Oakham Town Council Mayor Councillor Alf Dewis Claims £50 for meal with Stamford Town Council
As we all struggle to exist its good to see Councillors remain unaffected by the recession.
The Clerk recently said the Council is not effected by the recession, but must be seen to be careful.
I don't see any caution last month it spent £29,500
Oakham's Mayor Alf Dewis claimed £50 to pay for a slap up meal with Stamford Town Councillors.
Something to think about when our council tax bills drop through our doors in the next few days.
Oakham Town Council increased its precept, giving no reason for this increase,
It has no major projects planned for the coming year.
It has almost £90,000 held in bank accounts and a £50,000 debt. It eagerly awaits its first half payment of this years precept.
Then I imagine once it has received this income it will decide what to do with it the Council
has admitted it is "income led rather than project led" it fails to change this stating "it is difficult
to change and will take time" I can not see why it is so difficult for 8 unelected people to
sit down and discuss a plan or even talk to the community.
As the council has no plans on how it will spend public money over the next year it should have
helped residents by making a huge cut in council tax demands.
In the past I have said the Council should go like so many other town councils have over the past few
years. Oakham Town Council should be abolished or the residents should take it away from the
greedy people who run it and work for it. The Town Councils Clerk says "we do little but what we do
we do well" rubbish I say what they do is often very costly.
My ward Councillor Adam Lowe also Deputy Mayor has achieved nothing for our ward.
We have the shabbiest children's play area, I assume because it is out of the way and not one
of the council two high profile areas it has been neglected for years.
last month the Clerk spent £500 on hacking trees belonging to the neighbouring school.
It also spent £2,000 dumping a bit of sandy grit at one of the entrances to Royce Recreation Ground
So I can not see why it can not spend a few pound painting and oiling a few old swings in Oakham
South East.
It of course has produced a budget to justify its income each heading based mainly on what it spent
last year and not any need, that is the result you can achieve when you pay a clerk over £2,200 a
month.
Tonight the council meets at Victoria hall at 7pm, using a word Cllr Charles Haworth uses in a report relating to notices recently placed in the council notice boards, the agenda is "uninteresting" and once again raises the
question what are resident of Oakham paying for, the vast majority of its income is spent on the
staff salaries and administration.
It is also another clear indication of how pointless this council is, when a councillor can only bring to council
as a main agenda item a policy for notice boards because he has recently found notices uninteresting.
After spending thousands of pounds of the communities money on new notice boards you would hope the council would welcome any community notices. Surely they don't expect every event to be of interest to
all?
