13 April (Part 2) - An improving Council? (Or am I going soft?)
There were two more Council meetings this evening but I only went to one, the
Constitution Review which held out the prospect of being short. Planning, the
alternative, can go on past midnight.
That makes three Council meetings I’ve attended this week and all of them were conducted in an
efficient and professional manner. John Watson tried to sit in at a different
three meetings but was excluded from the Members’ Staffing Panel the only attraction of
which, in my opinion, is that it is held in the Board Room which one would otherwise never see.
It was clearly advertised as a Public meeting and is still shown as such but
they wouldn’t let John in. Definitely illegal.
I shall put it down to incompetence on someone’s part because more generally
Bexley Council appears to be changing for the better. Five years ago today at the height of
Bexley Council’s fight against public scrutiny
they had another blogger in Court
for allegedly making offensive comments to a Councillor. He used the C word and
was found guilty under Section 127 of the Telecommunications Act 2003 of Tweeting a
grossly offensive and menacing comment.
He did use the C word but not at anyone in particular. It did not identify Councillor Melvin Seymour
but another Councillor told him it did and without checking he made an almost totally false statement
to the police which they must have known was false, all the evidence was there, but they
prosecuted the Tweeter anyway. Police officers can be crooks too and some were prepared to lie in Court.
There have been many cases right up to recent times of Bexley police doing
Bexley Council favours and being prepared to lie big time about it. I am still
hopeful that their Directorate of Professional Standards will show them the
errors of their ways with their ongoing investigation. Without doubt the DPS now
know that some of Bexley’s police officers have acted in a corrupt manner.
So John and I went to the meeting of the Constitution Panel meeting for no other
reason than to keep them on their toes, it was never likely to be an interesting
meeting. The Constitution requires an occasional update and simplification in line
with a smaller and more efficient Council. That’s about all there is to it.
About half a dozen relatively insignificant changes were submitted to the 100
pages of the draft Part 2 - Part 1 has already been dealt with - and Chairman O’Neill did
an excellent job of getting through the lot in 35 minutes.
There appears to be a move towards delegating decisions from Councillors to
Officers and Council to Committees which is presumably aimed at faster response
times and less expense. For example John Watson noticed that the Code of Conduct Committee
which has until now recommended their favoured candidate for Independent Person
to Full Council will now take the final decision themselves. The cynic might say
it makes it easier to appoint a yes man.
There was no UKIP representative at this evening’s meeting and the same happened
at the previous meeting of the Panel and there was an empty desk at last
night’s Scrutiny Committee too.
Has UKIP given up on Bexley?
Note: The blogger was found guilty but the verdict was overturned on appeal.