Friday 7 November 2014

Next week's meeting...and a council by-election


Update 8th November;
I hear that Pam's independent group have a candidate lined up for the Trelech by-election...more on that when officially confirmed.
All candidates have to get their forms in by next Friday (14th) and once they are checked, the list will be published the following week.
The election will take place on the 11th December.
Notice of Election

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As expected the WLGA governance review report features on next week's full council agenda, in fact the WLGA are going to present it. There is no mention yet of Mr James' severance deal, presumably that 's still in the hands of the lawyers...

A council by-election is on it's way with the announcement that one of Pam's independents, Cllr Dai Thomas, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday is standing down. Known as Dai Trelech, (as he represents Trelech ward of course), his resignation letter suggests that representing the ward has been a family occupation since before the war...

With the Labour and independent groups currently on 22 councillors apiece, and the winds of change blowing against the ramparts of County Hall, it could be an interesting election....

There are no less than three notices on motion, one to support the campaign to re-open the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth railway line, one to relax rural planning policy and one to provide more lorry parks.

As you can see, councillors questions appear on the agenda again and you will remember the fiasco at the last meeting (and the one before that) where the usual suspects voted to bar themselves from being able to ask supplementary questions.

The WLGA report recommends that councillors, as in any other democratic arena, should be allowed follow-up questions but I suspect this will be stalled yet again with more legal bluff from Mark and Linda.

Cllr Dole (Plaid) who proposed the vote at the last meeting has said he will try and call for a vote again this time, hopefully the usual suspects won't make complete fools of themselves yet again.

Cllr Caiach has pre-empted the possible block on follow-up questions by asking two, both concerning pollution on the Llanelli coastline. Observers of council meetings will know that this is a subject which Cllr Caiach, and Cllr Bill Thomas (Lab) feel passionately about and have raised in conjunction with the council's planning and development ambitions in the Llanelli area.

The last time both she and Cllr Bill Thomas took this principled stand the Chair laughed and the chief executive sneered.
I hope she has the last laugh.

The meeting will be webcast of course and as I have mentioned a few times, the Council's Planning Committee was webcast for the first time yesterday, the archive can be found here. Sadly the council Twitter account forgot to mention it beforehand....

However, the press office has given it the works today and 'quotes' Cllr Pam 'I don't want any sort of filming' Palmer saying that the "move is in the interests of encouraging people to become more involved in council business". As long as you're not critical I guess.
Interestingly, there have been over 60,000 views of the live and archived webcasts of full council meetings since May 2013.

It looks like Mr James' pay-off will feature in the December meeting where a full debate has been promised. Please keep signing and sharing the petition and leaving your comments, it is now approaching 600 signatures.

The main event next week will undoubtedly be the damning WLGA report. Be sure to tune in at 10am to see how it all goes....

My post on the subject is here; The WLGA report - The toxic culture recognised and award winning blogger, Owen Donovan has today published his take on the WLGA report here;
Carmarthenshire - The rot laid bare




1 comment:

spider71 said...

UKIP i told will have candidate for the by-election which will be very interesting