I was wrong. The Council meeting only lasted 8 hours... but it was still 8 hours of uninterrupted chaos and a leadership free zone.We did manage to vote through the next stage of Portobello High school being rebuilt and the next stage of trams but not without great fudging and stumbling from the SNP/Libdems. In those 8 hours those "listening parties" (aka the SNP/Libdem mal-administration) also managed to;
- try to stop one delegation from being heard on a technicality
- limit the time the public up on delegations has to speak to 3 minutes, (it was 10 minutes when we were in charge and we still had vastly shorter meetings (there were 14 delegations, all angry about their proposals on several issues!)
- shut a community centre that had been only opened 8 years ago
- vote through cuts to voluntary groups that will mean job losses
- refused to let some members of delegations answer questions put to the by councillors
- not understand what is meant by putting a question and instead just made statements to delegations
- ask questions of delegations and then chat to their mates instead of listening to the answers
- blame me for the funding debacle at Inverness airport, (I am not making that up!)
- consistently ignore what was said and mis quote at will, even when the words were said in front of everyone
- get very defensive when challenged on their performance on responding to the global credit crunch
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5 comments:
I understand your frustration but some of us at least in Portobello are delighted that progress is finally being made on a new school, and I would like to acknowledge the huge part that you and Ian Perry played in getting the project to this stage.
I'm rather puzzled however by the position taken by the Greens today in this matter. Can you offer any insight?
Ah, yes, a good advert for transparency, accountability and democracy, and for devolving more powers to local authorities ;0)
Sturat... you might just be right, I may just be hoisted by my own petard on this one!
Anonymous
thanks for your kind words. The Greens just can't bring themsleves to vote for anything that covers up grass...no matter what that might be
I understand your frustration Ewan.
As you will see from the emails flying around today, we [South Morningside] have still had no reply from Marilyne MacLaren regarding the Braids Centre.
We have had responses from the people that I firmly believe do care!!
I am happy that our Chair of SMPC has pointed out that failure to respond or a response of "it is too late......." will been seen as a "huge failure of trust........."!
People are clearly starting to see through the SNP/Lib Dems. The sad thing for me is how much more damage can they do before we have the chance to right a serious wrong at the next election?
Thanks Suzy... you know that we are with you all the way on this one. We will be in touch. Its only by working with folk like yourself that we can retain our sanity in this mess!
Ewan
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