San Fernando mayor on social media post: 'It wasn't me'

San Fernando mayor Junia Regrello has apologised for what he has said was an unofficial post on one of his social media pages which questioned the competitive credibility of some of TT’s Olympic-bound athletes.

The post, said to have been made by one of Regrello’s recently hired social media managers, was uploaded to his Facebook page on Sunday night, but was removed on Monday morning.

It questioned whether spending thousands of dollars to send certain local athletes to Tokyo was worthwhile, given the many families in TT who are in need owing to the pandemic.

The post, littered with punctuation and grammatical errors, read, “It was just brought to my attention that the cost to get one athlete to Japan is around ($)25,000, based on my limited knowledge in track and field, do we really have performers with the exception of (Keshorn) Walcott, Ahee (Michelle-Lee Ahye), (Dylan) Carter, one or two of our cyclist(s) and (Machel) Cedenio, who should be going.(?)

“The aforementioned names are potentially able of getting into a final and therefore, deserve to be in Tokyo. Our best bet to stand on the rostrum is Keshorn Walcott. Do you know how many hampers ($)25,000 could buy.(?)”

After receiving some overnight flak, the post was removed on Monday morning by the social media manager.

Regrello was reportedly unaware of the post on Sunday night, but was brought up to speed on Monday morning when someone alerted him to the post.

The mayor sympathised with the enthusiasm of his employee, saying it may have stemmed from a recent conversation he had had which took TT’s male sprinters to task.

He said, “When I got up, I saw it, well somebody saw it and made me aware. I came to work a bit late (on Monday). (By) the time I reached to work she had already taken it down.

“People started calling in, querying the statement.

"She apologised and cried for the entire morning. I sent her home for the day and told her to go and relax. She’s a young girl and I do not want to hurt anybody.”

Regrello said the mayor’s office recently hired three people to beef up his social media presence. Because of their youth, he said, they want to “outshine one another.”

The mayor added, “Had I come in (to office) earlier, I would have been able to deal with it faster and in a better way. I really said last week that the times the Jamaican and American women were running, better our men run with them.

“I’m not sure what stimulated it, but she likes sports apparently and put it (up) last night. She took it down this morning. I’m in politics, but the post was not made by me.

"Here’s hoping I don’t receive too much negative flak from anyone.”