STC councillor’s attendance problem
Town Clerk of STC, Jennifer Jeffery, once again neglecting her duties and breaking the law. The Local Government Act 1972, Paragraph 41(3) states that the minutes of the proceedings of a meeting of a local authority shall be open to inspection by any local government elector of the area of the authority.
Meanwhile, a week before August, the last STC published minutes came from the March meeting! This is yet another law broken by the STC civil service! How should the Town Clerk be disciplined for her constant “mistakes” and incompetence? Is there anyone who can fix the never-ending issues with document publication?
THERE ARE FEW ISSUES WITH STC
STC is riddled with nepotism, scandals, and corruption. I was there—I know. I have documents, photos, and audio recordings to confirm every claim I made in the past. That’s why STC needs to be closely monitored. We pay the highest taxes in UK rural councils. Ripley, a town twice the size of Shirebrook, pays almost three times smaller taxes! Civil servants received a 27% pay rise, and there is no one to hit copy/paste/publish? It takes five minutes!
ATTENDANCE
Another critical issue in STC is attendance. We should not criticise people who sacrifice their own time to work for the community – especially when they work for free. Sometimes, life gets out of control, and the presence of a councillor at meetings cannot be the only indicator of the quality of his/her work. They work for free, so no one should expect 100% of attendance from councillors. Some things are beyond our control, but rules are rules, and one of them is the “six months” rule in local government.
If a councillor fails to attend council meetings for six months in a row, a procedure may be implemented to remove that person from authority. From my point of view – if someone does not appear for half a year, they do not serve the residents, and such a person SHOULD BE removed without regard to the reasons for this absence.
Hiding the attendance list by not publishing minutes is a symptom of the corrupt rot inside the STC.
LET’S HAVE ACTIVE COUNCILLOR
When I was a councillor, I had 100% attendance. Now look at the two councillors who, according to STC documents, did not attend any meetings in 2024. Both S. Brooks and V. Kirby are the new councillors. I have observed STC since 2016, and this is usual for Labour—their new councillors quickly see what is going on and do not want to be part of the “family.”
Criticising councillors for not attending meetings is morally ambiguous because we don’t know what really happened. Criticising civil servants for failing to fulfil their duties should be part of public discourse. This time we are approaching August, and the last date of the attendance list document is from… March. Great job STC! Great job councillors- as we can see: transparency went back to zero without opposition in Chamber of STC.
HOW THEY DID IN 2023
In 2023, Steve Fritchley was more a visitor than a councillor. And if you look at S. Brooks, out of 21 possible meetings since the start of her term of office, she was present at total of seven meetings. The last time she visited STC Chamber in November. It rhymes, but it’s not funny. It’s serious.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LAW?
I send complaint after complaint, and nothing, absolutely nothing, sticks to them. They break law after law, raise taxes to unprecedented levels nationally; they ignore their duties and bring violence to the Chamber, just to divert discussion from corruption in Leisure Centre and Town Hall and… and… and… as if the law in this country had ceased to exist. As if decency had been turned into… exactly. Into what?
FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
I made yet another complaint to BDC about STC Civil Service. Don’t hold your breath. For BDC civil servants, violence in the Chamber was a “minor breach.”
Sylwester Zwierzynski
Lead photo: made in Midjourney
