Tonight I attended the Cabinet Resources Committee which was deciding, amongst other things, the sale of Church Farmhouse Museum, the sale of the old Hendon Football Club Ground, and the award of a contract for internal audit to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The public gallery had a good representation of people. Taking pride of place in the front row was the Barnet Bugle with his trusty tripod filming the meeting. (See his video of the meeting here) In addition Mr Mustard and Mrs Angry were scrutinising the proceedings with their usual rigor.
I had submitted four questions on the internal audit contract and another gentleman, Keith Martin, asked a question about Church Farmhouse Museum. Sadly, sports campaigner Gordon Kerr was denied the opportunity to speak about the sale of the old Hendon Football Club Ground.
Well I wish I could say there was a full and detailed discussion about the points. Sadly it was the usual rubber stamping job with the whole meeting over in 22 minutes. There were some really big issues here that impact the community but the council’s desire to engage with the people who they are suppose to represent seems minimal.
With so little debate and with such disregard for public participation I wonder why they bother holding a meeting at all. As the Barnet Press said in today’s editorial, “that no matter what, Barnet Council is going to do what it wants”.
I was going to write a blog on this meeting Mr R but there is nothing to say. I thought of a title "Ten 3 minute rounds" but there was no fight as the opposition are not members of this committee and it didn't last 30 minutes even including the exempt items.
ReplyDeleteCllr Thomas may have thought he neatly sidestepped the question "Is the attitude of Barnet Council to the sale of Church Farmhouse proper & responsible" by talking about the town hall building but you can't fool a blogger - there was no answer, so that's a NO then.
Cllr Rams has joined the ranks of the stand-up comedians. He said that he was disappointed that HADAS pulled out of discussions to take over the museum.
Mr Mustard has never had discussions with a nest of vipers; he would run away.
For the avoidance of doubt as my last comment might be misunderstood - HADAS are great
ReplyDeleteFor those wanting to savour the full 21 1/2 minutes the meeting was recorded by @barnetbugle and can be seen here
ReplyDeletehttp://vimeo.com/27032070