What follows is an opinion piece about Monday’s meeting of the Ventnor Town Council Plans and Winter Garden Management Committee. Ed
It was notable that the mood at the Ventnor TC Plans and Winter Gardens Management Committee meetings on this Monday had quite a different feel to them compared with the well-attended TC meeting held on 9th March.
Readers may remember our report that 40+ members of the public were at the 9th March meeting when County and Town Councillor Fitzgerald (Bond) appeared to be playing to the gallery. At the time we wondered if the looming election might possibly have any bearing on this.
Monday’s Meeting
The level of rudeness that was bandied about this Monday night was up from the usual level of sniping and frankly embarrassing to witness. The fact that an eight year old child was in the audience, appeared to make no difference whatsoever to some of the councillors.
The ‘winner’ in this was Councillor Fitzgerald (Bond). It left us wondering if the condescending pomposity he showed to fellow councillors would have been on display had the 40+ people (potential voters) in the audience at the previous meeting been in attendance, rather than ‘just’ those who are there for most meetings – myself and our daughter, Evelyn who reports for The Beacon, a member of the Children’s Play Park scheme and Winter Garden’s licensee, Graham Perks (for part of the meeting).
An Eight Year Old at TC Meetings?
For those who are wondering why we’ve dragged along our eight year old to the meetings every other week for the last year and a half, rest assured there’s no dragging involved.
She actually chooses to go along and could just as easily stay at home with her father.
However, she tells us that she finds it interesting and listens intently to every word that is spoken.
Sometimes she might look distracted or bored (we feel like that in those meetings sometimes too!), but she’s always easily able to repeat what has been said, a lot of the time word for word, when we return home to recount the details.
Code of Conduct
From recollection, part of the code of conduct for Town Councillors is that they should treat each other with respect.
From what we saw on Monday night, Councillor Fitzgerald (Bond) gives the impression that he has little respect for many of the other members of the Ventnor Town Council.
We guess that he has his sights set higher than just little old Ventnor.
Image: Abulic Monkey
