There is no criticism of Councillor Maxine Fothergill in this blog.
12 January (Part 1) - They will not know
The
blog below is one of several relating to Bexley Councillor Maxine Fothergill and
Bexley Council’s Code of Conduct Committee. This
note aims to make it clear that the events reported between December 2015 and
the Summer of 2016 whilst accurate reflections of various events, disciplinary hearings and sanctions
brought against Councillor Fothergill they are individually insufficient to explain the whole story.
Two members of the Bexley-is-Bonkers team met with Councillor Fothergill at a
secret location on 16th September 2016 where she explained to us what had really happened. She was able to
convince us that she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
There were compelling reasons why Councillor Fothergill should be believed. It seemed likely that
the Tory High Command in Bexley had taken revenge on her because Councillor
Fothergill had reported one of their associates to the police for theft.
Councillor Fothergill requested that the explanatory note prefixed to relevant blogs (which first went on line a few days earlier) be further
strengthened so that readers are fully aware that reported events, whilst
accurate at the time, did not reflect her innocence and that Bexley Council’s charge
of misconduct and “gaining a financial advantage for herself” was malicious.
This is a modified version of the note Councillor Fothergill asked to be placed here.
Whilst
I thought too much Maxine Fothergill would prove monotonous there is
no doubt that her name has been bringing more and longer staying readers to the blog. The
Facebook reaches tend to be higher too, not that I have much idea of what they are.
So in the absence of anything else before Bexley Council comes back from its Christmas holiday (Public Cabinet
on 26th January †), here’s another of the truth-seeking Freedom of Information requests.
As reported last Friday
the Chairman is only allowed to change the sequence of Code of Conduct Agenda
items in order to make things more ‘fair’. However Cheryl Bacon appears to have done so only to keep secrets.
The FOI seeks to find out what Councillor Bacon was thinking of when she made the changes
Under the London Borough of Bexley Members Code of Conduct Sub Committee Rules
of Procedure, Rule 3.2 states that the Chairman may exercise their discretion
and amend the order of business, where they consider that it is expedient to do
so in order to secure the effective and fair consideration of any matter.
Please provide a copy of the minutes of the MCSC meeting held on 10th December
2015, containing the reasons why Councillor Cheryl Bacon, Chairman of the
meeting, considered it expedient to amend the order of business, so that the
public and press were excluded from the meeting before she introduced the
individuals present, including the complainant, the subject Member and her representative.
I bet there aren’t any reasons.
† A few sub-committee meetings take place before Cabinet.