Desmond Henry MANY JAMAICANS with a sense of history will know that the town of Black River is one of the country's authentic historical centres. Its pivot as a shipping port in the days of colonialism made it one of the centres of concentration for the colonial powers and their carryings on. In modern descriptive parlance, Black River was a ranking city. If nothing else, therefore, its historical past should at least create a sense of pivotal impulse for those who run it today.
As the capital of my parish, I grew up with a sense of fascination about the town. Especially as a youngster, I looked forward to accompanying my dad on his regular visits to friends and institutions there. The town had many memorable institutions and personalities. To a parent of youngsters, the most important was its hospital and health care facilities. After that came its individuals, leadership and centres of character around which any town is built. I grew up recognising and appreciating many of the institutions in Black River that are still with us today, even if only in structure. Some have improved, many have deteriorated.
HOSPITAL PAST ITS GLORY DAYS
In terms of critical leadership, the town itself is falling behind the rest of rural Jamaica. Its once admired hospital has lost its lustre. The town itself is run-down and dirty, and falling way behind other modern development centres in the parish. There has not been leadership personalities of the kind like Dr. C.D. Johnstone or E.V.V. Allen of sometime ago, save perhaps for Dr. Roy Francis, who passed on prematurely at the height of his leadership thrust. The town's political and commercial growth is lacking, missing and non-existent. Its once proud and admired hospital is now a centre of pity where, for example, over the last Easter weekend there was not even a telephone receptionist on hand, to answer calls of dire emergency resulting from an accident that had taken place in a district nearby. In fact, the hospital telephones rang unanswered from Good Friday to Easter Monday. Is that typical? I am so informed. Will anyone be punished? Hell, no. That's par for the course.
TERRIBLY RUN-DOWN
The town's famous bridge, built a long time ago to save east/west travelling distance of over 20 miles, is today run-down, dilapidated and threatening. It is glaringly in need of urgent repairs with structures unbuckled and pivots hanging loose. Until someone or something crashes fatally into the water 20 feet below, don't expect any kind of repairs. Question: What do technical inspectors from the Ministry of Works do when they go out each day to carry out structural investigations?
The town's main public building, the tax office, was once so run-down and cobweb-ridden that you needed a clearing stick with which to enter and leave. I wrote a strong critical piece on it a few years ago. Today, I am happy to say it is a refreshing example of change and improvement. It is actually a pleasure now to visit the Black River tax office. Mrs. Rogers and her staff have done a full 360-degree turnaround in decor, efficiency and customer service. Recently, I met a particular graduate of the HEART training system who now works there (I think her name is Ms. Russell) who is a credit to that office. I hope she remains there for a long time.
BETTER LEADERSHIP NEEDED
A great part of Black River's lacklustre status, however, comes from the ineptness of its administrative leadership, the Parish Council. It is a leadership that is unseen, unheard and unrepentant. The Council has become a collection of non-performers that typify what passes for that emotional programme nicknamed Local Government reform. Nothing will emerge from which nothing is forthcoming. One thing is pretty clear, however.
If the recent arbitrary overruling by a Minister of the Mayor's stop-order on an illegal commercial structure on the Parotte Road is not reversed, a lot more unpleasant things affecting the integrity of the Council are likely to happen. The Gleaner carried a front-page story on it recently. I am told that home builders in the area are planning to appeal to the Prime Minister for his intervention. He had better, to save the country's image for residential and investment integrity.
URBAN RENEWAL
But even beyond that, the Council meets across the road from a tugboat that was dumped and left to rust and rot in the harbour. The ugliness and intemperateness of the action apparently has not caught either their eyes or their consciences. It remains there tilting, leaning, rusting and rotting in their faces. It's like someone deciding to locate a pit latrine in front of your gate and leaving it there. Up your (any word you choose)!
Black River needs dynamism, creativity, investment, leadership and habitable security in order to move ahead. Like so many other rural Jamaican towns, it is faltering from lack of order, certainty and direction. It is far time for the town not just to take stock, but to take off. The tale of this once proud historic centre is now an obituary of history's neglect, glory and growth.
The Bottom Line: Leaders with small minds are destined to have problems with large issues.
Desmond Henry is a marketing consultant formerly of Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth, now resident in north Florida.
