The minutes of the standards committee meeting are now published on the council website click here to read them.My own thoughts on this one are that we have still got the leader and deputy leader and if like me you feel obliged to take up local issues, then like it or not they are the people you have to deal with.
Personally they have both always been courteous to me, my problem with them has always been that they appear to be too easily swayed by council officers, however with the standards issue I see the only option being to draw a line under it.
yep lets get on with it and see how things pan out in the elections
ReplyDeleteMichael, I wish we could draw a line under this issue, but if the local Conservative Party does not act concerning three failings in conduct within 15 months but persists in supporting a despicable allegation that 'it's a Labour conspiracy' to smear 'The Leader'then it has lost any moral high ground.
ReplyDeleteIt cannot have escaped your attention that the 'apology' letters referred to in the Standards Committee minutes were not only 'conditional'and self justificatory but dated 29 Jan 2009
In other words, an 'apology' 7 months on and AFTER Stages 1, 2 & 3of the process had already found Cllrs Ezekiel & Latchford failing the Standards required of TDC Cllrs , let alone of a Leader and Deputy Leader of TDC, was considered acceptable as a 'mitigation' of their conduct back in June 2008?
I am sorry, but if these two Councillors had apologised unreservedly, immediately and without prevarication, this issue would never have gone before TDC Standards. I will not ask why this matter was not referred to Standards Board of England on its guidance concerning Leaders etc!
How do you rate, a key potential witness taken to lunch after the incident and no availability of CCTV tapes. How do you rate the libellous and defamatory comments concerning the integrity of Press Reporters present?
If the 'jobs worths' created recently by Cllr Ezekiel would rather revel in their new found 'status' as Lead Members and Chairs of this and that, than consider issues of integrity and honour, they then reveal themselves as no better than the Labour Government that has set the moral tone of neither resigning or apologising for any misconduct or gross incompetence.
It was only a short while ago that a Conservative Cllr whose integrity and motives I regard highly, described to me that TDC's Leadership and the way it acts resembles the 'Soprano's' TV programme. I worry when I see those in 'Public service' regarding themselves as above reproach and indispensable.
Is the real reason that Thanet's Conservatives are happy to have a discredited 'Leader' at their head, that they lack any talent in the ranks to do the job? If so, heaven help us.