Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Thanet Council exclude public from Public Scrutiny Meeting

Tonight despite, a high profile meeting to scrutinise the decision to give away the green in Dalby Square, access was blocked to this meeting (locked doors),by what  i don't know I can take a guess and come  up with these suggestions incompetence, negligence or a deliberate attempt to prevent public scrutiny,at the time of writing I'm sat in the council chamber having been let in by a cleaner who is not sure whether he's allowed to.

As I look around I'm making the quick calculation of just how much the council officers seated in some comfort are earning per year and it's my guestimate that we are looking at a figure of something around the quarter million mark, So as you can imagine am incandescent with rage, well at least a bit miffed that senior officers on  good salaries have seemly cocked up.

Two questions need asking why were members  of the public exuded, I've asked (possibly none to politely) Brian White the most senior officer present apologise, not because its ruffled my feathers but because the public should not have been denied access.

Perhaps more seriously, leaving a meeting previously, it proved impossible to leave the building till an officer also bored witless by the procedure allowed me out with her staff access card.

Anyhow a more considered account may follow, Chris Woodman of the Thanet Gazette was similarly excluded and will hopefully report in a more professional way, you know, not my more err  excitable manner.

I will tidy this posting up tomorrow evening probably the video above is me angry outside the locked door not sure why its the wrong way round but that is why we have professional news purveyors 

24 comments:

  1. Brian Gerrish: Lawful Rebellion Roadshow


    http://theinformation.podbean.com/2010/09/04/brian-gerrish-lawful-rebellion-roadshow/

    maybe you should start listening to the truth about what is really going on right now in all the councils and why you are being denied a transparent service.

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  2. Yep. The miners should have used Chapter 61 of Magna Carta to militarily defeat the police in 84 after Maggie Thatcher unlawfully centrally organised police under a private organisation ACPO and thus used Crown officers against the people.

    Yielding a right to call on the Queen for instant remedy or face lawful rebellion until remedy was delivered.

    And if that had been done the country would have been spared the unaccountable presidential style authoritarian governance Margaret Thatcher swept in followed by her apprentice Blair.

    There are the beginnings of calls now for a Falklands War Inquiry.

    Did the Royal Navy report to Mrs Thatcher the unreliability and out of date state of the fleet and its weaponry. Was she ready to capitulate without assembling a task force ? Was a plan drawn up with an Admiral to create a 200 mile exclusion zone intending to attack outside it (Maggie's very own Pearl Harbour)using obsolete but more reliable torpedos ?

    Should Blair and Thatcher be in the International War Crimes dock. Blair for pursuing unlawful war and Thatcher for pursuing lawful war intending to prosecute it unlawfully whilst risking a technically inadequate Task Force ?

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  3. I never understand why rick does not use his own space

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  4. Rick, the exclusion zone in the Falklands conflict was never intended to be the limit of hostilities but an area within which all non-British shipping was banned. The conflict, with modern ships and aircraft, inevitably extended well outside that zone with attacks carried by both sides beyond its boundaries. However, it has absolutely nothing to do with the exclusion zone thrown up around a council meeting in Thanet.

    That, it is rumoured, was done because disruptive elements were expected which could have made reasonable debate impossible.

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  5. Tony

    From what I understand the automatic doors at the front of the council building jammed. They were still apparently stuck and waiting for maintenance this morning at 08:30 when I arrived for a meeting and I had to get in through the rear security entrance. Unfortunate timing and rather embarrassing but nothing to hid. Scrutiny being an apolitical committee.

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  6. Ha Ha Ha The Automatic doors were broken thats a great excuse if ive ever seen one and probably in our great *COUGH COUGH prime minister Camerons book of excuses too.

    Camerons Dad is dead, well at least hes got some more ammo for the next election and can insert DEAD CHILD for DEAD DAD.

    Great report Tony and well done for not just leaving and kicking up a fuss.

    Shame you had to wait an hour before you got let out. JUST CRAZY
    anyway great article, even if i did have to put the monitior on its side to view.

    PS - Have you put on weight, you look slimmer on your other videos i have seen

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. I suggest what you understand Simon is complete utter nonsense as I understood from the security guard last night he had left the building to lock up another adjacent property and had locked the doors as he was not in the building to check on people coming in and out also on a previous occasion when I had been forced to leave a meeting because councillors decided to hold part in secret I could not leave the building again because there was no one in attendance and only got out about after I 5 after minute wait when a member of staff left the building

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  9. What else can you expect but utter tosh from a councillor take away their allowances and then see how many of them bother to turn up?

    Why are we paying council tax for these losers they are a complete waste of public money a public committee should be setup to scrutinise them!

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  10. Anon agree 100% take there allowance away - LOSERS !

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  11. Can i introduce you guys to my blog


    Expect rants and random exploits.

    http://thanettalk.blogspot.com/

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  12. Tony

    What you were told contradicts what I was told this morning when I arrived and found the doors closed.

    In any event, I can only share in honesty, the information I've been given.

    I will however try and discover exactly what happened; I'm back there at 7pm and will report back, loser or not!

    I've just returned from a very empty Dalby Square at 5pm after listening to some local opinion on the subject.

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  13. Simon if you happen to see Richard Samuel lurking about maybe you could ask if he received my email pointing out not only a failure to allow access to the democratic process but also a serious health and safety risk

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  14. Leaving this comment from the council building
    Apparently their was an incident at the post office
    And the security guard attended, locking the door
    Of the council building behind him, which
    Of course prevented people attending
    Scrutiny until he returned
    This was an open meeting with motion to exclude
    The public

    When I arrived this morning the doors were
    Locked because I was so early the information
    On the the door jam was incorrect

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  15. It should read NO motion to exclude the public
    Difficult to do this on an iPhone

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  16. It could only happen at TDC.
    First we have a cleaner letting in the public then a secutity guard going off to the Post Office. Both seen to acting beyound they remit. If Tony was not able to get out of an open door, at what time did the security guard return?
    There must have been a long queue at the P.O or is this yet another porkie pie from a public servant?

    Not able to organise a p..s up comes to mind.

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  17. The Post Office Building in Cecil Sq holds the other half of the council offices. These comments simply illustrate how uninformed comments on weblogs can lead to wildly incorrect conclusions.

    It's unfortunate that this coincided with the scrutiny meeting but its no more sinister than that. The security guard estimate he was away for no more than 15 minutes attending to the problem over the road. Council business was not interrupted but members of the public were clearly inconvenienced, for which as a councillor I apologise.

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  18. Anon of 03.51, I am sure most would feel your post is in poor taste, though the capacity of politicians of all parties to capitalise on even the most personal of events - good and bad is indecently notable. I recall the noise Gale made about a mystery car accident involving his wife a few years ago.

    The legitimate question for Cameron - given his Government's programme of expenditure cuts - is whether or not the public purse has in any way covered the cost of his dash to France to see his dying father. Perhaps a Freedom of Information Act request is appropriate.

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  19. I am not a Tory supporter but I must say that you only have one True Father and Mother in life, let him grief in peace.
    As leader of the coalition he is not doing a bad job at all repairing the damage done to the economy by Labour.
    I doubt if I will ever support Labour natioanaly again.

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  20. Whether he is doing a bad job or not - we will all have our own opinions on that - let us just hope that the taxpayer is not funding his personal, family-related trips at all. I have every sympathy for his loss, but I do not wish to contribute to the cost of covering it. Certainly not at a time when he and his Administration are implementing cuts that will have a major impact on many in the population.

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  21. Certainly part of David Cameron's dash was funded by the French since it involved the use of the presidential helicopter. Evidently the French are rather more compassionate in times of bereavement than some of the commentators here. Then again, what else would one expect from Thanet's minority whinge group!

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  22. Anon, I don't think it is a "whinge" to suggest that a wealthy Tory politician who is currently delivering cuts in public expenditure in large measure to satisfy Tory ideology should not dip into public funds to cover the cost of a purely family crisis.

    The cuts will seriously affect the lives of many in the UK - those same Tories gleefully keep telling us they will - so why should we pay for compassion towards their leader, as you suggest..

    My FOI request has just gone to No. 10

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  23. I think it a bit over the top to abuse anyone who has just had a close personal loss.

    Hence removal of a particularly unpleasant comment

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