'victimization, I experienced'

During a press conference at Urban Renewal's head office yesterday Omes Lightbourne, who was employed with Urban Renewal before the FNM became government, said the FNM is claiming the contracted workers are being victimized, but she says she experienced it first hand from the party.

"In 2007 when they came into power I was one right away sent home. I wasn't given a letter. I wasn't given no form of anything. I was told to park the car," she said.

Lightbourne said she does not understand why people are saying the employees have been fired when the truth is their contracts are up.

"If you know you were given a contract and it says the date (when it expires) then you are not being fired. You were asked to come in, have a meeting to see if you wanted to continue working with the now 2.0 Urban Renewal, but nobody came in. So my thing is simple, if you don't want to work with this Urban Renewal then why not move on?"

She said, when she was employed with the program the cars were always parked at the police station at the end of the day and the keys turned in, but now the cars are seen everywhere.

Lightbourne also noted that the program no longer does what it was originally intended to do, noting that she frequently called Marco City Urban Renewal seeking to have the roof of an elderly man's home repaired, but nothing was ever done.

"We had to take him and put him in a home, now he is deceased. He just died last week, but the house is still there unattended," she said. "My thing is, if you don't have the vision for what the PLP stands for with Urban Renewal, why not leave?"

Neko Grant, MP Central Grand Bahama, said the FNM government did not leave the persons it met with the program without jobs and redistributed them to various government departments during a press conference Sunday, but many of the former employees said that was not the case.

Lorraine Newbold said, she was employed at the Pineridge Urban Renewal Center in 2007 and was hospitalized for a few months when the FNM won the government, but was terminated.

"The doctor told me that I had to go on the dialysis machine and when they let me go, I was still in the hospital. When I came out they told me that I must get a letter from the doctor stating if I could work or not and they would probably find something for me . . ." she said.

Newbold said she never got anything from the FNM government, not even a dollar.

"Through God's mercy I survived and I am still not working and still sick. I have to go on the machine three times a week, but through God's mercy I made it and I'm still here," she said.

Diane Coakley, who managed the Lucaya Urban Renewal Center up to 2007, said she has heard the reports of single mothers who are being let go, but she was a single mother when she was fired from the program when the FNM took office.

"Well I too was a single mother with a young child that had rent, light, all of those things to pay, plus school fees. I wasn't given an opportunity to remain employed with Urban. I was sent home," she said. "I was victimized because I was sent home and I'm still home. In 2012, I am still home."

Coakley said she used the opportunity to go to school and get a degree because she could not find a job, but others were not afforded the opportunity she had.

"This program is the brainchild of our prime minister (Hon. Perry Christie). He had a vision for Urban where he wanted young children off the streets. That's why we designed the band program. We had after school programs; we had a senior citizens club in the Lucaya office where we knew where every one of our senior citizens for the Lucaya urban area was located. We knew where every disabled person was placed, we knew all of that information, so we were able to reach out to these people. That's what Urban is all about and that's what we should do to go forward. The watered down Urban what they have existing right now is foolishness," Coakley said.

Arnette Coakley-Archer, the center manager for Urban Renewal Pineridge, said she received her letter notifying her that her contract is ending.

"I was intelligent enough to go upstairs and ask if there was a possibility of reapplying, because I knew what I gave to the community. Anytime persons thought about Urban Renewal they immediately asked if something was going on, they came to our center thinking we were the hub, but really the hub was the administrative building," she said.

Coakley-Archer said, she felt that at the Pineridge center they did the job they were mandated to do.

"To tell you the truth, in my opinion, I think Pineridge Urban Renewal did an excellent watered down version of a good job," she said.

Coakley-Archer said her job was not easy because she encountered difficulties after it was found out that she supported the PLP.

"I had to fight to get everything done. It was always like pulling a tooth for Pineridge Urban Renewal. For the other centers it was smooth sailing," Coakley-Archer said.

She noted that a water line was broken in the building in December and she had to find someone to fix it.

"At the end of the day that water bill was $1,800, but yet they came to me to find out how did this happen? But they got a seven minute paper in reference to the problem, so Pineridge was technically ignored by the minister, ignored a lot of times by the administration unless I became rowdy . . ." Coakley-Archer claimed.

Donald Pinder, who drove the bus for the program and transported case aid workers as they visited homes on the island, said he too was victimized under the former administration.

"After the FNM won the government, I was told by one of the FNM generals, 'that bus that you are driving I am going to take that.' So said, so done," Pinder claimed.

He added that he was unemployed for six months after the former government decided it would pay the light bills for the former employees, then he was called to work as a security officer at the Department of Social Services.

Pinder said he was not given a letter, but the ones whose contracts are about to expire received letters under this new administration, so they can go home or simply reapply.

"Honestly, I have no feelings for them. They did it to me," he said. "I walked the streets, I was building a house, I didn't know where the next dollar was coming from. I was paying the bank for a car ... my wife wasn't working," he said.

Karen Bartlett, who also worked with the program, said she has personally heard persons that work with the program saying that they do not wish to work along with the program's new deputy director Michelle Reckley and does not understand the uproar now.

"I know about three or four persons from the new Urban who stated that they don't want anything to do with Mrs. Reckley, so now I am surprised that everybody is crying about it because I heard them and they said it, so move on," she said.

Melvina Albury, who said she was given a letter to go home under the former administration, said she too had responsibilities when she lost her job.

"I might not be a mother, but I am a grandmother who had the responsibility of a grandson whose both parents were dead, who at that time had just started university, so I too know what it is to be struggling and up to now I am still not working," she said.

Albury said her grandson graduated from Kettering University two weeks ago because he was able to secure scholarships from BORCO and she had help from her siblings.

"I too know victimization. They don't even know the meaning of victimization," she said.

Albury claimed a former member of Parliament saw her driving the Urban Renewal van while she was still employed at Urban Renewal and threatened her that her days were numbered.

"I know what it is to be victimized by the FNM," she said.