LETTER TO WARD COUNCILLORS.
Written for the blog by a
Preston resident
I have recently sent a letter to two of our Ward Councillors (30/12/12)
so that I can be sure they are aware of the current situation with Preston
Parish Council.
I reproduce the text here, as I am sure there is bound to be some
people who comment on its content inaccurately. I have redacted the document to
remove personal identity, this may change in the future depending on Legal
advice, which is currently being sought.
When referring to the incident, which I shall cover in much greater
detail in the near future, I am I believe, understandably angry that no less
than four Preston Parish Councillors are prepared to lie ‘in concert’ in order to simply avoid a colleague from having to
give a minor apology to a resident.
In my correspondence to Ward Councillors I refer to a letter sent to
Preston Parish Council on 25th September following the Standards
Committee hearing into my complaint, because it has been referred to I also
include that letter in this posting. The letter incidentally has never been
acknowledged or replied to as far as I can recall, not unusual at all.
My letters to Ward Councillors have both been answered.
Ward Councillors
South West Holderness
East Riding of Yorkshire Council
30/12/12
Dear Councillor
Re: Preston Parish Council.
I do not profess to be an authority on Local Government Administration.
Though I have had some dealings with Preston Parish Council over the last three
years, my relationship with the council has always been acrimonious, that
experience has shaped my impression and opinion of how our Local Government
operates. Needles to say, in line with the vast majority of the public, my
opinions of local government and democracy are not very high.
I am sure Preston Parish Council will tell you that I am a rude trouble
maker who habitually writes letters of complaint, that smokescreen seems to
serve them well and appears to prevent outside people from looking further into
the dispute between us.
My current anger centers around an investigation by the Standards
Committee into a complaint I made against Cllr. ****of Preston Parish
Council, that was concluded on 25th September 2012. During that
investigation four Preston Councillors, ****. ******, ******and ******knowingly
submitted false witness statements intended to mislead the Standards Committee,
their statements were accepted without much scrutiny despite rather lengthy
protestations from myself. If longstanding Parish Councillors have no respect
for an official investigation by the Standards Committee they cannot have any
respect for other democratic processes or laws governing our local democracy
and if East Riding Council so readily accept such dishonesty from Parish
Councillors, the Standards Committee is defunct and it shapes the publics
perception of local politics as corrupt.
The statements given by the above councillors are all so precisely
similar in content and yet so far removed from reality, the chances of them
being truthful is miniscule. Statistically, the only possible way for those
statements to all have the same components and elements yet diverge so far from
reality, by people who were the instigators of the incident and involved
directly, can only be achieved by careful consideration and collusion by the
above councillors. All the published statements are so far from the truth of
the event that not one accurate element is contained within any of them.
I am aware that a number of councillors who were concerned at this
level of dishonesty within Preston Parish Council wrote to the Monitoring
Officer who remains adamant the he will not look into the allegations further. The
councillors who wrote to Mr. ******* include, Cllr. *****, *******and *******.
Those dishonest councillors are now emboldened to progress their
bullying and intimidation of members of the public. I always occupy the same
seat during council meetings near to the front table because I have a hearing
problem and that seating position gives me the best chance of hearing what
transpires. As far as I am aware I have only informed East Riding Council of my
level of hearing loss and offered to forward relevant Audiograms, if as stated
East Riding Council are to take no further action there is no necessity to
forward that personal medical information to an outside third party. I did
specifically request that East Riding should not give my personal medical
information to any third party.
Unfortunately it would appear that East Riding have given that personal
information to Preston Parish Council because Cllr. ****and *******
now
take up their seating positions as they were on 11th May 2011,
alongside where I normally sit, giving very audible comments such as ‘you’ll have to speak up, I’m as deaf as a
post’. I know from their looks that those comments are entirely for my
benefit and amount to intimidation of a member of the public. It also serves
the purpose of letting other councillors know that it would be unwise to act
against them or pursue alternative views to theirs because they are now
untouchable and enjoy the backing of East Riding Council.
Following the Standards Committee decision on 25th September
2012, I wrote to the Parish Council and began the letter by saying ‘I would imagine
that at this point councillors are congratulating themselves and patting each
other on the back on achieving the outcome they have. It is however, a worthwhile
exercise to examine how that was achieved and the methods used’, we now have Cllr. ******* pointedly patting ***self
on the back clearly to let me know that they are untouchable and neither I nor
anyone else can do anything about it, again its intimidation, and they now
enjoy the approval and support of East Riding Council and that gives then a
certain level of impunity.
Preston Parish Council pay scant regard to the laws that govern our
Local Authorities, as if they are somehow exempt from such ties and
inconveniences, an example is,
Preston Parish Council often give just 2 clear days notice of council
meetings when the legal requirement is a minimum of 3 clear days notice,
without that notice the Parish Council has no legal authority to convene a
council meeting or to conduct any business on behalf of the council or parish.
During a Council Meeting (October 2012) where the council had failed to give a
minimum notice of 3 clear days the council co-opted a new member with no legal
authority to do so.
Consequently we now effectively have a member of the public sitting in
council, taking part in council discussions and voting on items of agenda that
affects the Parish and its residents, which could make all subsequent council
meetings challengeable! How can members of the public be expected to have
confidence in local government if this is the standard of behaviour? Procedural
control during council meetings is almost non-existent with the Parish Clerk
often running meetings and advising councillors how best to vote, it is almost
becoming a matter of course that Councillors spouses contribute to council
discussions and that must affect the outcomes! It would appear the whole Parish
Council process is becoming laughable.
Preston Parish Council have in recent years wasted many, many thousands
of pounds of tax payers money, that wastage is well documented and easily
verified and the council seems to consider that to be of no importance but I’m
sure residents of Preston will not agree with them when they have the relevant
information.
Preston Parish Council is in my view poorly managed, lacking in
transparency, failing to engage with residents, manage public funds in a
cavalier manner and disregard legal requirements when it suites them. These are
all symptoms of a failing council with little to show in the way of leadership
and the situation will only worsen with the passing of time. The Parish Council
have now resorted to barring me from being able to contact them by email, I can
only contact them by letter apparently, my reading is that this comes under the
heading of discrimination against an individual member of the public by a Local
Authority, all because they find it difficult to answer questions that are put
to them.
On the good side, for the first time since the mid 1990’s Preston has
had the benefit of residents being involved in a village project, namely the
management of our Community Hall and their achievements have been exemplary
with an outstanding improvement and refurbishment of the Hall, which is a
credit to all who have been involved. This result surely demonstrates that
residents are the power behind such projects not councils or councillors who
merely act as ‘facilitators’ by handing the project to residents, councils
cannot achieve such results on their own.
Finally, I have taken this step of writing to you so that at some point
in the future I can say with confidence ‘I
did inform Ward Councillors’ when asked, as I do not intend to let matters
rest here.
Yours sincerely
*** *****
Preston Parish Council ***********
1 Grassam Close ***********
Preston Preston
HU12 8XF HU12
***
25/09/12
Dear Councillor
Re. ************************.
I would imagine that at
this point councillors are congratulating themselves and patting each other on
the back on achieving the outcome they have. It is however, a worthwhile
exercise to examine how that was achieved and the methods used.
All councillors were at
the inaugural council meeting on May 11th 2011 and are fully aware
of what transpired during that meeting and the incident to which my complaint
related. I would also suggest that before councillors congratulate themselves
too much, you should examine your consciences and, ask if you have done anything
honourable or right in relation to this matter, I would strongly suggest you
have not.
At the time of the
incident as you are all aware, I was responding to the Chairman’s comment on
the Audit Report recently carried out on the council, at no time did I make any
comment towards Cllr. **** before his outburst, my only comments toward Cllr. ****
were in my defence during his outburst.
Three councillors, ***********,
*******and *******did respond with honest recollections and were impartial in
their statements, I would not ask for more, thank you for your honesty.
Quotes from 3 witness
statements submitted to and reproduced to me by the Standards Committee from
Cllrs. *******, *******and *******, whose statements were unsurprisingly all in
line with each other and clearly demonstrate how the outcome was achieved, some
of those comments were as follows;
It is not Cllr. ***** nature to be forceful or aggressive’ (Cllr. *******)
‘ Mr ***** made derogatory and aggressive comments to Cllr. **** who was sat with his back to Mr *****.
‘Cllr. **** did not turn to face Mr **** but spoke to him quietly over his shoulder’,
Councillor ******* went so far as to deny having to calm Cllr. **** down and stated that ‘I did not get the impression that Councillor **** was aggressive in any way’ This statement is disgraceful because Cllr. *******, as you all know, did calm Cllr. **** down and whilst gently turning him back towards the table said ‘its not worth it *****
Every last one of those
statements is a travesty of the truth, the authors are fully aware of that fact
as is the whole council, there is more from these councillor’s but I shall
restrict myself to the above four quotes, they are sufficient to shame the
council.
I am particularly
appalled at Cllr. ******* who was sat next to Councillor **** so she knows
exactly what happened and how the incident played out. She appears to be the
‘chief witness’ to the incident and for her to display this level of dishonesty
is truly reprehensible and difficult to comprehend, especially to the Standards
Committee investigating officer, councillors clearly have no respect for any of
our democratic institutions?
Suffice it to say, witnesses
stated that I was the aggressive instigator who is frequently abusive and
disruptive during council meetings, you should all hang your heads in
shame, councillors are supposed to be trustworthy, honest and upstanding citizens
of a community. That is clearly not the case with Preston Parish Councillor’s
but we have known that for a number of years and it was naive of me to expect
an honest response from Councillors.
Cllr. ***** statement of
course denied ever saying anything untoward and in fact he denied ever turning
round to face me, he dealt with my alleged abusive and aggressive comments
towards him quite calmly, softly and over his shoulder. Anyone who was there
will recognise this to be pure fantasy, Councillor **** is clearly incapable of
taking responsibility for his actions.
Cllr. *** did however
state that he was responding to my letter to the council of January 2011 when I
accused the council of Lying to the public gallery (on a particular issue). He
had ample opportunity to challenge me in the intervening four months prior to
his outburst, not only during council meetings but also on the streets of
Preston, during that period of time he and I had been stood alongside each
other in Johnsons Hardware Store but there was no challenge from Cllr. ****, so
why choose that particular meeting four months after the event?
I would suggest these
councillors statements have confirmed my judgement of January 2011 to be
absolutely accurate and correct, these councillors are dishonest and have
unequivocally proven the point with their dishonest responses to the Standards
Committee. They have clearly shown themselves not to be trustworthy or honest
members of our community and they clearly cannot be trusted to represent
residents of Preston. The Council Chairman and Vice Chairman’s views which
supported my complaint was of no consequence in the face of such orchestrated
dishonesty.
This level of dishonesty
and deception from councillors has been a mainstay of my and other residents
lack of faith in and opposition to our elected officials for some time and,
that is why we would wish to make the council more open and accountable, this
result spurs me on with renewed vigour and determination. Councillor’s
dishonesty in their recollections demonstrates their utter contempt for our democratic
institutions, they consider themselves to be above the law and immune from
sanction.
An equal number of
councillors chose not to respond to the Standards Committee, in doing so those
councillors in my view, approve of and support those dishonest statements, they
should be ashamed at their lack of response and should ask themselves if they
are in fact suitable to be councillors. It is the lack of response from those
councillors and their unwillingness to give an honest account of the incident
that allowed 4 dishonest councillors to prevail.
There is something very rotten within Preston Parish
Council and it appears that new councillors are either incapable or unwilling
to deal with it and therefore have now become part of the problem.
The council through their actions on this matter have
nothing to celebrate and certainly have nothing to be proud of, on the
contrary, the council, as a corporate body should be ashamed to be associated
with and to be supporting such dishonesty in public office.
I do not consider ERYC
to have been impartial, fair or equitable in their deliberations or conclusions
and have clearly failed to adequately and diligently investigate the incident.
Consequently ERYC have not, in my opinion, discharged their obligations under
statutory provisions in an appropriate manner, I shall now be seeking redress
from the Local Government Ombudsman with regard to ERYC and this matter. Unfortunately
I may have to go through ERYC complaints procedure as a first step and that has
already been actioned.
Yours sincerely
*** *****
CC. All councillors
Id feel the same good luck to you
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