Collectivité and Territorial Council
of St. Martin officially inaugurated
~ Louis-Constant Fleming declared President ~
MARIGOT--St. Martin opened a new chapter in history on Sunday morning when the new Collectivité was officially installed together with its Territorial and Executive Councils during a formal ceremony outside the Mairie.
The historic occasion observed at close quarters by a large section of the population, signalled St. Martin’s official transition from Commune to Collectivité D’Outre Mer (COM).
The main business of the morning was voting for the President of the Collectivité and this was carried out under normal internal voting procedures. No State representative was present. All 23 members of the Territorial Council cast their votes. As expected, Louis-Constant Fleming was unanimously voted in as president for his first five-year term to cheers from the crowd.
After an adjournment, the seven-member Executive Council was announced. Louis-Constant Fleming is President and the four vice-presidents are Marthe Ogoundélé-Tessi, Daniel Gibbs, Claire Javois, and Pierre Aliotti. The remaining two members are Alain Richardson (RRR party leader) and Jean-Luc Hamlet (Reussir Saint-Martin leader).
All 23 members of the Territorial Council added signatures to their names and documents were finally approved and stamped by procès verbal.
The new president gave a long address, outlining in detail the tasks that lie before him and the challenges that he faces. In a mark of respect to Albert Fleming that was well appreciated, the president told the crowd to continue greeting their former Mayor as “Monsieur Le Maire.”
Asked what the president’s immediate tasks would be on Monday morning, Fleming said: “I’ll be meeting the personnel of the former Commune, and visiting technical services, and getting acquainted with everything. There has to be some reorganisation of personnel and other changes.
“The first official meeting of the Territorial Council will be on July 30. But before that, we have fiscal consultants coming in tomorrow because we have to work on the draft of the future fiscal convention. There’ll be informal work sessions conducted by both Councils to prepare for that meeting on the July 30. We hope to have something ready to show Paris for the deadline of January 1, 2008.”
Fleming had called for a minute’s silence earlier, in remembrance the late UPP member Bernadine Samer-Lake
While congratulating President Fleming, Alain Richardson acknowledged that the task ahead was “immense.”
“But I believe your first challenge will be to unite and win the confidence of more of our citizens,” said Richardson. “You need to be clear about the rules and methods that you intend to implement for new governance, to build this new citizenship. Our people, especially our young people, are expecting great actions.
“Secondly, it is urgent that our territory becomes a territory of knowledge and new power. There can be no economic growth without social cohesion. Our people need to play a first-hand role in the development of this island.”
Other speakers included Jean-Luc Hamlet and the former President of the Regional Council, Senator Lucette Michaux-Chevry.
Congratulating the Territorial Council, Michaux-Chevry compared the installation of the Collectivité to the cutting of an umbilical cord.
“This is a new page turned in a difficult world but when the fight is hard, victory tastes sweeter,” she said.
She noted that Guadeloupe had always sustained St. Martin but had not fully understood the implications of Article 74 at the time and had voted against it.
Secretary of State for French Overseas Territories Christian Estrosi arrived in the afternoon from St. Barths where the Collectivité was also being installed. He met immediately with the Territorial Council in the Mairie’s conference room.
Estrosi talked at length about a range of issues, referring also to future proposed changes in the judicial system, immigration, and the Gendarmerie. In the future, he also plans to introduce renewable energy projects to the island.
He said St. Martin could count on his full support as well as that of President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Sous-Préfecture hosted a cocktail party in the evening for Estrosi’s brief visit.
