Council Misinformation

COUNCIL  MISINFORMATION

Written for the Blog by a resident of Preston.

Council Misinformation

During the council meeting of 11^th May 2011 a long serving councillor very aggressively attacked me as a member of the public during the inaugural council meeting of the new term following the Local Elections. The attack was entirely unprovoked. This has been referred to in my posting headed 'Letter to Ward Councillors'. 

Despite a number of attempts by me to resolve the issue, the council have always declined to discuss the matter with the attitude that it was my problem and down to me to resolve.

My complaint to the Standards Committee resulted in four Preston Parish Councillors blatantly lying in their collective witness statements reversing the roles on the day. I find it ironic that councillors should defend themselves against being accused of lying to the public gallery during a council meeting by openly lying to a much greater extent to an official investigation by the Standards Committee.

It clearly demonstrates a total lack of character and honesty from Preston Parish Council.

The councillor in question quoted my letter to the council of 15/01/11 as accusing him of being a liar and a thief, here I reproduce the offending text, which I stand by.

………’I have written a number of letters to the Parish Council outlining my concerns relating to council activity, at no time has the council responded or attempted to open a dialog to resolve those concerns.  As the council operates as a collective body, the comments in this letter are directed to all members of the Parish Council. Even though, in my letter dated 12/11/10 I specifically requested the council respond in full, to date no councillor either individually or collectively have shown the good grace of responding!’

…….’Your lack of response clearly demonstrates your utter contempt and disregard for the public and the residents of Preston or, it may be that the letters are just a little too complicated for councilors to grasp and are therefore unable to respond! Should this be the case please do let me know and I shall Endeavour to restrict all future correspondence to words of one syllable.’

……..’I have in previous letters drawn attention to dishonest information contained in the Preston Parish Council publications. The council, as a collective body, must be aware of those dishonest  comments and therefore all members are responsible for actively misleading the public’.

……..’all members of the council of deliberately lying to the pubic in a persistent attempt to conceal information. The council, during council meetings, have repeatedly told members of the public that there are legal restrictions that prevent members from covering Charity information during council meetings, this is despite assurances and promises by the council that information on charity activity would be given to the public at council meetings. Although I have requested from the council, some time ago, clarification as to what those restrictions are, to date the council have chosen to ignore that request!’

…….’Another lie from the council is that the Charity Commission expressly forbids any part of the community hall being used as a council office.

I would like to refer you to a letter from the Charity Commission to Preston Parish Council dated 23/11/07 and signed by Mr. ******  *******.

……..‘In this letter it clearly states;

‘Parish Council Involvement’.

‘Under charity law trustees have the overall responsibility for running a charity and therefore they need to have control over decisions affecting how a charity functions and applies its funds. We would expect the charity trustees to be fully in charge, although we would have no objection to you working in conjunction with Preston Parish Council. Even for the time that the Council is sole trustee’’.

……….‘It is quite clear there are no legal restrictions preventing Trustees reporting information to the Council during council meetings. This position I have confirmed through direct contact with The Charities Commission, in fact the Charity Commission would support update reports to the council meetings as this would make a connection to, and would inform, the public, who are after all a major beneficiary of the charity and a major reason for the charity to exist. The same public it needs to be said are the people who financed the setting up of the charity, not yourselves!’

…..’Trustees however appear to consider the Charity as their own little creation which should be kept as far away from the publics prying eyes as possible.’

…….’It can only be that trustees do not want the public to know what they are doing which would suggest that trustees are applying themselves to a more sinister and underhand activity that they know the public would disapprove of’.

……..’In the same letter to the Parish Council under the heading Objects, it states’;

……..‘It is not a charitable purpose to provide office accommodation for a Clerk to a Parish Council because the council is not a charity. However, if the office is a way of turning spare building capacity to account, on the basis that it would not interfere with the delivery of the objects and would attract an appropriate level of rent or equivalent payment in kind, this could be acceptable’.

……..‘It is quite evident that council office accommodation can be allocated within the community hall with only minor conditions to meet, it is therefore dishonest for the council to state it is not possible to accommodate the Parish Council office in the community hall due to Charity Commission rulings’.

……..’It has for some time now been quite evident that nothing Preston Parish Council says or publishes can be relied upon as accurate or true and nothing the council promises to do actually comes about, it would appear we have a council of miscreants’.

……..’Your private charity is looking to source funds from our Parish Council but clearly unwilling to reciprocate by providing council office accommodation, if you would like some assistance as to how that position could be achieved to the benefit of all parties, please do call on my services as you clearly do not have the in-house skills to resolve such a complex dilemma’.

……….’During the council meeting of 12/01/11 it was stated by the council that there is no office of Preston Parish Council. My understanding from council minutes is that an allowance is made to ***. ******* for the use of part of his home as a council office. If this is the case and you now state there is no office, any allowance paid to ***. ******* should be stopped forthwith and any previous sums paid should be returned to the Parish Council. Knowingly paying for an office that you are aware does not exist is intentional theft of public funds and thereby constitutes fraud by the council’.

……..’It may also be that you do not wish to give certain members of the public access to the council office and are therefore simply denying its existence, this makes the dissemination of information much more difficult and puts members of the public at a distinct disadvantage. This explanation would make some sense as it is in line with the council’s culture of withholding information’.

The letter referred to from the Charities Commission was sent to the council in 2007 which is not so far away from 2010 and in my view it is entirely unfeasible that all members of the council would have collectively ‘forgotten’ about that letter or its contents. The untruthful statements by the council must therefore have been fully intentional and meant to mislead the public and residents of Preston.

Considering that the council has spent something in the order of £3,000, to the best of my recollection, of residents precept money on establishing the Preston Community Hall Charity, allegedly for the benefit of Preston residents, yet we were not entitled to ask any questions or entitled to any information relating to the charity was, and still is, in my view diabolical.

The council has never responded by listing the legal restrictions that they insist prevented them from discussing information relating to the charity and the reason for this is that they don’t exist, it was all just a dishonest smokescreen that the council expected residents to be silly enough to swallow.

My letter is obviously tinged with total frustration with the council for treating residents as insignificant, unimportant and as having no right to be involved with the process. If the council considers that to be the case it should have had the character and honesty to simply state that and produce the evidence that prevented them from discussing such topics. To this date the council has never produced that information and cannot produce it because it doesn’t exist!

The new council from May 2011 had a golden opportunity to resolve all issues and put these unpleasant matters behind us. In my opinion the council had a duty to residents to resolve all issues relating to the previous administration and go forward with a new programme.

The new council were entirely unsullied by these issues and I made it quite clear to the council that I was prepared to adjust my position on all subjects to a substantial degree in order that they may be resolved. In fact I wrote to the Vice Chairman and outlined three items that I was almost entirely prepared to accept the Council Chairman’s deliberations and walk away from all issues, it was dismissed without explanation.

Unfortunately the council did not grasp that opportunity and consequently we are were we are today, the much easier option (at the time) was simply to fall into line with old council members and continue their mismanagement of the Parish.

It is really not too difficult to take a conciliatory step towards resolution, I believe at a Charity AGM meeting when the atmosphere was extremely tense and combative between the various factions I was asked to work with the council by two council members, given the circumstances and environment I angrily refused them out of hand.

That same evening after getting home I came to the conclusion that I was quite wrong in my actions and wrote an apology to those two councillors and offered to meet them. We did meet but unfortunately it was now getting close to the Local Elections in 2011 and little could be resolved in the short time left.

I include the contents of that apology below.

                                                                                                01/3/2011

Dear Councillor *******

Re: Yesterday evenings meeting.

Both yourself and Councillor ******* made an attempt to speak with me during last nights meeting, I dismissed both attempts out of hand.

As you know I have spent a number of months in opposition to and, criticizing the Parish Council for their lack of engagement with the public and, seemingly, in my judgment, dismissing the publics view out of hand. Having had time to reflect on last nights events and not being subject to last nights combative environment I have come to the conclusion that it is equally wrong for me to dismiss your approach out of hand, although my views and reservations have in no way changed.

May I take this opportunity to apologise to both you and Councillor  *******.

If you wish to explore common ground and diffuse the current level of animosity between residents and the council, on a tentative basis I would be amenable to meeting with yourself and Councillor ******* at a suitably neutral location.

Should you wish to take advantage of this opportunity please contact me by phone or E-mail and I will endeavor to meet at your convenience.

In view of timescales leading to the May 5^th elections, may I suggest any such meeting takes place in the next few days.

My talking with other councillors at this juncture would not be beneficial.

I look forward to your response.

Kind regards

***  *****