Leader of the Isle of Wight council was moved to tears at tonight’s Isle of Wight council full meeting.
The Leader was speaking after the Chairman, Cllr Geoff Brodie (Ind Lab), spoke in light of the murder of MP, David Ames about threats to MPs and councillors. Cllr Brodie said he felt sorry for Cllr Ian Ward (Con), who he said he’d seen regularly vilified on social media.
Cllr Brodie urged councillors to be very careful and to stay safe, adding that he would be sharing information produced by the Monitoring Officer with advice about protect themselves in the future.
When the leader, Cllr Lora Peacey Wilcox (Alliance Group) started to speak, she stumbled and her voice was breaking, it being very clear that something was making her very emotional.
Peacey Wilcox: Shame on those …
Cllr Peacey Wilcox addressed the meeting, explaining about the work she’d been involved with over the last couple of months, thanking staff for their service, many working long hours to help support vulnerable Islanders.
The leader finished by saying that she agreed with what the Chairman had said about safety and threats against members and their families. She added “shame on those” who complain about having to wait a week for a reply to an email, adding that she was doing her utmost to support Islanders.
Robertson: Critical about release of Gov letter
The first councillor to ask a question was Cllr Joe Robertson (Con) who raised a point about the release of the letter from Minister of State for Housing. He criticised the Leader for the delay in sharing the letter with councillors, and quoted the Leader’s response at last week’s Cabinet when she told members that she receives over 1,000 emails a week and is not always able to keep on top of them. She had added that she shares her PA with at least two others.
Cllr Robertson asked what steps the Leader was taking to make sure this doesn’t happen again and “letters are left languishing in her inbox”.
Leader: Appropriate to have time to consider letter from Gov
The Leader pointed out that the letter was published with seven working days prior to the meeting and then added that it was appropriate to have sometime to consider a letter from Government before choosing what to do with it.
Cllr Peacey Wilcox said that sharing the letter with others was a fast turnaround given the workload in getting the Island Plan sorted as soon as possible. She added that the easy route would have been to publish letter after meeting.
Accusations against the Leader
Cllr Robertson said he had “huge sympathy” with the Leader’s workload, but then went on to the criticise the Leader for using her “personal email address for council business”, claiming the Leader was “putting the local authority at risk”.
The Leader said that her council email address was monitored 24 hours a day and that her private email address was used for mostly private business.
Brodie: Give leader more support
The Chairman, Cllr Brodie, made a plea to the CEO of the council, John Metcalfe that the Leader gets as much support as possible in managing her email inbox.
He added that he got 300-400 emails a week and couldn’t imagine how the Leader deals with over 1,000.
He said,
“Unless you do that no-one will want to be Leader, unless you want to be political anorak.”
The Leader left the chamber early as she was feeling unwell.
