RESPONSE TO KEITH G, HULL.

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RESPONSE TO KEITH G, HULL.

Thank you for your comment Keith and thank you for reading.

We believe Keith’s comment is related to Mr. Lyons recent posts and we have therefore ask Mr. Lyons to respond as he is familiar with the actual events of the meeting in question.

Mr. Lyons writes,

Councillor Clappison was present and Chairing the meeting at the time of the incident in question. Although I can tell you the events that led up to Councillor Bell’s outburst, I am unfortunately unable to explain the reason for his outburst.

 If you would care to look on Preston Parish Council’s Website you will see that the first item of business was ‘Public Participation’.

Councillor Mendham (who was still a member of the public at that point) asked a question of the Chair with regard to the cost of the recent investigation carried out by the Audit Commission following a complaint by a member of the public.

The Chairman quite rightly answered her query and informed the Council and public gallery the Audit had cost the Parish purse approximately £8,750. The Chairman then went on to explain that the Audit Commission had given the Parish Council a clean bill of health in respect of the supply of information to members of the public under the provisions of the FoIA.

It was at this point that I felt compelled to respond because the latter part of the Chairman’s answer was, in my opinion, at best misleading. I was pointing out that the Financial Regulations are quite separate from the Information Regulations and it would not have been appropriate for the Auditor to comment on the Councils performance with regard to the provision of information under FoIA, any more than it would be appropriate for the Information Commissioners Office to comment on the Council’s performance in relation to Financial matters. Therefore in my view no such conversation took place, on later reading the Auditors report it made no such references and therefore my view prevailed.

This is the point when Councillor Bell intervened.

The Chairman’s role during council meetings is to ensure that the proceedings run smoothly, all business wherever possible is concluded and the legal provisions are observed, along with the Code of Conduct relating to the behaviour of Council members.

So we have Cllr. Mendham kicking off the proceedings, Cllr. Bell intervening very aggressively, Cllr. Clappison failing to bring the meeting to order and allowing the incident to run it’s course while Cllr. Fortnum eventually had to take control of Cllr. Bell in order to calm him down. Those 4 names should be sounding familiar by now.

It is my personal and honest opinion the incident was engineered and the aggression was to be directed at the person who requested the costly audit to be carried out. That person was not present at the meeting but the plan, I believe, was in motion by then and had to run its course. When I criticised the comments of the Chairman I became the primary target.

It seems a little strange that the same names are unable to remember any of the events in which they played such a crucial and critical role. It’s the same people whose accounts are at odds with everyone else’s, in my opinion that appears to be more than a little coincidental.

In my opinion from the evidence that I have seen in the form of witness statements supplied to me by the Investigating Officer for the Standards Committee, Councillor Bell put forward 2 defences,

1.    His primary defence and the one covered in previous posts was that he played no such role as that indicated by the complainant and was passive throughout and therefore he had done nothing that needed defending.

2.    But just in case and as a back up to his first defence he listed a defence of putting his behaviour down to a reaction to a letter I had written to the Council in January 2011 in which I suggested the Council had lied.

In my honest opinion there is absolutely no necessity for a second fail safe defence if the first defence is accurate and truthful because there would not have been any adverse behaviour to defend!

To save any comment asking why I had suggested the Council had lied and was I right to do so, here are my reasons,

As members of the public and during 2010 a number of residents including myself had asked if the Council Meetings could be held at the Community Hall on Main Street, Preston for a variety of reasons not least of all to enable more elderly residents being in a position to attend should they wish to. We were emphatically told during a number of Council Meetings that it was not possible because there were regulations in place that prohibited such meetings in the Community Hall, especially Charity Regulations. Despite repeatedly requesting the Parish Council to identify the legislation they were referring to, they refused. As residents we could not locate any legislation that supported the Parish Councils opinion.

I am and was at the time in possession of a letter from the Charities Commission to Preston Parish Council dated 2007 that, clearly states that the Charities Commission has no objection to the Parish Council holding meetings in the Community Hall and having a Council Office at the Community Hall providing, the Community Hall Charity was in receipt of payment in cash or kind.

That letter made it very clear to me that the Council statements on the matter were misleading and untruthful, where do the Council hold their meetings today, the Community Hall, where is the Parish Council Office, behind the Community Hall. As appears to be normal, the Parish Council’s view has not been supported and we as residents were correct in our view once again.

If Cllr. Bell had actually reacted to my letter why did he conjure it up for this particular meeting when he had every opportunity to ‘react’ during the previous 4 months? I did after all attend all Council meetings at that time.

Leaving this incident aside, it would in my opinion be extremely poor judgment for anyone to defend himself or herself against an accusation of having been dishonest, by being dishonest.

If there are any residents with similar experience of the council do please contact us by comment or email. If you wish we will post on your experience without your identity being released, or not post anything if you simply want to share your experience it’s entirely up to you. We would love to hear your story, your not alone, there are a number of us, let us compare notes and grow as a group.