The Mayor of St. George's believes that widening the Town Cut in order to accommodate the new, bigger cruise ships is not the only option and is inviting feedback from the public concerning this and other proposals before a meeting on Monday night.

Mayor E. Michael Jones said yesterday that there was no doubt that cruise ships provided the vast majority of funds for the business community in the town ? as much as 80 to 90 percent of all income generated.

But he said, if the town did not make the necessary changes to accommodate the larger cruise ships, other avenues needed to be discussed to "replace" this income.

One option, he said, was to continue accommodating smaller cruise ships, but upgrade Penno's Wharf and provide additional ferries to bring visitors from Dockyard, where the "mega" ships are currently accommodated, to St. George's on day visits.

"Some believe that having visitors come for the day is more beneficial than having them stay in cruise ships alongside because they tend to spend money that way," he said.

There are various other issues that the Corporation of St. George's is looking into besides the increase in public transport.

Mr. Jones said should the Town Cut be widened, St. George's would have to look at increasing not only the amount of rental scooters currently available in the town, but also overall parking.

He said paid parking would have to be introduced for the first time in St. George's history in order to keep the flow of cars in the town centre moving. Parking in St. George's is currently free.

The Corporation is also discussing the possibility of introducing a tertiary sewage system in the future to stop the current pumping raw sewage into the ocean.

"We need to find out if the larger cruise ships use sea water or fresh water. If they use sea water for their toilets, they would no longer be allowed to dump their sewage when they call in St. George's," he said.

He said one benefit of the larger ships was that they were more self-contained and could hold sewage for up to two days while in port ? pumping it out once they were at sea.

Mr. Jones said environmental issues also needed to be taken into consideration if the Town Cut were to be widened.

"I'm not just talking about sea creatures or coral that are going to be affected, but water displacement. The water displaced when a cruise ship enters our harbour has to go somewhere," he said.

He said the Corporation needed to know if the water would surge over the dock into the town square.

"These are things we need to be aware of and I'm sure the experts, when they're doing the computer simulations, will be looking at all of these things," he said.

Mr. Jones said the Corporation would also need to know how the harbour would manage in a hurricane.

"If the Town Cut is 40 or 50 feet wider, will that allow that much more water to come in and wreck our harbour," he said.

"If there is something that I as Mayor, or the Corporation is not aware of ? in 25 or 50 years time someone will say 'well they didn't think about that' and then we'll have a major problem."

Mr. Jones encouraged not only residents and businesses of St. George's, but also the Island's public in general to e-mail any comments or ideas to him at michaellogic.bm or call him at the Corporation of Hamilton on 297-1532.