Thursday 19 December 2013

Tourism

Most people will have read about the offer made by Daryl Nicholas to front up an investigation on how a new Tourist information service can be implemented in the town Town councillors were at the council meeting keen to stress that they were not looking top pick up the costs of this new service although they have agreed to accept the offer to investigate and report back in April, with full costings.

Tuesday 3 December 2013

Council spin or Bull Sh1t!

the Town council were given the first draft of next years budget for consideration at this weeks TC finance meeting The debate was mainly to decide how they viewed the historical records rather than to ,look at the projections for the next year, although it was said that to keep services at the current level an increase in the precept of 4 pence per annum would be needed. This despite a loss of the central funding that has been withdrawn. A motion put by one of the opposition members that an investigation by sub committee was not well supported by the ruling party although it was resolved to refer it to the next council meeting for a full debate despite the mayor making the point that the agenda for that meeting is already very long and the meeting may have to be extended to 11pm to complete.
Ity strikes us that the council is being run to suit the councillors rather than to conduct its business in a businesslike manner. If meetings every six weeks are not enough then they should beheld monthly After all the majority of the councillors are not actively circulating amongst the electorate and holding surgeries so an extra meeting or two will not unduly inconvenience them and if they don't like that then they should stand down, there are certainly a number of alternative independent candidates who would stand up and actually work for the Town.
Stepping back to the budget it has not been publicised very well but a historic record of the precept from the first days of the TCc reformed in 1997 to date is posted on the new TC website. Ity shows just how much the increases have been over the years.
the first year a precept of £12 raised a little over £14k and the same precept in the following year raised an extra £2k  Successive years when the TC was growing and a Town Manager was employed caused an increase in precept over the next 8 yeas to fund that and the music and arts festival until the 2007 precept which grew to £21.88 allowing for functions that EDDC told the clerk they would no longer be able to fund could be taken on by the TC even though just before the elections in May of that year the dc suddenly found the cash to carry on Many think that to have been a very deliberate move to deceive the electors into believing that the LD members of the TC had put up the precept for no reason.
History has a habit of repeating itself and it is clear that the present leadership want to raise the precept again despite the fact that since they came to power the increases have been very considerable 9.92% in 2008 and  25.63% in 2010 are just two years The average over the 6 years they have been in control is a mighty 6.04% which is far above the annual cost of living increases that are published by the bank of England

How a blog can get through to a council

It has been brought to our attention that Exmouth Town clerk who is supposedly so overworked has time to read on line public blogs to read about the things which are of a concern to the people. What a pity however that he and his immediate superiors do not appear to take any notice, but then he cannot be that overworked if he has the time to go web searching. It may be that he is extra sensitive about what the public think about his periods of holiday that would look like as if he spends most of his time away from his desk. Rather that investigating the possibility of appointing a deputy would it not be more efficient if the clerk were on the job for more hours and spend less relaxing on leave? I recall that his predecessor took very little time way from the job but all of the work was completed but then he although allowed a deputy declined and so an appointment of an office manger was made.