This evenings Town Council meeting was always going to be an interesting one. With the resignation of four town councillors and the town clerk all happening prior to this meeting and all four town councillors planning to show up, it was bound to be a little controversial.
Public question time kicked off the meeting, as always. An ex-councillor brought up the very valid point of the fact that at the moment the council meetings are inaccessible to people with mobility issues, as it is held in a room at the top of a flight of stairs. The sheer amount of vitriol that was heaped upon her by the town clerk and the chair was unbelievable. She had quoted from the disabilities act so as to sound proffessional and to show that she had done her research and had this thrown back in her face,
"that document you are so fond of quoting" was said by the clerk.
This vitriol actually spilled over into the way that the clerk spoke to a member of the public who was simply trying to find out why things brought up by the public during question time are not allowed to be discussed or have decisions taken on them until the next meeting. The clerk simply shouted "it's the law" at her.
This general bad feeling continued in to the rest of the meeting where the letter of resignation from the current clerk was read out very pointedly.
At the beginning of the meeting I went to the Clerk to hand in a petition I had been collecting signatures on, that stated that members of the public wanted the council to hold an election for the new positions. I was told that my petition was too late - despite the only information with a specific time on it was posted on the noticeboard and was not in the media or on the TC website. What really frustrated me was that this petition was not mentioned to the other councillors and was essentially completely ignored, not even brought up as correspondence received. This just goes to show that the feelings of the public are completely irrelevant to this supposedly accountable public body.
If you are reading this, live in Langport, and feel it is as wrong as I do then I urge you to complain, right to the elections officer at south somerset district council and come to the next town council meeting. The next one will be held on the 5th August in the Town Hall. I will be standing for co-option and would appreciate seeing some friendly faces in the audience.
If people are interested in hearing about the Town Council meetings due to being unable to attend I will be happy to continue blogging about them and will include more detail of the actual content.
Post a comment if you'd be interested!
Disclaimer: if I become a councillor I won't be able to keep blogging about it...lol
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