As a matter of fact, burgesses of Port of Spain should have been invited to submit ideas on how to honour the 48th anniversary of Janelle “Penny” Commissiong’s Miss Universe victory. While I am all for honouring Penny, the mother of all modern-day beauty queens, I feel Mayor Joel Martinez should leave Queen Street alone and name the auditoriun at City Hall after the evergreen Penny. How about that?

KEITH ANDERSON via email

According to police reports, at about 10.30 pm two men armed with guns went into the restaurant and announced a hold-up.

The cashier was ordered to hand over all the cash from the register and was struck in the head with a gun butt. The man’s accomplice then ordered all customers to hand over all their cash, jewellery and cell phones.

After the bandits left, members of the West End Police Station were called and the cashier was taken to hospital.

Police were able to secure surveillance footage.

Yesterday, employees said the incident has left everyone shaken up and they are hoping management considers putting proper security measures in place to avoid another robbery.

“There were certain issues we find were not true coming out from the motion,” explained Brighton/Vessigny Councillor Gerald Debesette in a telephone interview with Newsday yesterday regarding the PNM walkout.

Debesette said the PNM councillors disagreed with the accusations being meted out against the Corporate Secretary, Natalia Cummings, in the three-page motion brought by Avocat/San Francique Councillor Doodnath Mayrhoo.

“She was being accused of bias, of only dealing with the other side, the other side being the PNM, of only giving us information,” said Debesette.

“This is not true. We debated it, not supporting the motion, and we walked out just after my last colleague made his contribution, before it was put to a vote.” The corporation is made up with six PNM members of council; six UNC members of council; and one independent councillor in its former chairman, Leo Doodnath, who declared himself independent in January after.

Doodnath was not present for the vote on Wednesday, however, leaving the floor evenly split with Chairman Glenn Ramadharsingh having the casting vote.

“Glenn Ramadharsingh would have had a casting vote and the motion would have carried in favour of the UNC,” said Debesette.

“We found it was unfair and if you had to sit there for this motion to be carried, we wanted no part of it.” The walkout left the council with one less person necessary for a quorum, and therefore no voting occured.

“The essence of our democracy is that you will have one side that will win and one side that will lose,” said Ramadharsingh yesterday.

“Walking out of a debate I think is absconding from your duties and responsibilities in the corporation.” Ramadharsingh said the PNM councillors did not show the level of cooperation that was expected of them. The UNC members of council will caucus today and make a press statement on the way forward

Abdullah said his organisation was shocked by the recent response of Snr Supt Kenny McIntyre who denied the existence of a “hit list” by police in Central Division (mainly in Enterprise).

“He is either naive or knowingly covering up for dirty cops. He says that police are not executioners and are there to uphold the law” Abdullah stated in a media release yesterday.

McIntyre, had said police do not execute people but uphold the law, in relation to the police shooting death of alleged gang member Jelani Martins, 25, at Chaguanas, last week Friday.

The release further stated: “Waajihatul Islaamiyyah is saying the officer responsible for the killing of Jelani Martins has broken the law and should be called to account for his actions, as in the case of Govinda Morgan, the security guard who was charged for shooting to death ex-convict Vern Sambury.” The Imam referred to several reports which, he said, should be lessons to McIntyre as to the reasons why he needs to be better informed before he opens his mouth.

Abdullah recalled that in July 2007, a parliamentary Joint Select Committee issued a report which was highly critical of the Police Service.

“The report highlighted a disturbingly high number of disciplinary charges against officers, a need to combat the increased levels of indiscipline within the Police Service and a ‘serious lack of accountability from top to bottom’ in the police force,” Abdullah said.

He added that in 2011, the Crime and Problem Analysis (CAPA) department of the Police Service showed that the number of “extrajudicial killings” increased consistently over the previous decade.

It added that such cases were being cited by regional and international human rights organisations as a blot on the country.

“Amnesty International has also produced a report on the killings in Trinidad and Tobago, on the topic “Excessive use of force by the security forces and lack of independent investigations”,” the release stated.

Abdullah noted that police are paid to protect communities against armed bandits and warring gangs, among other brutalities. In doing so, police sometimes do get fired on by desperate men and do have to fire back.

“That is part of the price we pay for living in a society where guns are cheap and plentiful and where people are taught violence as a way of life in their own homes and communities from childhood,” Abdullah said.

Addressing this issue at the post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s, Rowley asked a reporter, “Do you think we are going to build a hotel on No Man’s Land?” When the reporter said no, the Prime Minister replied, “Good, thank you very much. Tell the rest of the country that.” He said the hotel was being built on Buccoo Estate .

Rowley said peop opposed to the project had been alleging “that the Government took land from this very wealthy company below value and we were probably breaking the law.” “Nothing is further from the truth,” he added .

He said the land on which the hotel was to be built was owned by two companies .

“The Government quite properly, through the relevant authority in all of this, the board, set off the monies owed for the value of those lands,” Rowley said .

He said the value of the lands was established by reputable, independent valuators in TT .

The Prime Minister said the law required the disposal of any assets held under the Central Bank to be done at fair market value and that “is exactly what the Government did.” He was confident his explanation would “put to rest” the notion that “the Government took land worth x and we paid half x for it.”

According to reports, the man who appears to be in his late fifities and is of East Indian descent was discovered lying in a grassy area a short distance away from the Chaguanas highway by officers of the Traffic and Highway patrol branch last week Wednesday night.

Officers are continuing investigations.

The ten, all family members, are still looking for help as they were forced to stay at the homes of friends and relatives out of the Santa Cruz area. “Our family is all over the place,” said Emily Sookram.

“We have no idea how long we will be able to stay at the places we are at now, but we cannot go back to our homes.” On Saturday last, at about 2 pm, while heavy rain was falling all over Northern Trinidad, a landslide occurred further up the hill sending rocks, trees and loose soil on top of their houses. The villagers began cleaning as much of the debris from the landslide as they could, but more rain fell last week.

“At any given moment that hill could come down again,” Sookram said. “I just don’t want my family to be in danger when it does and that is why we have moved out. But we want to return home. We need help to rebuild our damaged houses.” Newsday was told that the victims have been given mattresses and bedsheets and were told they can access emergency grants to assist them in getting back on their feet. While grateful for all of this, Sookram said it is not enough and she is appealing to any Good Samaritan to lend assistance in the form of building material and roofing.

Attorneys representing the JLSC and the AG appeared yesterday before Justice David Harris in the San Fernando High Court. They were given until September 8 to file their objections to the court granting leave to the former chief magistrate for judicial review.

Her attorney senior counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj launched a scathing attack on the JLSC and Office of the President saying Ayers-Caesar was constructively dismissed from the bench like an ordinary employee.

Ayers-Caesar yesterday arrived in a white Mercedes Benz which pulled up in front the courthouse and she alighted dressed in all black jacket and skirt to be greeted by a barrage of television and press photographers.

She was followed by a few friends and relatives into the courtroom. She sat in the courtroom and bowed her head during the proceedings. It was her first official public appearance since she was “fired” as a judge for failing to declare to Archie and the JLSC that he had left 52 part-heard cases unfinished in the magistrates court.

Maharaj said the case was one involving important principles in safeguarding the independence of judges and their security of tenure.

He said the actions of Archie and President Anthony Carmona were a far cry from what Section 137 of the Constitution mandates for the removal of a judge from office.

He said on April 10 the JLSC expressed its desire to find a workable solution to dealing with the partheard cases. But Ayers-Caesar was summoned by Archie to a meeting on April 27 and asked to tender her resignation. Maharaj submitted his client was told about a prepared media statement after which Archie left the room to take a telephone call from the Office of the President. He said Ayers-Caesar was told by Archie upon returning to the room that he was under pressure from the president who was expecting her at 5 pm that day. A resignation letter was then given to her by Archie’s secretary, Maharaj said.

He submitted Section 137 gives constitutional guarantee to judicial officers against their removal from office except by the procedures provided, but Ayers-Caesar was forced to resign and, if she did not the JLSC would have removed her from office.

Assuming but not admitting, Maharaj said to Harris, if Ayers-Caesar had misled the JLSC, Archie should have advised Carmona that the question of her removal from office should be investigated.

Maharaj, instructed by attorney Ronnie Bissessar, took issue with Carmona accepting Ayers-Caesar’s resignation. He told the judge Carmona participated in the JLSC’s unlawful pressure by agreeing to accept the resignation. He asked the judge to note that it was the judiciary that made the call to President’s House. Senior Counsel Russell Martineau, who is leading Senior Counsel Deborah Peake and attorneys Ian Benjamin and Ian Roach for the JLSC, told Harris he would reply to Maharaj in written submissions. He is to do so by September 8. The judge fixed the case for 3 pm on September 29 at the Hall of Justice, Port of Spain.

Senior Counsel Reginald Armorer, instructed by Ravi Nanga is representing the Attorney General.

“The omission was in fact brought to its attention by the Service Commissions Department, which provides the secretariat to assist all service commissions in preparation of reports, while the department was preparing the 2016 Annual Report, in keeping with the provisions of Section 66C(2) of the Constitution.” The statement said the department is already in the process of bringing the reports up to date. “The process will be completed before 1st October, 2017.

“The JLSC apologises to the Office of the President for the omission and wishes to assure that no disrespect was intended to His Excellency or to the Office of the President.”

Seeking to correct misinformation in the public domain that penmanship formed a component of the SE A, Garcia said, “The SE A does not include penmanship in its table of specifications and as such will not be scored.” The Ministry of Education’s latest initiative, Penmanship with a Purpose Project is meant to ensure that all primary school students leave with the ability to read, write and count.

The initiative, Garcia said in a Ministry of Education release said, refocuses schools’ attention on the hand-writing skills of students and takes a cross-curricular approach by evaluating written work in mathematics, science, history, social studies, art and foreign languages.

“Though we live in an age dominated by keyboarding and touch screens, the contribution of writing by hand in a child’s development cannot be underestimated,” he said.

Handwriting is the primary mode of learning words, vocabulary and language, the release said. Since many students’ experience handwriting difficulties, the skill of writing by hand is being reinforced to helping students in language and learning in general.

Strategies to support the implementation of penmanship at schools include teacher modelling of best practice penmanship, monitoring of student writing across subjects, selection and application of a standard pattern across the Infant One to Standard Five, and scheduling penmanship on the timetable.

The ministry has implemented several programmes to enhance students’ receptivity and performance to improve numeracy and literacy. This includes the Laventille/Morvant Initiative. Meanwhile, the release said, the Curriculum Division has tested students across 20 primary and five secondary schools assessing their literacy and numeracy level to inform Curriculum Development moving forward.

The release quoted a 2010 Indiana University study in which students were exposed to different letter-learning instruction. The study revealed that children who had practised printing letters by hand were far more enhanced than their counterparts who had only looked at the letters.

Penmanship, the release said, contributes to students’ literacy, reading comprehension, recall, critical thinking, conceptual development and creativity. Writing by hand, the release said, is also a powerful learning tool that has links to self-esteem, creative expression, critical thinking and improved academic performance.