24 July (Part 1) - Stewardship of Bexley is clearly devoid of common sense
I think if I was newly appointed to be the Chief Executive of a borough which
is best known for being bonkers, pilloried almost daily for its actions and has been
reported to the police for its criminal activities more often than any other, I
might give some thought to how that situation might be brought to an end. Maybe an exploratory olive
branch of some sort, it is so much harder to be negative about friendly faces,
even if you don’t have a lot of respect for them, than those determined to be sworn enemies.
Probably I am naive and far too optimistic about human nature but I don’t think my
first act would be to deliberately exacerbate the situation.
Perhaps that is why I was never on the best part of two hundred grand a year.
Presumably you have to have a ruthless and combatative streak to blag your way to that level of
income with no obvious skill other than getting away from
one disaster zone to the next before the last one implodes.
Gill Steward, Bexley’s new Chief Executive, must be an idiot. With one pointless act she has ensured she will never
be far away from the BiB headlines. Council Leader Teresa O’Neill waited about 70 weeks before
asking her bent friends in Arnsberg Way to have me arrested for “criticising
councillors”. Whenever I think BiB may be being a bit harsh towards her I remind
myself she wanted to see me in a cell for reporting her Council’s activities,
and go right ahead with reporting her next failure. Gill Steward managed to get
to the same position in barely 70 days. Moronic or what?
To unnecessarily go against the Department for Communities’ recommendation that “common sense” be
applied to the accommodation of the public at Council meetings is just plain stupid. The act of a petulant child.
For that is what Gill Steward did when
she withdrew the desk that has been provided for news reporters at Council meetings for longer
than anyone remembers.
I wonder what she is like as a Chief Executive?
Sources say that one of her first acts was to adorn more walls at the Civic
Offices with televisions. I bet that having those professionally installed would
be best part a thousand each and whilst reports vary there is said to be six or more new ones.
She has been heard to say that she doesn’t like Bexley related web searches most
often coming up with pages run by a gang of old men. Well tough, the answer to
that is not to keep supplying the ammunition to fire. I would have expected
Bexley’s pay levels to buy an intellect that could have worked that out for
itself, but apparently not.
The postman has not yet delivered the promised letter formally withdrawing the
desk facility and I suspect he never will. It would make a formal complaint
against moon face easier and might give BiB readers another good laugh at her expense.
Meanwhile I should perhaps get the desk into perspective, her main job is taking
Council employees’ desks away, and their jobs with it. How else will Bexley be
able to pay the loon’s inflated salary?