I WAS pleased to read Mr Brian Salts' letter (Times, December 6) about the leaflets concerning reorganised local government. When I read them I was struck by how little information they contained.
The diagrams purporting to show the new organisation choices were not explained and the lines between the various bodies were confusing.
No explanation was made as to the authority and responsibility of the elected representatives. Are we to have full-time elected officers as well as a chief executive and his heads of departments?
And finally, what are the proposed changes going to cost the council tax payers? Are we to have yet more full-paid politicians sucking money from our pockets?
The borough council may say that all this information would confuse us. How can we make a sensible decision without it? Certainly not from the skimpy leaflets so far received!
R Crispin
Midella Road
Yelverton
NO doubt many of your readers are as concerned as Mr Salt about the lack of information regarding the pros and cons of an elected mayor for West Devon Borough which will be decided in the forthcoming January referendum. But the council and its staff are strictly prohibited by law from giving directional information that leads residents towards a particular solution.
However, that rule does not apply to individual elected members. Residents of the parish of Buckland Monachorum, which includes Buckland Monachorum, Crapstone, Clearbrook, Milton Combe and Yelverton, have been invited, through my articles in all three parish magazines (and now the Times), to get in touch with me, either on an individual or group basis, if they need further information on this important issue.
This will be given without political bias from an active (Independent) member who has been extensively involved with the borough council on a day to day basis for some six and a half years.
Cllr Margaret Garton
Kaya
Midella Road
Yelverton
email:
IT was certainly a mistake for the Government to prevent councils from explaining the pros and cons of elected mayors, it just opens the way for misinformation and, er, cons, like that offered by Brian Salt.
'The mayor and cabinet will be controlling the council,' says Brian. Odd, since the council sets both the budget and the policy framework, and the mayor can only spend the money he's given and take the decisions he's allowed.
'Mayors have resulted in dictatorship,' Brian's extensive contacts tell him. Also odd, since unless you count Red Ken in London no executive mayors have yet been elected.
'Waste of time electing a council,' Brian tells us. A pinch of salt
required here: the cabinet have to be elected council members. A mayor will have a hard time finding nine chums among the 31 councillors the voters send him. More to the point he will have an even harder time finding nine councillors with the commitment to council work to take on a cabinet job. (You may have noticed the council doesn't publish attendance figures . . . ).
'Undemocratic' is a much abused word. Is a mayor elected by the whole of West Devon necessarily less democratic than a councillor elected by a 30th of it on a turnout below 25 per cent?
'Insist that the council be controlled by the councillors and not by the officers'? Dream on, Brian, dream on! Though come to think of it, a mayor and cabinet might just be the way to make the dream come true . . .
Lots more misinformation and shroud-waving is on the way to you. Keep your nerve, use your vote, and yes, U Choose!
Cllr Nicholas
Waterhouse
West Devon Council member for Burrator