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Council Meeting - 29th October 2008

This meeting was all about public participation. The main agenda item was about new procedures to exclude public participation.

The chairman of the parish council, Cllr Ross, did not attend this meeting. Cllr Harlow, vice chairman, stood in to chair the meeting. He did inform us that a number of complaints had been received about Cllr Ross' conduct, and investigations by the Standards Authority were on-going.

As it turned out, in our opinion Cllr Harlow made a much better job of chairing this meeting than Cllr Ross has done of late, and there were no disruptive tantrum or outbursts from that quarter.

Public Open Forum

Cllr Harlow had unfortunately come with a somewhat biased plan to silence any criticism of the Council, which he made clear at the start, preceding the public Open Forum (when the public is supposed to be able to contribute to the meeting) by informing the gathered public that he had decided to disallow questions from anyone associated with HELP or anyone who had submitted a complaint.

Obviously this statement caused some raised eyebrows. Cllr Groves asked if the council had taken legal advice as to whether it was lawful to exclude a particular group from speaking. Cllr Harlow stated that they had not, and it was just his way of conducting the meeting, and furthermore any other group would be permitted to speak - it was only HELP founders and complainants that he was discriminating against.

Cllr Groves suggested that the vice chairman's restriction was ridiculous and proposed the council take a vote on allowing anyone to speak at the Open Forum. Amazingly, not a single other councillor would second the proposal. It therefore seems to us that all the rest believe that public opinion is not relevant to council business (this was completely reinforced later in the meeting - read on...).

After some discussion amongst the councillors, one HELP founder was permitted to read a statement. The statement recommended the council to not adopt its proposal to exclude public participation. The vice chairmen then immediately terminated the Open Forum without asking if anyone else from the public had any issues to raise (there were a number of non-HELP public present, including an NHDC Councillor and a senior member of the NHDC staff).

Chairman's Announcements

In the Chairman's Announcement section of the meeting, Cllr Harlow mentioned that 4 Councillors had recently resigned. He then spoke most disparagingly about them, stating that they had always been "in the minority". This comment was delivered with such rancour, that we could only conclude that the Vice Chairman believes that the only good councillors are those who do as they are told!

Review of Standing Orders

Next we arrived at the main agenda item for this meeting: a proposal to adopt new procedures which would prevent public from participating at future council meetings. The main thrust of this proposal was that if a member of public did want to speak at a council meeting in future, then they should submit their question in writing 3 days beforehand (by 9:30am Monday morning, preceding a Wednesday evening meeting). Furthermore, that a question would only be permitted at the meeting if approved by the council chairman.

Cllr Groves pointed out that to get a written question in by Monday morning it would have to be posted on Friday. He as a councillor could only obtain the agenda on the Thursday, and therefore how could a member of public be expected to submit a relevant question by the 9:30am Monday deadline? And what if the post didn't arrive until 10am? Even if a member of the public were successful in getting a question read at a meeting, there was no provision for a response or any discussion. He suggested the press would report "Council Gagging the Public".

After some discussion, the vote was taken. Cllr Groves voted against, but all the other councillors voted to adopt the proposal. This is a clear ratification of the message HELP has been campaigning about: Letchworth Parish Council does not operate to represent the people of Letchworth - they do not consult residents and they are not interested in what we have to say.

British Legion Donation

Having voted to ignore public opinion, the meeting went on to another highly contentious issue. Last year the council chairman spontaneously donated over £2,500 of tax payers money to his preferred charity (The Royal British Legion). This disposal of tax funds had caused much controversy last year for several reasons, including the following which have been put to us:

  • Charity donation should be voluntary, not via compulsory taxation.
  • Individuals should be free to donate to their own preferred charity, not one of someone else's choosing.
  • It is very inefficient - the charity loses the Gift Aid (up to 40% of the donation is lost to tax).
  • It does not directly benefit the residents of Letchworth.

The Royal British Legion is without doubt a very worthy charity, but due to the above reasons, it is not the place of a parish council to use tax precept money in this way.

The organiser for the Letchworth Poppy Appeal was present at the meeting, and gave a short statement. The first thing he said was that the money donated from the Council does not go to a Letchworth fund for ex-servicemen, but into the national British Legion fund account in London. (This fact is of great significance, because it is unlawful for the council to spend its tax money on anything which does not directly benefit the people of Letchworth).

After some discussion, the vote was taken for repeating the donation this year. Cllr Groves voted against, but all the other councillors voted to do it again.

Cllr Groves suggested that all the councillors take the opportunity to make their own dontation to the British Legion, which he did, confirming that Gift Aid should be applied. However, none of the other councillors followed suit. Should we conclude that the councillors are very good at giving our money to charity but not so generous with their own?


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