The Roatan Bruce Show


	What is Mayor Dale Jackson Been Up To? A Lot! Roatan Mayor Dale Jackson came to the studio Samana Santa week to discuss the many projects he has initiated in the last two years in office. Mayor Dale Jackson: 117 National Police including 40 special cadets that are about to graduate from the National Police Academy are on the island to not stop us for inspections, but to greet us and to remind us to drive carefully. We wanted them to keep things in harmony this Semana Santa instead of being real abrupt as they may have been at times in other years. Roatan Bruce: You said you were going to fix the road littered with potholes from French Harbour to First Bite at the Island Friends meeting in March and you did it! Mayor Dale Jackson: The government is starting at the east section of Oakridge coming west, but I could no longer wait on them. People are now able to drive with ease in that area and it also beings with it more safety. The same kind of cement that was used as you approach the Sun Gas station in Coxen Hole will be continued all the way down to the entrance to Coxen Hole in the next few weeks. It will also go up the hill to the Loma Linda area. A lot of the work that is going on is happening on the back roads connecting communities, building and repairing bridges. We have just completed another school in the Mud Hole area. We are up to five or six dozen or so more classrooms with ceramic floors, adequate windows and the best roofing we can put on them. The reconstruction of the homes lost in the French Harbour fire is about to get started next week. So will several other projects get going. The Old Bridge in Coxen Hole and the jetties leading into it will be cleaned up. Today, Good Friday, I am taking this day to go with a group of contractors and supervisors from the Municipality to go out and inspect jobs that I am very proud of such as the new school in Barrio Los Fuertes. The national press and possibly international press as well as the President and the Minister of Education will all be here sometime in April. It is a fourteen classroom, three story school with sports field that is about to be finished. I would like to invite you Bruce to come along with us to see all that has been done. Hottest Sparrow on the north shore has new schools and a ballfield. There is a new two story school in Mud Hole and others to be started all the way out to Cayos Cachinos. Roatan Bruce: Do you have an overall goal for education here on the island? Mayor Dale Jackson: I must say that thanks to the foreigners coming here to live on the island and have cooperated so greatly with me such as Cam O'Brien, Edward Ake, Dan Taylor and Mitch Cummins and others, I see it clearly to have a desk and adequate classroom for every kid by the time I leave office in the beginning of 2010. I will have already reached 75% of my goal for every kid who has the will to go to school and receive an education. As far as health is concerned, it cost us just over one million dollars to find and purchase a property where we can build a hospital and that will also host our new official size sports stadium. It will require a lot of cooperation and financial contribution from the private sector. That effort is moving forward. In Los Fuertes, we have around 300 septic tanks going in. We have problems in the West Bay, West End area. I was born on Roatan. I have where to go and we have to keep the island clean. Everyday, we see inadequate black water systems down there and it is going to come to a point where we will have to put yellow tape on the door. Roatan Bruce: A rough subject that I need to bring up, especially for the real estate agents here on the island who must take their clients past an eye sore of a dump area. Are there going to be any changes and if there will be, when will that happen? Mayor Dale Jackson: We are looking at other sites on the mainland of Honduras to take our garbage to. Plastics are now being recycled. Ana Svoboda and John Edwards have funds ready to build a wall that will better the image of the dump. We would like to get together with them the week after Semana Santa to build a barrier between the road that no one will be able to see inside the dump. We will clean up the road. There will be no plastic or litter. One a very positive note, at the Sea Trade Convention last week, Roatan was awarded the “newest and hottest cruise ship destination.” Now along with Roatan, these cruiseship companies that are making large scale investments must be taken care of to keep them coming back.