Annette Crowe: Fantastic or Appalling?
When the Mayor stands up at the Annual Town Meeting on 28 April, she will explain all about the civic duties she has fulfilled, the lunches, and openings, the receptions with the Lord Lieutenant and her fellow town mayors in the three counties, busily flying the flag for Ledbury. She might remind us of her tireless efforts in the press, telling us this thing is ‘fantastic’ (and here, here and here) or that, ‘appalling’ (and here, here and here). See footnote.
Her report will necessarily be light on practical achievements. This year, sadly, there aren’t many to report.
She will probably gloss over the brazenly falsified minutes that she presented to Full Council in February, that she has exposed Council tax-payers to massive financial risk as a result of embarking on a futile legal battle designed to save her own skin (more to follow on this one). She will ignore the controversies surrounding the way correspondence from residents is mis-handled, and that Council Standing Committee colleagues were illegally overruled, that Full Council was actively misled with a pack of lies to lead them to an illegitimate and illegal set of decisions. She will omit that she has been sitting on a resident's serious complaint for over three months and refusing to give a timetable for its resolution, contrary to the Town Council's own regulations. All these matters will be carefully scripted out of her report, just like the key decisions that were air-brushed, illegally, from the record of the Standing Committee on 19 December 2015.
Meantime, the Annual Meeting will announce the winner or winners of the Distinguished Citizen of the Year Award. For each one of these stalwarts, there are dozens of other worthy people investing countless hours of time, energy and expertise in the running of our town.
Planting the flower beds, keeping the public toilets going (including keeping them unblocked, yuck), organising the Community Day (hoorah), writing the Town Plan (bravo), working on economic development and tourism marketing, litter- and dog-poo picking (yuck), providing transport for the old and infirm, fundraising for local good causes, and for humanitarian aid, offering rooms to poets during the festival, organising youth activities, cooking and serving at the Country Market, fundraising for the library, looking after the town’s ancient buildings, providing advice and practical help to those in financial trouble: the list goes on. It’s not glamorous or glitzy work. Nobody gets their face in the paper because of their efforts. They do it because they’re decent people.
Ledbury thrives because of the dazzling efforts of its volunteers. Not because we have an otiose Mayor this year or next, swanning about the town and county being very important but achieving very little of practical utility.
Note: Erudite readers will know that the word "fantastic" has various meanings including:
1. conceived or appearing as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination; odd and remarkable; bizarre; grotesque.
2. fanciful or capricious, as persons or their ideas or actions:
3. imaginary or groundless in not being based on reality; foolish irrational.
4. extravagantly fanciful; marvellous.
5. incredibly great or extreme; exorbitant
6. highly unrealistic or impractical; outlandish:
Her report will necessarily be light on practical achievements. This year, sadly, there aren’t many to report.
She will probably gloss over the brazenly falsified minutes that she presented to Full Council in February, that she has exposed Council tax-payers to massive financial risk as a result of embarking on a futile legal battle designed to save her own skin (more to follow on this one). She will ignore the controversies surrounding the way correspondence from residents is mis-handled, and that Council Standing Committee colleagues were illegally overruled, that Full Council was actively misled with a pack of lies to lead them to an illegitimate and illegal set of decisions. She will omit that she has been sitting on a resident's serious complaint for over three months and refusing to give a timetable for its resolution, contrary to the Town Council's own regulations. All these matters will be carefully scripted out of her report, just like the key decisions that were air-brushed, illegally, from the record of the Standing Committee on 19 December 2015.
Meantime, the Annual Meeting will announce the winner or winners of the Distinguished Citizen of the Year Award. For each one of these stalwarts, there are dozens of other worthy people investing countless hours of time, energy and expertise in the running of our town.
Planting the flower beds, keeping the public toilets going (including keeping them unblocked, yuck), organising the Community Day (hoorah), writing the Town Plan (bravo), working on economic development and tourism marketing, litter- and dog-poo picking (yuck), providing transport for the old and infirm, fundraising for local good causes, and for humanitarian aid, offering rooms to poets during the festival, organising youth activities, cooking and serving at the Country Market, fundraising for the library, looking after the town’s ancient buildings, providing advice and practical help to those in financial trouble: the list goes on. It’s not glamorous or glitzy work. Nobody gets their face in the paper because of their efforts. They do it because they’re decent people.
Ledbury thrives because of the dazzling efforts of its volunteers. Not because we have an otiose Mayor this year or next, swanning about the town and county being very important but achieving very little of practical utility.
Note: Erudite readers will know that the word "fantastic" has various meanings including:
1. conceived or appearing as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination; odd and remarkable; bizarre; grotesque.
2. fanciful or capricious, as persons or their ideas or actions:
3. imaginary or groundless in not being based on reality; foolish irrational.
4. extravagantly fanciful; marvellous.
5. incredibly great or extreme; exorbitant
6. highly unrealistic or impractical; outlandish:
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