Even part-time work is troublesome for the Council it seems
We thought we'd let our readers know just how hard our councillors are working for their massive salaries. News reaches us that last night, the monthly Safe and Stronger Communities Panel met and the chair, Clive Marder (£19,575 per year) couldn't even be arsed to turn up.
Apparently when the meeting began on schedule at 19:00 there were just four or the twelve councillors on the committee present. All of them were opposition councillors, three Tories and one Lib Dem.
After much panicking and running around the building by officers looking for someone to chair the meeting they managed to find Councillor Gary Parker (£11,449 per year) to chair it. We should point out here that the councillor should have been in the meeting anyway.
Local democracy in action, don't you just love it?
Apparently when the meeting began on schedule at 19:00 there were just four or the twelve councillors on the committee present. All of them were opposition councillors, three Tories and one Lib Dem.
After much panicking and running around the building by officers looking for someone to chair the meeting they managed to find Councillor Gary Parker (£11,449 per year) to chair it. We should point out here that the councillor should have been in the meeting anyway.
Local democracy in action, don't you just love it?
posted by greenwich.watch at 9:19 am
7 Comments:
surely the meeting was quorate and theose there should have elected a chair for the meeting. It's not up to council officers to do the labour party's job for them. don't they already pay ray walker to do that?
does this panel have any powere? could it have overturned the mobey wasted on the box?
shameful
Yeah why didn't the the councillors who turned up do something about it?
As for Council staff running around doing the Labour Party's job for them, well they obviously know which side of their bread is buttered. Screw democracy, their in it for themselves perhaps even more than Labour are with £20k a year. I really don't know who's worse. the staff for letting this sort of thing to happen or Labour for running the show.
I agree this is shameful. As a relatively new resident in the borough, I have been pretty shocked by what I have found (I used to live in Labour-run Reading, where the council is pretty good).
The only answer is via the ballot box, that is what it is there for. Democracy is a bit like a village pub - use it or lose it.
Is this site right or left wing?
I think you should answer that question, because I know who you are and I believe disingenuity is an old-fashioned Tory habit.
This site is neither right or left wing. It's the moaning wing. It's been said before here - on numerous occassions - the site is not beholden to a party line. That remains the case.
Perhaps Councillor Mardner and the other Councillors were fulfilling their community duties by taking a seat at the Council’s suite at the O2 Dome? Considering the cost of the suite surely it is incumbent upon every Councillor to make best use of it?
As gmt states above those Councillors present should have elected a chairman from amongst those present. But, by the sounds of it these ‘opposition’ Councillors just sat there meekly until someone from the Labour Party turned up and told them what to do. Maybe the ‘Scrutiny Panel’ could examine the cost implications of paying for the luxury of so-called ‘opposition’ Councillors?
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