There have been three Whitby Town (Parish) Council (WTC) meetings since the poll was called on 13th April, by the usual suspects - those who have attended often enough over the past 12 months to reach an informed opinion, including two Town Councillors. The Council has made no announcement either in the press or on its web-site. Clearly, the Council has no wish to inform the electorate that there is an opportunity for townspeople to express their confidence in the present members.
At a time when Whitby awaits crucial decisions that will define the future character and vitality of the town, nothing could be more important than having confidence in those who are duty-bound to reflect the will of the people - I mean, of course, the present members of Whitby Town Council.
I know of no-one who does have confidence in them - not a soul - and I number amongst my circle of acquaintances more than a few who are themselves Whitby Town Councillors .
A Parish Council is, at best, a weak and ineffectual instrument. That is why I have been campaigning for a reform of local government arrangements - specifically to empower a more local decision-making apparatus for Whitby.
Whitby should not be awaiting crucial decisions on supermarkets, schools, the Hospital or the Park-and-Ride - it should be making those decisions itself, through its own fully democratically elected Council.
But WTC is not merely weak and ineffectual. It has repeatedly failed to carry out its own resolutions. It has made profound errors in its Notices, Agendas and Minutes - a matter now in the hands of the police. A Councillor has said, in Council, that the accounts and budget are incomprehensible, as is the inventory of the Pannett Art Gallery, for which the Council is responsible. It has yet to be announced but another Councillor has already resigned, with more resignations rumoured.
WTC has had to raise its share of the Council Tax by 23.2% - the only Parish in the country to go into double figures. It is split into violently opposing factions whose ill-founded complaints against one another have already cost the public nearly nine thousand pounds. In my view, there is a culture of arrogance and secrecy at the heart of the Council - a determination to withhold information, even at the cost of breaching the Freedom of Information Act.
Matters may have deteriorated since the appointment of the new Town Clerk, who, in fairness, has had some health and family issues, as she did in her previous position at Marlborough Town Council, with whom she is presently in conflict. But that offers no excuses for WTC, whose performance has been an almost totally ineffectual waste of money - £221,000 for this coming year, which, incidentally, does include budgeting for this poll.
At a Meeting before Christmas, Councillor Dorothy Calderley summed up the status quo succinctly: "I am shocked and disgusted, Mr Mayor. In my nine months at the Council, we have achieved absolutely nothing". Since then, the rot has really set in - and with a vengeance. Meetings have become so turgid that the Gazette has not found it worthwhile to have a reporter in attendance.
I have formally protested to Jim Dillon, the Returning Officer, regarding the way in which the next poll has been conducted - with no polling cards; no postal or proxy voting, polling limited to 5 hours (as compared to the normal 15 hours); general confusion as to who should vote where (polling stations have been changed a fortnight after the official announcements went out); all of which adds up to tipping the electoral playing-field in the direction of another disappointingly low turn-out - and thereby discrediting the poll (whose outcome, lest we forget, carries no legal force).
But that is all a side issue, a smoke-screen. The bottom line is that now, more than ever before, we urgently need a far, far better Council than the one we have.
So to the question "Do you have confidence in the present members of Whitby Town (Parish) Council?", my answer is "No".
I do not have confidence in the present members of Whitby Town Council, and I will not be going to the parish poll to offer them my support.
At last year's poll, only 141 - from an electorate of 10,708 - turned out to support Scarborough Borough Council. I expect even fewer to support our Town Councillors now.
A total of only 1,630 votes elected the present members; how many will re-affirm that support today?
Whitby.
As two of the signatories on the request for a poll we would like to make the following known:
Whitby Town Council has had the foresight to include in this year’s precept the £4,000 required to hold this poll, it is our view, as electors of this parish, that the Town Council should not resist this poll but rather embrace it as allowing them to proceed to quality council status in the clear knowledge that the people they represent have confidence in them.
We would urge the voters of this community to make the effort to turn out and make their opinions known; there is always strength in numbers.
Steve and Amanda Smith.
