Remember when the list of nominees for the Ventnor Ward first came out, there were four of the candidates who allowed themselves be nominated for more than one seat?
They were …
FITZGERALD-BOND, Jonathan Seaver;
PERKS, Graham James Mark;
SCOCCIA, Susan Jane;
TAYLOR, Val
A lot of people were puzzled as to their motivation for this confusing action, so we wrote to each of them way back on 12 May (over three weeks ago) to ask. As follows …
We see that you’ve accepted nominations into two seats in Ventnor town.
This has raised quite a lot of discussion on VentnorBlog, so would you mind outlining why you’ve gone for more than one seat so we can pass it on to our readers.
Thanks in advance.
Here are the responses in order of receiving them (or not as the case may be) …
Val Taylor was the first to respond – with impressive speed. She said that due to a death on her son’s side of the family, she hadn’t been able to ask Cllr Colin Elvers if he was running in Lowtherville. She didn’t want to run against him, as she had a long running respect for him. When she saw that he wasn’t running, she made Lowtherville her designated ward.
Susan Scoccia replied the next day via email.
The reason that I put my name down in two wards is simple – so that I had a choice of where to stand. I have withdrawn from St. Lawrence, and I am standing in Ventnor West for the Town Council.
I wasn’t sure that there would be sufficient candidates in St. Lawrence. I would like to represent Ventnor West, as I believe that there is much for me to do in this area on behalf of residents. Obviously, as County Councillor, I have been representing this area for the past 4 years on IWC and so I am very familiar with it and know many of its residents.
Jonathan Fitzgerald-Bond didn’t reply, so we sent him a reminder ten days later. Four days after that he replied.
Sorry for not replying before but I hope you have noticed that I am now only standing for Ventnor West in the town council election.
Given he didn’t answer the simple question, we wrote to him again …
We had noticed that you only standing for one seat now. We believe you can only stand for one seat, which is why we asked you the question –
Why did you originally accepted nominations for more than one seat?
Now you’re back and on email, we’d appreciate if you could get back to us today on the above question.
We haven’t received a reply as yet.
Graham Perks didn’t reply despite us sending a reminder ten days later. Neither emails bounced back to us undelivered.
No reply
We’re not sure what message the people who didn’t send a proper reply to the simple question is sending out.
It does make you wonder if that is what they act like when they’re trying to get elected, goodness knows what it would be like communicating with them if they were to be elected.
Where they’re standing now
Here is where a breakdown of where all prospective councillors are now standing.
Image: andreanna
