Executive Board Meeting
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Posts
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What a farcical process this evening’s debate turned out to be :-
First – attempts to rewrite the rule book to help change the process that ALL Councillors had previously voted to accept?
The Mayor acting as referee should have ben issued with Yellow and Red cards to issue to those Council Members throwing their toys out of the pram. At times some Councillors wished they had a red card to send the Mayor off – the way some Members conducted themselves they needed to be taken off and put in the stands or even out of the ground.
The lack of willingness for the Executive Members to allow for the whole Council to make such a crucial decision whether to progress or not has only highlighted what an undemocratic system is in operation her in Wrexham Town!
At least in Colchester there was a vote by the whole Council on whether to progress with a bid (they have decoded they will apply) https://www.facebook.com/CllrLewisBarber/videos/470049260888797/
Wrexham is not the only one with divided Councillors – North Devin is the same — you could take this report and just change the location to Wrexham and it reflects this even. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/councillors-at-odds-over-city-status-application/ar-AANXcKX
There were clearly some Councillors (who we never hear from at any meeting!) playing to the gallery as they know there is an election in May and they are preening their feathers to look good!
The biggest mistake (and it is not just this Council) but the system and that is in allowing the submission process to be controlled by a Council rather than a multi representational group from across out communities. The Executive do not reflect the views of young people (no one is there under the age of 30 and nearly 40); a gender split that is not proportionate to male/female/other ; they are nit culturally/ethnically diverse. Overall the demographic make up of Council Members does not reflect our community.
Whatever the decision is to bid or not if there is a change of ruling Council Members after the May election the application could be pulled if one is submitted…. with the Queen saying “One is not amused”
If I read it right the Queen has the final decision on the recommendation of her advisors. If any of them look at today’s shenanigans then to quote Private Frazer – “ we are doomed I tell yee -doomed!”
The worrying thing is even after the elections next year the probability is the majority of the same Councillors will still be there!
Irrespective of whether one was for or against city status. What went on at the full Council meeting yesterday in my opinion was morally wrong.
The Executive Board could have allowed the 42 councillors to debate the subject, instead of stifling that debate, but chose not to listen to the views of their fellow members. The Executive Board used their powers under the constitution to put forward an amendment that only their views should decide the outcome on City Status.
All 52 Councillors were elected by a majority of the votes cast, which is the democratic way accepted by all. Alas, after a survey carried out by an independent firm of consultants, paid for by the Council, in which 61% of those that made observations, were not in favour of City Status. It looks as if the Executive Board are going to dispense with the democratic survey result and impose a different outcome to that of their electorate. They were elected democratically, but now choose to become undemocratic.
This was a one off yes or no outcome and, I am afraid to say, this Executive Board by their actions have dragged the name of our town, in my opinion, into the gutter.
They were elected democratically, but now choose to become undemocratic.
Everyone should be doing the appropriate thing as a result. Voting them out.
I had to question my own interpretation of the point of yesterday’s farcical Full Extra-ordinary Council Meeting. It was to vote on an amendment submitted by Executive Board Members (Council Leader and Deputy) to change the final say on whether to apply for city status or not, so that it is taken by the Executive Board (of 10 Councillors) and not by the Full Council (of 42 members, not including the Executive Members). Quite rightly, in my view, this was seen by some as undemocratic. Presumably, the Executive Board were concerned that there was a risk the Full Council may vote against the city status bid, which they were in favour of. They therefore wanted to remove this risk by taking the final decision themselves.
But after a lot of verbal wrangling, confusion, legal advocacy intervention and an ad-hoc 30-minute adjournment, they had a full vote, all against a backdrop of the caretaker locking the building with minutes to spare. The result of that was an overwhelming majority voting for the amendment. Are the Executive Board so out of touch with the feeling of the Full Council that they didn’t see the overwhelming swell of opinion amongst the Councillors? And just say the result had gone the other way, and the Councillors had voted to reject the amendment, the final vote would then be taken by Full Council. And if they had voted against the amendment, they would vote against the city status bid. So what was the point of the amendment and the meeting? It just looked to me like it was a desperate attempt to try and sell it to ensure they could get their way. The kind of stunt Johnson would pull. The Mayor and Chair of the meeting seemed bemused.
One poor Councillor wanted to submit an amendment to the amendment. That threw everyone into a state of panic, as no-one seemed to know what to do. He was told that the current amendment needs to be concluded before another can considered. After it was concluded, he was told it was too late. The Chair should have brought him in, apparently, but the Chair looked confused.
Normally, I don’t watch a Council Meeting as they tend to discuss trivia and are mind-numbingly boring. After this debacle though, I will have to catch another. If the Queen’s advisors watch it however, that will put pay to any city status when they see the state of that lot.
I wonder how many Councillors will be summoned to the Standards Committee for bring the Council into disrepute. The behaviour of some of them at the meeting is totally disgraceful and the antics of the way the Executive ‘hijacked’ the purpose of the meeting is nothing short of bring the whole of Wrexham Council Goverence under question.
The behaviour standards is set out in — Code of Conduct for Members
(b) show respect and consideration for others;
(c) not use bullying behaviour or harass any person; and
(d) not do anything which compromises, or which is likely to compromise,
the impartiality of those who work for, or on behalf of, your authority(c) report to your authority’s monitoring officer any conduct by another member
which you reasonably believe breaches this code of conduct;We will await to see who if anyone is either referred to the committee or may even self refer!!
Everyone knows that the Exec board will vote Yes to the City bid.
Those that would have voted yes to the bid would have voted yes to send it to the board.
Those that would have voted no to the bid would have voted no dont send it to the board.So did this really change anything?
In theory debates may change the way people vote, but in reality most councillors would have already decided whether they want a city bid or not and nothing would budge them from that.
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