Last night’s (Thursday) Isle of Wight council meeting ended with shouting and calls that an ‘undemocratic vote’ was taking place — after a meeting went on past 9pm (watch on YouTube).
As part of the Isle of Wight council’s constitution, a regular full council meeting can only run for three hours. Typically, it starts at 6pm and ends at 9pm when business is stopped, regardless of where it stands.
Vote spanned across the 9pm meeting end
Yesterday, however, the council chamber erupted after a decision was made to continue a vote past 9pm.
Councillors had been debating a motion put forward by Councillor Karl Love for 20 minutes — about whether a full consultation with ‘all Island citizens’ was to be held over the change to move to a committee system — and were halfway through a vote when the clock struck 9pm.
Brodie: Called for meeting to be ‘terminated’
Councillor Geoff Brodie led calls the meeting should be ‘terminated’ as it was 9pm and the vote could no longer continue.
The council’s senior governance advisor and acting monitoring officer for the meeting, Francis Fernandes, said the meeting could continue as it was down to the discretion of the chair, Councillor Claire Critchison.
Chair voted to continue
Councillor Critchison said the vote could continue and the meeting would carry on until it finished.
However, Councillor Brodie said the meetings had been an “absolute shambles” and it was breaking the constitution.
Members of the Empowering Islanders group — minus Councillor Dave Adams who had walked out shortly after 9pm — said it was an ‘unconstitutional vote’ so they voted against.
The vote fell and the meeting finished at 9.05pm.
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which News OnTheWight is taking part in. Some alterations and additions may have been made by OnTheWight. Ed
