Meyers is working on obtaining donated land close to the border with the French side for the plant and has as an alternative Government’s land behind Tropicana Casino. The preparations for this project needs to be wrapped up by year-end to tap into financing from the European Union.
“Giving away land” on Simpson Bay Beach as part of a land swap to build the sewage plant, as the former administration wanted to do, is “not an option” for Meyers. The beachfront land should be safeguarded and not given away. He said former VROMI Minister Claret Connor had been advised against the swap by the Ministry, but Connor still had wanted to push ahead with it.
Getting the stagnated waste-to-energy project moving again is a “top priority” for the new minister, as is the bidding process for the garbage contracts set to go on public tender by the end of the year. He is very much in favour of breaking the monopoly on the contracts held by four large contractors and dividing up the districts into eight parcels instead of four. This approach is seen as giving opportunities to more small contractors.
Tackling bubbling issues over board and management at the Cadastre (“Kadaster”) is on the Minister’s slate. He said attention was being given to bringing the foundation’s board back to its legally-required three members. Only two members are currently serving on the board.
Coming from his former post as Permits Department Head, Meyers said the main challenge he had encountered there was a lack of knowledge of existing legislation, both in the department and the community. The departmental shortcomings have been mostly tackled and now focus must be placed on educating the public, he said.
Although the country’s building ordinances date to 1932, Meyers said there were “lots of tools” within the legislation that are very workable today. “We can still use them under today’s circumstances.”
The “very bureaucratic process” to obtain various permits from VROMI needs to be remedied, said Meyers. He plans to find ways in the medium term to streamline the process. “The number of people needed to sign off on a permit needs to be shortened,” he said.
Filling critical vacancies in the Ministry is also an aim of his. Doing so will go a long way in improving the ministry’s effectiveness and efficiency.
Also along the lines of improvements, the ministry has a questionnaire at the Yellow Building for everyone who visits there to rate the service they receive and make suggestions on improvements. Meyers encourages everyone who uses the ministry’s services to take time out to fill in the questionnaire.
Prior to returning to St. Maarten in 2008, Meyers worked in the city of Nijmegen. He started his career on-island in the then Department of VROMI as senior civil servant in the Permits Department and made his way up to Department Head before becoming minister on November 27.
Meyers is an alumnus of Sister Magda Primary School and Milton Peters College.
