Response to Preston Debate Page.

Response to Preston Village Debate Page.

We would like to reply to a comment on Preston Debate page by Carol Osgerby who seems to think we are asking for a “public enquiry” (that should be 'inquiry') and want Preston council taxpayers to pay for it!! Either you haven’t managed to grasp what we’re about or your maliciously putting forward misinformation in order to help the council by generating ill feeling towards our members.

You are the first person that has mentioned a public enquiry, where did you think that one up from, we have never mentioned a public enquiry. If you’re going to comment please read our material first and carefully to ensure you understand it and please don’t add emotive and expensive words like “public enquiry”, Preston doesn’t have the financial means to cover the cost of a public enquiry so let us not start making silly and scurrilous statements attributing them to people who have never said them.

It would be a good starting point to read your own Debate Page rules because your comment breaks a number of them, you may be in danger of having to remove yourself from your own page. The rules we think you breach are attributing such statements to people who haven’t said them is dishonest and may be interpreted as libelous, no persistent attacks on individuals who cannot defend themselves on your debate page, be kind, polite and honest.

So you cannot misunderstand, we have asked for an “Independent Investigation” into Parish Councillors submitting false statements to the Standards Committee, that we presume would be carried out by the Monitoring Officer of East Riding Council on behalf of the Standards Committee, the financial cost to Preston council taxpayers……Nil!

If we were simply trying to cost Preston money we would complain about councillors spending public funds on planning permissions without council approval, which would cost Preston a few thousand pounds. One of our main platforms is that we are against any public money being wasted on such exercises, especially money from the council taxpayers of Preston.

You begin your comment by quite gleefully stating “Still only 6 signatures on that petition”, just so there can be no misunderstanding on your part. It makes no difference to us how many signatures the petition generates whether its 6 or 60 or 600. The petition could have been posted for 12 months, if you would care to read it you will see we posted the petition for only 6 months, if we were interested in getting as many signatures as possible we would have posted it for the full 12 months.

Can we also note that you posted your comment a mere 4 days after your initial link to the petition, you really shouldn’t be quite so keen to belittle those who do not always agree with you. If we recall correctly your the person who believes we should display “generosity of spirit”, you would appear to have little yourself!

It is entirely possible that a number of people who have read your comment do not read this blog, maybe you would like to post a link to this response in the interests of balance and fairness?

Response to Anonymous.

Response to Anonymous.

Hi Anonymous

Your quite right the accusations and tone are “appalling” the actions by the council which brought this blog about are also “appalling” none of this would be taking place if the council had not treated residents including myself with such an appallingly dismissive attitude, attacked a resident during a council meeting then got together to lie about the incident, making the resident out to be the liar, or waste so much of our money, I could go on but that might be seem as “ranting”, heaven forbid!!  

I see we’re back on the old “vendetta” treadmill, a favorite with the council when trying to discredit me and deflect attention from themselves. It saves them having to answer any questions, all the accusations are a matter of record so before you tell me I’m wrong to fight an injustice go and ask the council why they did those things in the first place!

Again your right, this whole thing tarnishes the entire council, brings the council into disrepute puts the village in a poor light, I accept all of that is unfair and unjust and probably uncalled for, I have tried to distinguish between what I see as new councillors and the old guard who are the problem and always have been. Let the few councillors who engineered this mayhem show some honour and consideration for their colleagues who are being tarnished with their wrongdoings, let them stand and show some willingness to put this in the past and accept they have not being perfect examples to the village!

A few councillors brought the council into disrepute when they gave false statements to the Standards Committee, that's about as appalling as you can get, I didn’t do that! Nor have I said its proven, my position has always been for an independent investigation to establish the truth, read the e-petition on the Government website.

You suggest I should resolve my differences with the council in a private manner. I have requested to meet with the council probably a dozen times over the last 3 years to resolve our differences, I was happy to get a simple assurance that such an attack by a councillor during a council meeting would not be repeated. This whole thing could have been put to bed over 2 years ago with 4 simple words from the council “that won’t happen again” instead they voted not to speak to me and brushed me aside as though I am some worthless idiot who is not worth the time of day, my trying to resolve issues directly with the council have ended I no longer have contact with the council.

The relationship between myself and the Parish Council has unfortunately always been an acrimonious one, there are faults on both sides so neither of us can claim any moral high ground and it will never be resolved until the parties decide to talk and settle their differences. For my part I have tried to settle any differences many times while the council have been intransigent in their position of dismissing me out of hand, that’s hardly my fault I don’t control the council! I have also been to ERYC and complained about councillors submitting false statement’s, they simply refused to look at it.

I find it strange that while I am willing to accept fault on my part as well as the council being at fault, your opinion would seem to be that everything is down to me and I’m just having a go at a wonderfully efficient, caring council that takes care of residents every need and are a wonderful asset to the village. Nothing in my opinion could be further from the truth, you have a very one sided argument which in itself discredits it.

Thank you for reading and for your comment.

Response to Anonymous.

Response to anonymous.

Hi Anonymous

You start your comment with “let see if this gets published?”  we can assure you that every comment to this Blog has been published without exception, there has only been one occasion when some swear words have had to be deleted before publishing a comment. It really makes no difference whether a comment agrees or disagrees with us, everyone is entitled to his or her view and we will continue to publish all comments, except very abusive ones though to date we haven’t had any of them.

We’re sorry to have shocked you by our statements but we have made them with a genuine desire to have them addressed and put behind us so we are able to go forward with a clean sheet with good honest councillors who’s interest is working for the people who elected them and improving our community in the future. If you have lived in Preston for almost 50 years I’m sure you can recall better times when councillors had the interests of their residents at heart and worked on their behalf.

We accept that things in the past may not have been done right and we are certainly not criticizing everything that wasn’t done right because we’re all human and we all make mistakes and misjudgments from time to time.

I would respectfully disagree with your comment that in the period we are referring to councillors did what they thought was best for the village and villagers at the time, that is not the case.

For a council to act in the way Preston Parish Council has acted in the last 15 years or so is unforgivable because they very clearly did not have resident’s best interest at heart, what was important to them was boosting their own ego’s and intentionally refusing to engage with residents which led to such chaos. In the 15 year period we’re concerned with the council achieved nothing for residents except the planting of a few bulbs, trees and laying a small area to grass. To achieve so little in that length of time at a cost to resident’s of about £20,000 per year shows one of two things, abject incompetence or an utter disregard for the wellbeing of residents. To add insult to injury, along the way they frittered away many thousands of pounds of resident’s money on follies only they could have thought up! Those same people are still wielding influence over the management of our parish, not quite what you would call “safe hands”. At no time have any of those councillors had the decency to say “ok we made a few mistakes but we have learned from them and those mistakes won’t happen in the future so we deserve a second chance to do things right”, that we could live with but the arrogance of refusing to even acknowledge any mistakes and to be told they know best so we should leave it all to them is mindboggling and unacceptable. The council prefers to crack a nut with a sledge hammer, that usually creates a mess and besides, bullying doesn't always work.

Your absolutely right to mention the improvement of the village hall the hanging baskets and Christmas trees, these improvements are terrific and an absolute credit to all those hardworking residents who achieved so much. Let us not forget the Parish Council obtained Planning Permission to demolish the village hall in January 2007 without any consultation with residents, let us also not forget it was residents who opposed the demolition of the hall. The council spent at least £10,000 on plans and planning permissions for the demolition and building of a new hall which would have placed Preston into debt for at least a couple of generations. If the council at that time had the best interests of residents at heard the refurbishment would have been done at least 5 years before it was and the money wasted on plans and planning permission could have been used to achieve it.

As for living in the past we can assure you that is not the case, we look forward to a future that sees Preston move ahead in leaps and bounds and that will be achieved by resident’s. We believe in order to move forward we must face up to the past and recognise what went so disastrously wrong and in doing so we can avoid falling into those same traps and move forward knowing those same mistakes will not be repeated.

That may give Preston a better future.

Parish Council Intimidates Village Post Office

Parish Council Intimidates Village Post Office.

As a Blog we posted a notice in the Village Post Office on Main Street, Preston, making people aware of our site and inviting them to read it. As a democratic community we are entitled to hold a view that differs from that of the Parish Council and we are legally entitled to make that view known.

Preston Parish Council it would seem wish to shut down any views that do not fall in line with its own view and appear to be intimidating the Post Office into not displaying an advertisement for this blog. Having queried the removal of our advert we have been informed by the shop owners that a number of Parish Councillors have been in demanding its removal, a number of councillors have since been in one by one to ensure the advert is not displayed. This is a long way from democracy and clearly demonstrates the lengths the Parish Council will go to in order to silence dissenting opinion.

We have been informed by the shop owner that an official from East Riding of Yorkshire Council rang the shop and told them they should not display the advert. The Parish Council rang Democratic Services to ask for advice on how to deal with the issue, having now spoken to the ER official who actually dealt with the query from Preston Parish Council we are assured that no official from East Riding Council has contacted the shop owner to request the removal of the advert. Because the Parish Council informed East Riding Council that the advert contained untruths about the Parish Council. They (East Riding) did advise the Parish Council to approach the shop owner and request its removal on the grounds that it contained untruths. Failing that, the Parish Council could take legal advice on the matter, it may well be the Parish Council are happy to waste many thousands of pounds of public funds on legal advice or action that we would suggest is doomed to failure. They would appear to have the long held belief that it is far better to spend thousands of pounds of ratepayers money rather than talk to a resident, we’ve been here before and last time it cost residents almost £9,000, what did the council achieve, precisely nothing!!

There has been nothing on this site that to our knowledge is untrue, and no one has ever challenged our views with a credible alternative, just to recap on some of the issues:

Failing to make information available.

The council has consistently failed to make information available when requested to do so under the Freedom of Information Act. This is not a one off occurrence it is consistent with virtually every request that has been submitted to Preston Parish Council over a period of more than 3 years. All requests have been submitted by e-mail so we are able to corroborate all of them, we can also very clearly demonstrate the Councils non-response to the vast majority of those requests by either ignoring the request and not responding at all or forwarding information that is clearly not the information requested.

Dishonest Statements to the Standards Committee.

We are in possession of the text of statements submitted to the Standards Committee some of which are clearly false and untrue, this is not the kind of behaviour we are entitled to expect from our elected officials. We are in a position to defend our position, there is also an e-petition on the Central Government’s web site requesting an independent investigation into the matter of dishonest councillors. The petition is listed as being under the jurisdiction of the Department for Communities and Local Government who validate petitions prior to allowing them to be posted on their site. Listed on that petition is the name of this blog as a source of background information relating to the petition, this Blog is therefore an integral part of that petition

The Government in their validation process seeks to identify any libelous statements which would invalidate any petition; it is therefore entirely reasonable to conclude that Central Government Officials have read this blog to check for any libelous statements, any libelous statements would invalidate the petition and it would therefore not have been published. In validating the e-petition and posting it on the Government site it is also reasonable to conclude they did not identify any libelous statements in this blog.

It is entirely reasonable when dishonesty is believed to have taken place to request an independent investigation to establish the facts and truth. Rather than using bullying tactics to silence opinion, the Parish Council would be much better employed taking steps to resolve the issue and if as they would appear to believe, there has been no dishonesty, establishing the facts and proving their case.

The council is clearly unhappy with the statements posted on this blog, including:

Illegal use of public funds by Preston Parish Council.

We believe that Preston Parish Council spent approximately £10,000 of public funds illegally with regard to two planning applications in 2006/7, we have requested the minutes that would confirm that belief to be wrong. In the first instance the council employed its usual tactic of simply ignoring the request for many months, after being prompted the council forwarded 3 sets of minutes that had no connection to the information requested. A request for clarification was sent to the council a number of months ago, to date that request has once again been ignored. We can only conclude that the council is unable to show they acted legally in spending those public funds.

Wasting of Public Funds by Preston Parish Council.

Preston Parish council has wasted many thousands of pounds of resident’s money on ill thought out schemes such as a new community hall and planning permissions and by refusing to engage with residents, which caused a loss of many thousands of pounds by resulting in an entirely unnecessary Audit by the Audit Commission.

Unlawful Council Meetings.

The council has in the recent past convened unlawful council meetings by not providing the public with the legally required 3 days minimum notice of the meetings, during one of those meetings the council unlawfully co-opted a new councillor. As a consequence that councillor has not been lawfully co-opted and is therefore still a member of the general public and not a legally constituted Parish Councillor, we have therefore had a member of the general public taking part in council meetings, contributing to council business and voting on council matters that effect the whole of Preston. Such a position is clearly unacceptable and makes a mockery of all the democratically accepted norms, it also brings into question all meetings that member of the general public has taken an active part in.

All the above points are documented facts that can be confirmed by public record.

If the council disagree with any issue listed on this Blog they should either talk to the author and discuss the issues with a view to resolving them or have a public debate on all issues listed on this Blog and settle the matters once and for all, we are in full support of any steps that seeks to establish the truth. What they should not do is intimidate an honest and innocent shopkeeper instructing him what he can or can’t display in his own shop window.

If as the shopkeeper insists, an Official from East Riding rang to request the advert be removed and equally East Riding insist that no official from that authority rang the shopkeeper then who did? Obviously someone did, our only conclusion is that someone connected to Preston Parish Council rang the shopkeeper pretending to be an Official from East Riding Council to ensure the removal of the offending advert!! So once again there is a question of dishonesty and deception that blights our Parish Council. What is it they are trying to conceal so desperately that they need to employ such dishonest and devious methods?

In over three years the council have not made any attempt to discuss any issue on this Blog despite many requests to do so. A council who is engaged with its community and has nothing to hide would act to quench any questions of dishonesty or wrongdoing brought by any of its residents in an open and transparent way either in private talks or public debate.

We do not intend at this time to request the shopkeeper to relist the advert, it would be unfair to the shopkeeper who is striving to make an honest living and it would be wrong and disrespectful to place him in such a difficult position. We do however intend to distribute the advert to a wider audience by whatever means are available to us. 

Preston Village Debate page.

Preston Village Debate page.

I would normally prefer not to comment on another page but as administrators of the above page have commented on this page I feel it only polite to respond in kind but hopefully I, at least, will give some substance to my view.

I have recently read Preston Village Debate page and apart from being pointless because members are not allowed to say anything that is not politically correct, polite or nice about people, companies, organisations or local authorities so, unless you can balance on a fence and have no opinion there’s really no point in commenting but then, if your concentrating on a balancing act there’s probably no point in commenting anyway.....I know, it doesn't make any sense to me either!!

That may be the reason why so few of its members actually comment on any issues and under such restrictive conditions debate is somewhat difficult, that is bourn out by the lack of debate on the page. I agree you have to have rules and limits have to be set and members must abide by them but being so restrictive only serves to stifle debate not encourage or create it!

The current “debate” about travellers on Staithes Road isn’t actually a debate it’s just a collection of opinions and even that has been criticised by administrators.

I think the administrators should ask themselves if they are the right people for the role of administering such a page and if they conclude they are afraid that someone may be unkind, impolite or critical of someone else, company, organisation or local authority I would think it time for either new administrators to be appointed to liven the page up or set up a new page where opposing views can be voiced and challenged.

If you look at the definition of the word debate, you will come up with things like argue, dispute, contest or oppose, the very things that are not permitted on Preston Village Debate especially if you have strongly held views and voice them passionately against some one who disagrees with you with equal passion, that is all too often seen as an “attack” on someone and would therefore be deleted and the author possibly removed. Like me, I’m sure there are many who no longer know what is permissible and what is not, to date the rules have been made up as the administrators stumble along altering or adding to the rules when administrators disagree with a comment or view in order to justify its deletion or the authors removal from the page, sounds a little autocratic to me.

I have no wish to cast doubt on the sincerity of administrators of the page but if you look at the number of debates on the page you may well come to the conclusion that there are none and if there is anything that might resemble a debate contributors are constantly warned against failing to be kind or balanced and that usually kills the debate stone dead!! So we now return to “what is the point”.

To have a debate you need honesty, sincerity, passion and commitment, which as far as I’m concerned create conflicts of opinion and argument that leads to healthy debate and hopefully a mutually agreed resolution. Most good debates are centred on controversial subjects and opinions. If you are going to run a debate page then for heavens sake let people get on and debate issues, because we might disagree with someone else’s view doesn’t mean we’ll end up knocking 10 bells of hell out of each other.

As for a local authority not being able to defend itself that is not true, while I accept a local authority has no defence against libel in law, libel law does give a defence for a council as “utterances and council debate”. Therefore a council is able to list as an agenda item the issue in question and debate it in council in front of a public gallery and thereby refute any criticism, that would be the right approach for a council to adopt, open, transparent and honest, it is wholly wrong to suggest residents are not allowed to criticise a council because it cannot defend itself.

It’s far more appropriate to ask why a council doesn’t defend itself when it has every right to do so and the means to do it. The alternative is not to criticise a council on any subject or oppose their methods or actions, just let them get on with whatever it is their doing and hope you’re able to vote them out at the next common election if you happen to disagree with them. The problem with that view is that a council who is unchallenged will become bolder and bolder in their actions and the amount of damage they can inflict on a community during their 4-year term of office is enormous. Bearing that in mind we as residents have a duty to question and challenge a council when we feel they are failing, if we don’t we deserve everything we get!!

We must also remember that councillors are equally private residents and as such have a voice as residents, hopefully from a position of awareness and knowledge, that is a valuable addition to any debate that effects a local community, to cut off an enquiry to such a person is to deny valuable input to the debate and lessen it’s worth, another fault of administrators, in my view. A main duty of a Parish Councillor is to engage with residents, understand their views and needs so they are able to fully represent those residents in council. Failing to engage with residents is in my view a dereliction of their duty to the electorate.

Is Preston Village Debate there to protect the interests of the Parish Council or encourage open debate, it cannot do both.

I’ll probably get some flak for this post but at least I’m honest, I have an opinion and everyone knows were I stand and I’m willing to have a debate while respecting any opposing view.

E-petition posted on Government site.

E-petition now listed on Government site 

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/52966 

After taking advice we have posted an e-petition on HM Government site. Our objective is not necessarily to get 100,000 signatures although that would be nice. We simply want to make people aware and maybe gather a little support in getting an independent investigation into the matter.

It’s a step we really shouldn’t have to take because any self respecting council that values it’s good reputation and has the interests of it’s residents at heart would not allow such a situation to get beyond their control as Preston Parish Council has done in this case. Despite many opportunities to resolve the issue with ample good faith on the part of the victim, the council has consistently refused to discuss the issue and buried their heads in the sand hoping it will go away, it clearly will not go away!

The petition was published today (2/8/13) on the Governments e-petition site after being validated by the Department of Communities and Local Government. We would urge anyone who wishes to promote honesty in local government and particularly in Preston Parish Council to sign the petition.

Simply click on the above link and it will take you to the petition.

The only people who have access to the identities of people who sign the petition is Central Government, that information is not made available to local groups or the creator of the petition or Preston Parish Council so anonymity is assured.

It would also be very helpful to our whole community if honest councillors who are working in good faith to improve our local community would take heart and insist the issue is dealt with and resolved.  

We are currently preparing a file to be sent to the Department of Communities and local Government, it is expected to take 2/3 months to prepare, when submitted it will be posted on this page.

Thanks for the E-mails.

Thanks for your E-mails a couple have asked what all this is really about? I have posted most of the details in January and February but I’ll go over the main problem I have with the council here. In fact, my problem is far from being with the whole council it’s with a few councillors who have made me out to be dishonest when in fact it was them who were dishonest. I have always tried to make it clear that my issue is with those few councillors and no one else. Though I do find it difficult to understand why good councillors are prepared to protect them.

I was verbally attacked very loudly by a councillor, in front of the whole council and public gallery during the inaugural council meeting for the new council term following the 2011 elections. That attack was entirely unprovoked and was certainly not the kind of behaviour you would expect of an elected council official.

Initially I insisted the councillor in question should apologise for his actions but soon realised that was an unachievable expectation and informed the council I would accept a simple assurance from the council (as a corporate body) that such an outburst would not happen again. The council refused to give any such assurance, I then submitted a complaint regarding the incident to the Standards Committee.

Those deliberations are a matter of public record and can be found on the East Riding of Yorkshire Web site under the heading “Standards Committee”. Following an investigation a decision was made that no further action would be taken against the councillor because there was a balance in witness statements that said the councillor was the aggressor and an equal number said I was the aggressor. That equality was achieved by four councillors putting in false and very clearly dishonest statements that reversed the roles and put me in the position of being the aggressor while the actual aggressor was put forward as the victim, which effectively got the councillor off the hook.

I protested to the Monitoring Officer and gave a lengthy account of why I considered those councillors had lied to the Standards Committee, there was a pretty much point blank refusal to establish the truth. Following that decision a number of councillors wrote to the Monitoring Officer to protest at the unjust outcome and the method used by a few (4) councillors to achieve it.

There has been what I can only describe as a “Council lockdown” on this subject ever since and therefore the whole council is now protecting the 4 dishonest councillors amongst them.

I’m afraid my conscience would give me no choice as a councillor under those circumstances, I would have to either speak out to avoid further damage to the council’s reputation or resign and insist the matter be resolved. I was prepared to accept a simple assurance from the council that there would be no repeat, I was prepared to accept such an assurance and leave the matter there to avoid further unpleasantness. What I am not prepared to do is quietly allow 4 Preston Parish Councillors to make me out to be a liar by lying themselves, they have by their actions also implied that the Council Chairman, Vice Chairman (at the time) and other councillors were also dishonest in their statements!!

Some people have suggested that I’m bringing the council into disrepute, I disagree, 4 councillors brought Preston Parish Council into disrepute the moment they submitted false statement to the Standards Committee while I am merely trying to clear my name as a result of those false statements.

If these people are prepared to be so dishonest to the Standards Committee on such a piffling item how can we possibly expect them to be honest when conducting other council business in our name?

This is not about me and a couple of councillors, it’s about honesty in public office and the type of people we want to have representing us, I would much prefer to have honest upstanding fellow residents who are connected to our community, have our best interests at heart and who actually care about residents, people we are able to place our trust in. The councillors in question do not meet any of those criteria.

It has been suggested that a petition be submitted to East Riding demanding the issue be resolved in the interests of the Parish and our Council, I’m unsure how that would work, you cannot compel people to have memories least of all accurate memories. Having said that I cannot see how new councillors in their first ever meeting, as councillors with senses heightened would not be unable to recall the incident or at least the main elements even to this day. Are residents interested enough in the people who look after their affairs to take part in such an exercise and seek the truth, I really don’t know but it’s now under consideration.