04 February 2009 19:17
Dear Councillor Smith
Thanks for your response.
I think when I saw people had elected another LibDem I just blotted the details from my mind. I haven’t heard you make any contribution in full council meetings, but maybe I missed it if you did.
Mr. Parnell is the pressing issue at the moment. The most significant thing that has happened to him has has happened since you have been a councillor. For background, he adopted two troubled daughters, which was an out of area adoption. Due to a foul-up on behalf of SMBC these girls were never officially registered with Stockport. As these poor young ladies hit problems because of their past life, Mr. Parnell merely asked for some counselling help for them. I think that was a decade ago. If they had remained in care they would have cost SMBC a fortune. After getting nowhere for years he started his protest, maybe one and a half years ago. He is, I am sure you will realise, a decent and gentle chap. SMBC has had him arrested 44 times and he is currently awaiting trial on charges of assault on a council employee with a sneeze with intent to infect him with a cold. Mr. Parnell has been taken to court before by the Council and had the proceedings dropped on the day of the hearing. This time it will have to go through to the bitter end. The Council is trying to criminalise and break this very simple, gentle man. You could look into what has happened, it is all a matter of record, and speak out against what is happening to him. The LibDem Executive Councillors have repeatedly refused to do so.
I am trying to find out if the lady who jumped off the Humber Bridge with her 9 year old autistic son had similar problems with the Council to Mr. Parnell.
There are other problems. The houses in Bredbury are already slipping into the coalmines below. I merely asked the LibDem Bredbury Councillors to read the A6 Bypass geological survey, which pointed to the further problems local residents would have if the road goes ahead. They couldn’t be bothered.
The local residents around Aquinas were telling me the other night how the local LibDem councillors were all over them like a rash before the election. Now they are having major problems, there is no sign of Cllrs Derbyshire or Humphreys.
If you look around Offerton (entirely LIbDem councillors), especially the Precinct, I would be astonished if you could point to any improvement the councillors have made. I managed to get £80,000 for children’s play equipment by putting the squeeze on a council officer. Cllr Meikle claimed she had got the money. She had done diddly squat.
At a past budget meeting where there was a £10 million shortfall, Cllr Derbyshire hadn’t read the documents with regard to her own transport portfolio at the Executive Meeting a few days before and she hadn’t read them for the Full Council meeting later in the week. This was over an issue she thought was £425 million and it was actually , I think but can check, £665 million. “Where does Mrs. Oliver get these ridiculous figures?” she asked. From the documents in front of her that she should have read (twice).
At that same budget meeting, two severely mentally handicapped people addressed the full council meeting (which must have taken guts). The Council was going to close a special centre where they could look after their baby. (Obviously, it wouldn’t be safe to leave the baby with them unsupervised). They begged the Council not to close the centre. At that same meeting, despite the £10 million deficit, councillors voted themselves an increase, which I believe none of the Tory councillors accepted for themselves.
Add to that the fact that we are paying millions and millions of pounds over the odds to put children’s lives in danger regarding the Harcourt Street school, and that I have been asking for a year now for an explanation of these financial anomalies, it is impossible for me to have any respect for the ruling LibDem councillors. In trying to expose these funny goings on I have been banned, threatened with exposure in the press, and had an illegal FOI ban put on me and everyone else in the town – just to stop me getting at any documents. If you are going to be a breath of fresh air, then I am delighted.
At a full council meeting I saw Cllr Candler gesture rudely to the local people in the gallery (people who pay is £35,000 pa) over his shoulder and accuse them of planting asbestos on the site.
If you want to see documentary evidence of what I am saying, particularly about the danger to children, let me know and I will show you anytime.
I don’t see any desire to serve the community from the LibDems and I have seen the money-grabbing.
Jolly good news re your Tesco commitment. Thanks very much. I always stand up to bullies, always have, always will.
Kind regards
Sheila
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Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 3:24 PM
Subject: RE: Mr Parnell
Thank you for this.
It may be that you have experienced difficulties in your dealings with Stockport Council. If so, I do not know what they are any more than I know what Mr Parnell’s problems are.
Whatever has taken place did so when I was not a member of the Council.
Sorry if my existence was not known to you and indeed, why should it, except that your vehement dislike of all things Liberal Democrat/Stockport Council makes it a little strange that you do not inform yourself as to who it is that is being targeted in your vitriolic comments.
Incidentally, I don’t believe that you intended the term ‘simple’ to be interpreted in the way that you say you meant. You have never struck me as striving for simpliciity if your comments and campaigns are anything to go by.
I was impressed by your very successful campaign against Tesco and have never shopped at Tesco or used any Tesco product since that time. I just wish that someone having your level of energy and commitment would stand for the Council/Parliament/Europe instead of the rather silly sniping from the sidelines which you seem to get so much pleasure from.
I have a real problem with the stererotyping that your comments betray. Politicians, whether local or national are very used to the line that all politicians are motivated by less than honourable intentions and that we are all on the make. But to have this line peddled by an obviously intelligent person such as you is very sad.
I have been involved in local politics for many years and have not found that politicians are that much different from the rest of the community. In other words, most are there because they genuinely care about the people they represent. Inevitably, there will be exceptions but in my experience (more than 25 years) they are very rare indeed. Indeed, with the level of accountability required from local councillors, it would take more guile and energy than most of could muster to abuse the system.
If you are really serious about the issues you publicise then maybe you should be a little more aware of the impression you create with your comments which the press delight in reporting.Of course they do. But it all comes across as somewhat vicious and hysterical and therefore not to be taken seriously.
I assume that whatever your issues with Stockport Council, you have approached the Ombudsman/Standards Board and that you have had a response. I assume also that if the response was not to your liking, that you have approached local members of parliament, both Lib Dem and Labour for their assistance notwithstanding the fact that we are all, at the end of the day, a waste of space.
Cllr Ann Smith
