Camelford Town Council dial 999 to stop C.A.R.s chair from speaking out.
Report from Council meeting of 6th July 2006
In December 2005, CTC confirmed in writing to CAR that they would be willing to display any posters for us in the Parish notice boards. Link to letter. (opens new window)
Several weeks ago, I hand delivered some posters relating to a Camelford Town Forum event, to CTC offices with a covering note asking the Clerk, Mr Barry Jordan, to display them. A couple of days later, a member of CAR advised me that there wasn’t one on the Masons notice board.
I contacted the Clerk to confirm that they had been received, to which he replied they were ‘controversial’. I was somewhat concerned that the clerk had not contacted me initially to advise there was a problem. I wondered how long it would have taken for the clerk to contact me, if ever, had I not contacted him first.
At the council meeting of 20th June, Cllr Ireland asked the same question, to which Mr Jordan shouted ‘That’s a lie’. This comment implies that Barry did initially contact me, and that I was lying about the order of events.
I subsequently contacted Mr Jordan regarding the ‘lies’ comment, and a letter soon followed from Mayor Finch, demanding an apology for slurring the clerks character, and misleading Cllr Ireland, possibly causing him to bring the council into disrepute.
The first issue with this situation is the timing of Mr Jordan advising me of the problem with the posters. I believe that the Clerk should have told me there was an issue, and worked with me to resolve it, before I had reason to contact him.
The second issue is Mr Jordans ‘lies’ comment. I am not a liar and strongly resent this implication. I raised this issue yesterday at the council meeting, during public participation, but found that the mayor was putting too much emphasis on the clerks reply to my initial email. The pertinent point is that I contacted the clerk with the query in the first instance.
I believe this to be yet another example of the councils habit of using ‘spin’ to manipulate conclusions and outcomes. This has been seen many times before, including with the ‘official’ response to Churchfield Car Park Options Forms, where they added together the votes for 4 separate options to achieve their desired final outcome.
I also believe that last nights situation was a classic example of the councils failure to accept any other alternative viewpoint. We frequently witness the Mayor refusing to allow speakers (including councillors), to state their views by stopping them talking, or adjourning the meeting. She has also walked out of meetings in the past when confronted with an opinion that differs from her own.
Last night, because I continued to state my opinion, the Mayor stormed out, and the deputy Mayor dialled 999, despite the fact that this was clearly not an emergency. The police attended, and after hearing my account of events, have taken no action whatsoever. I do not believe this was a good use of Police resources, and CTC should know better than to use 999 for situations such as this. I did not swear or threaten anyone; my only ‘crime’ was to assert my right to speak out publicly, during the public participation section of a public meeting.
Camelford Town Council have blown this out of all proportion by their inability or unwillingness to grasp the original point in question: It is not that Mr Jordan didn’t contact me – that has never been disputed – the issue is when Mr Jordan contacted me, and what prompted him to give me the necessary information regarding the posters. This was the question Cllr Ireland asked on 20th June, and it is unfortunate that it took so much persistence from me last night to try and get an answer to this query. A query that we still don’t have an answer to.
I believe that the current council’s continued inability to listen to its electorate, and it’s insistence on manipulating and twisting any comment or view they don’t like (wholly supported by the clerk), that will eventually lead to its downfall. For me, that day can’t come soon enough.
Mrs Mel Baber, Chair, Camelford Association of Residents