Richard Vernon

Mayor of Montego Bay and chairman of the St. James Municipal Corporation, from march 2024.

Richard Vernon has sat on the St. James Municipal Corporation since 2016, when he was first elected councillor for the Montego Bay South Division. He became deputy mayor and vice-chairman in September 2020, and spent three and a half years in that seat before taking the chair himself.

He was sworn in as Mayor on 7 March 2024, at thirty-four — reported as the youngest person ever to hold the office. His nomination came from one side of the chamber and was seconded from the other, which is not how most votes in that room go. He has said since that he hopes a mayor his age encourages other young people to go into local government rather than wait their turn.

His terms in office have been organised around two things. The first is the city's exposure to weather: he has put flood resilience at the centre of the corporation's planning, following a US$350,000 grant toward the work, and secured Montego Bay a seat at the global climate table where cities negotiate directly rather than through their governments. After Hurricane Melissa he spent the recovery urging St. James residents to hold their nerve.

The second is money and land the corporation already owns. He has gone looking for private partners to make better use of the corporation's own assets, and argued that Montego Bay should lead a national push toward integrated development — planning the city as one thing rather than a series of unrelated projects.