Deja vu? No just another council meeting....


It would be good to be able to comment that Maltby Town Council, amidst it’s current situation and disputes, is turning around for the better. However, this does not seem to be the case.


The last full Town Council meeting on 23rd July had, yet again, members of the public and councillors being verbally abused and treated with total disrespect by certain councillors. A meeting of the Environment Committee last night, showed one of these same councillors - in the public gallery for this meeting- and her daughter, treating members of the public with the same appalling attitude and disrespect.
The Chair of this meeting handled this by telling everyone to be quiet so that the meeting could continue. Though this is fair enough comment for the immediate situation at a meeting, it does nothing to resolve the real problems. No matter how much people in Maltby want the council to move forward and be supportive of the town and it’s residents, progress cannot be made until past and present grievances have been brought to light and discussed. Many of these grievances are due to certain councillors attitudes and conduct and no matter how delicate the matter, this must be resolved. (Yes I am repeating myself - because the same scenario is being repeated over and over again !)
A member of the public who attended this meeting, for the first time attending a council meeting for a long time, felt intimidated by the appalling manner of this councillor and I can see her point, though I refuse to be intimidated by this outrageous situation that we have in MTC at the moment.
I have commented in the past that any person attending an MTC meeting recently could be forgiven for thinking that they have entered a pantomime. The Environment meeting was more like The Two Ronnies, with the chair of the committee Cllr J Kirk, and Cllr C McMahon, presumably to (unsuccessfully) defuse an uncomfortable situation, putting on a performance akin to a comedy show.
We now have Kevin Barron (MP), Rother Valley, responding in the local paper about a Maltby resident’s suggestion that the problems at Maltby Town Council have been caused by Labour Councillors. He questions how this can be suggested when there are only three Labour Cllrs out of eighteen. (MaltbyNews, August 2008)
Here you miss the point completely Mr Barron. The suggestion that the resident made was that CERTAIN councillors are causing problems. There may be only 3 Labour councillors on the council but there are others who used to be Labour who did not get re - elected and are now elected as supposedly Independent. Come to MTC meetings, Mr Barron, perhaps your eyes will be opened as to what is really going on in your local council.
Chairman of MTC, Cllr Ben Slade appears to continue to strive against mounting harassment and dissent, to support the council in doing their job openly, honestly and in an appropriate manner. He needs all the support he can get.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Spiral

To Where We Belong - Musings on a mill pond

Seventy Five Years On - "I Am Neveen" - A Palestinian Child's Story