The New Penzance Town Council

Well that’s it then, the people have spoken, the votes have been counted, Penzance Town Council has its councillors for the next 4 years.

Of the 20 councillors who make up the Town Council 8 are new to the job replacing 6 who stood down at this election and 2 who lost their seats.

Although in the past the political make up of the council has never been a factor in decision making, the make up of this council is quite interesting being a bit like Noah’s Ark we have 2 Liberal Democrats, 2 A Future For Penzance, 2 Greens, 2 Labour, 2 Mebyon Kernow and 10 Independents, what no conservatives you may ask? Trust me there’s at least 3 in there.

Of the 8 new councillors I really only know 2 of them, with a nodding acquaintance with 2 of the others. None as far as I can tell have ever held political office before.

I have read all the leaflets and the Facebook pages of those candidates that have them and sadly some are in for a bit of a shock when they actually get down to the work of being a town councillor.

Town Councils have limited amounts of money and even more limited resources, we are not free to do what we want or even what the Town may need, sadly a lot of our time over the past few years has been spent trying to get Cornwall Council to do the right thing and this has been getting increasingly harder as budget cuts bite ever further into spending.

Planning, is probably the area new councillors have the biggest problem getting to grips with, but fundamentally if there is not a ‘Planning Reason’ for objection you can’t object, well you can but it wont get you anywhere.

All in all I'm looking forward to working with the new councillors who will I'm sure bring new ideas to the council, I just hope that their enthusiasm does not get smothered by the rules and regulations within which we do have to work and of which so many people are blissfully unaware.

Shock, I've not been a Councillor for South Ward for the past 10 Years.

I’ve just got back from Town where I had gone to do a few jobs, whilst there I popped into the Town Council Office, which lead to a bit of a shock (not good in my condition, no I’m not pregnant).

In the office are the candidate packs for the upcoming town and parish elections and talking to the staff I discovered that I’m not a South Ward Councillor for Penzance Town Council.

Now before everyone rushes off to read the various website postings to see what I allegedly have voted for or against, (funny how so many seem to think they know what I said or didn’t say all without the benefit of ever going to a meeting), over the past 14 years in the hope of getting the decision overturned, I’m still a councillor only not for South Ward, as much to the surprise of the office staff and I’m sure councillors, South Ward changed its name over 10 years ago. I’ve been a councillor for the Newlyn & Mousehole Ward.

As a councillor I will be honest some things slip past my attention, not much and never anything of importance, but you would have thought I might have noticed that my ward had changed its name? All my paperwork still arrives with South Ward printed on it, Cornwall Council refers to it as South Ward, the maps refer to it as South Ward only its not. Back in 2002 in a consultation it was decided to change its name, so there we are.

Now the more serious reason for this post, from the election papers the Town council have received we have discovered that some changes have taken place, that genuinely no one knew about, Newlyn & Mousehole Ward (South Ward) has had its number of councillors cut from 5 to 4, and this is the very first anyone had heard of it and its not just this ward, Promenade Ward has an increase of 1 as does Central Ward with the East Ward  also losing 1 but Gulval Ward which has had a boundary change doubling the number of people in the ward remains with only 1 councillor. These changes are apparently the result of the Boundary Commission report, at no time was the Town Council ever consulted or any contact made with the council during the preparation of this report, no contact from the Commission or Cornwall Council what so ever. I wonder how many other Town & Parish councils got a surprise when they received the Election Packs.

PS I didn’t pick up a pack. 

The work of a Parish Councillor

I've read a lot over the past few weeks about encouraging more people to stand to become Councillors and it makes interesting reading.

Cornwall Council have just held an event for people wishing to become Cornwall Councillors and a few people have written about the event. Here’s one Robs Cornish Blog.

Penzance Town Council has also held two events recently to encourage people to stand.

As reflected in Rob’s Blog there is a lot of interests in councillor allowances and you only have to read some of the comments on Social Media sites to get the impression that a lot of people think.

‘ all councillors are only in it for the allowances,  the free food and what they can get out of it’

In fact, certainly at the Parish Council level nothing could be further from the truth.

I have said this before and will say it again Parish Councillors (In general) do not get an allowance, and certainly not on Penzance Town Council. Limited expenses are available, in 14 years I'm unaware of any councillor claiming them. So in the 14 years as a councillor I have received £0 for my work as a councillor.

We do not get free lunches and the only thing we get out of it is the satisfaction of doing something for the community in which we live.

At Penzance Town Council we do not have, tea, coffee or biscuits at meetings, the last time I had a ‘free lunch’ was from a development company/Cornwall Council at a all day consultation, which was open to all, you only had to turn up at 9:30 and be there until 4:30 to get your free sandwich and cup of tea.

As a Parish council we have no statutory duty to do anything, with the delivery of all services the duty of the principle council, in our case Cornwall Council.

We are only consultees on planning issues (often very late in the day), with our comments only taken into consideration.

Anyone who thinks we can stop or conversely start planning applications is very much mistaken.

Penzance Town Council meetings work on a cycle of 6 weeks, in that the 4 standing committees, General Purposes, Finance, Penlee House & Park meet every 6 weeks, with the Planning Committee meeting every 3 weeks, at the end of this cycle there is a full Town Council Meeting, in addition we can also have Special Town Council meetings as required to discuss single issues of urgency. All these meeting are open to the public, why not come along and see what we really do. A list of meetings is published here…

As a councillor you sit on two of the standing committees of your choice, so an average councillor would be expected to attend 3 meetings every 6 weeks, it’s these meetings which make up our attendance record.

But only a few councillors are average, we also have working groups, small groups of councillors who meet, very often with groups and individuals from outside the council, to organise or progress town projects.

Let me give you an example:

Penzance Christmas Lights Switch On and Market

This was an initiative brought to the town council by me two years ago, to create an event around the Lights Switch On, we had a small sum of money from the Christmas Lights budget.

The working group for this consisted of two town councillors, me and Cllr Jan Ruhrmund with a member of staff from the Town Council doing the admin.

Also invited to join the group where:

Brenda Lemon : Penzance Farmers Market.

Penzance Chamber of Commerce.

The Cornishman

Causewayhead Traders Association

Wharthside Shopping Centre

Andy Hazlehurst : Golowan

Rotary Club

This group met 6 times on the build up to the event, discussing what could and couldn't be done, how we were going to organize what was required.

On the day Cllr Ruhrmund and I were in attendance for the whole day to ensure that everything ran smoothly.

Other working groups of councillors meet to deliver less obvious projects around the town.

In addition to the above Councillors are asked to become the Town Councils representative on numerous other groups/organisations in the area, attending their meetings, assisting them to progress their ideas and reporting back to the council on the work of these groups.

From the above you can see that being a Town Councillor can be quite busy, but also very satisfying, in fact all we are is a group of unpaid volunteers but unlike most people who join a community group, say the Rotary Club, every four years we can be asked to leave, mostly by people who have no idea of what you do.

Penzance Mayor Choosing

Penzance Mayor Choosing

The recent Mayor choosing in Penzance this year has raised a few questions after I and one other councillor voted against the election of the Mayor. This is the first time this has happened for a good many years and was not a decision which I took lightly. Prior to this formal meeting of the council, a meeting is held where all nominations for the post of Mayor are debated and a vote taken. This year, two nominations were received, so the nomination’s are put to a vote, the outcome of the vote was tied at 10 – 10, the vote was taken a further two times with the same outcome, there is no casting vote. This impasse was only overcome when one of the nominees stood down. The mayor elect is then formally voted into office at the Annual Meeting of the Town Council.

The role of Mayor is a complex one, on one hand you are the public face of the town attending public functions on behalf of the town, representing the town at civic ceremonies, meeting and supporting other groups within the town and further a field, this very public role is an important element of the job.  On the other hand, the mayor is the chairman of the council, chairing full town council meetings, as mayor you are also a member of all the councils committees.

The supporters of the mayor elect have stated in the press that it was his turn, this is a phrase I have not heard before in my twelve years as a councillor, certainly regarding mayor choosing, the mayor is not chosen on the basis of turn and never has been, I have also read that the role had become too political, again from an unnamed source, strange then that the elected mayor is a member of a political party and the other nomination very much an independent.

So how do I judge who should be mayor, firstly I look at their ability to carryout the required roles of the mayor, basing this on what I have seen of that person acting as a councillor over their time as an elected member.  I do not care if I agree or disagree with them politically. Normally they would have been the chair of one of the committee’s, how have they conducted themselves in this role? Have they done well.  What working groups have they volunteered to be members of, what has been their contribution? Is this a person who I feel will represent the town well and finally I look for that indefinable extra that would make them a mayor.

In the past I have not always been in total agreement with those elected to be mayor, but on balance have felt that it could just be me and have been happy to vote for them at the Annual Meeting, sadly on this occasion I could not, I looked at all the factors detailed above, considered my own prejudices and after much thought decided that I could not support their election. I will continue to work as a councillor and continue to offer support to those holding office and hope and trust I'm proved wrong.

Who runs Cornwall Council?

This past week I spent no little amount of time watching the web-cast from County Hall of the Budget Overview and Scrutiny  Committee meetings and what a sham they were.

When this single overriding Council was first formed, I had some fears that too many of the 123 Councillors elected to serve, had little and in some cases no experience of  the work of councils, and that officers would dominate, sadly after two years this would appear to still be the case.     

The budget papers given to councillors by the officers were poor, some had pages unnumbered, other councillors had no papers at all, the whole thing was an utter shambles, and remember this is the Council budget for next year, in these papers and numbers, somewhere, are the plans of which non revenue earning, non-statuary services the Council are going to try to offload to anyone else foolish enough to want to run them, hidden in here are the black holes were guesstimates of revenue income are little more than a officers dream.

Yes, many of the councillors did try to ask questions (when allowed by the chair) and yes, they did get some answers from the portfolio holders and officers, but the answers in most cases were not to the questions asked, and many have posted Blogs at their frustration: Cllr Andrew Wallis   Cllr Jeremy Rowe  Cllr Jude Robinson

But my anger is not with the Officers, it’s with the Councillors, where was your passion, your anger? Anyone who has heard me speak at a Town Council meeting on a subject that I feel passionately about, will agree that I have a bit of a style of my own, and I will be the first to admit that sometimes I overstep the mark, I will also state that I never hold a grudge against opposing speakers, in fact I welcome it, it’s only when you have an argument that you find your true feelings, but if I see a spade as black, trust me you will hear about it. I’m also the chair of committees, so I do understand the issues and would not enjoy chairing me.

So, faced with a Budget without the details, no papers, poorly prepared papers, a failure of officers to answer questions, what can a councillor do?

Now I should state at this point I do not have a set of Cornwall Council Standing Orders for the conduct of meetings, but this has never stopped me in the past.

 Stop the meeting. Assert your authority. You are the council not the Officers.

As Chair, I would have stopped the meeting, asked the officers to leave, and asked the committee what they wanted the Officers to present to the meeting and when.

As a member I would have proposed to the chair a resolution for the above to take place.

Win or lose the vote, the point would have been made, we are the council, we pass resolutions, you carry them out.

Now I know this is easy to say, sat as I am in my living room on a sunny Sunday morning, but at some point in the very near future the councillors are going to have to take some control of the council and officers are going to have to carry out the will of the council. Until that time comes we have a council of only 10 members and a group of officers running Cornwall, against the will of members.

A case in point….  Graham Smith

Christmas Lights & More

I was interviewed live (when I say live it was 7:30 am so marginal) on Radio  Cornwall about Christmas Lights in Penzance yesterday morning, and prior to the interview I spoke with one of the assistants, who asked me a series of questions I think as a bit of a trial run,  one of which was ‘how can you justify spending £18,000, as Penzance does, when there are cuts to social services etc', well first thing the town does not have responsibility for the areas that the question was implying, but that was not the point, so I gave the question a little more though and this is what I came up with:

All government be it national, regional or town & parish has only one job to do, and that is to make life better for people, quite simple really, this is achieved in a verity of ways, at a national level we have a National Health Service no one would argue that this makes peoples life better, the Police Force this makes life better for the vast majority, welfare, state pension, road & rail network and so on.

At a regional level its Social services, local roads, fire service, schools, planning waste disposal etc.

At a town & Parish level it’s different again, we do not have to supply any big services in fact we have no statuary duties to do anything, so the small amount of money that we have is used to truly make life better for people, here in Penzance we run a Park with children’s play area, an Art Gallery, skateboard park, we support The Golowan Festival and many others, we run allotments, we organise events or assist others with theirs and we help with Christmas Lights. All things that directly make life better for different groups within the community.

So, why all the arguments?

I think it’s because a lot of Councillors and MP’s have forgotten the reason they are there, to make life better for people, we currently have a financial crisis, and cuts have to be made we are told, so look at what you are doing apply the test is this making life better for people, do all levels of government at this time, need to be spending millions on peripheral things, that would be nice to have or would benefit few, but are not making peoples life’s better? That’s not to say they cannot be done at a future date, its just now is not the time.

So to end Penzance will have Christmas Lights, not just because the town Council is paying but because of all the volunteers in Mousehole & Newlyn who do a brilliant job in raising the money for the lights in those parts of the parish, to the traders in Causewayhead who pay for the lights in that part of the town and this year the Town Council are organising a big event for the switch on Saturday 26^th November from 11 am – 6.30 pm, we will have Bands, Choirs, Christmas Craft and Produce Market, Lantern Making and lots, lots more, because it makes life a little better for people.