General Discussion
According to the today's Gazette four staff were close to walking out after not receiving their pay.
The two most important (and expensive) members of office staff are off sick - most likely long-term. (They can have six months sick on full pay, six months sick on half pay whilst we fund the cost of paying for locums/temps out of our Council tax - fabulous)
Temps are being used who can't do payroll??? (Surely it can't be difficult to ask the agency for one that can...)
Minutes and agendas are not on the website.
There should be a full council meeting tonight - there isn't.
Just what is happening?
I think Dawlish voted for change - but maybe we were better off before.
Give them a chance, they've only been in position for a couple of months and their cause has not been aided by the sabotage attempts of a certain couple of people who were very close to the ousted ex-councillors.
It takes experience, understanding and a huge amount of time to be an effective and competent councilor. The voices of Dawlish representatives would appear to have niether of these.
Dont forget though that they were voted in by the people who wanted change, well you certainly got your wish so no point moaning on here about it now. We all have to live with this for the next four years unless of course they all admit the truth, that they bit off more than they could chew and do the honorable thing and resign.
I agree with Andymac - they have only been in office for two months.
Yes, there is a staffing issue but a lot of noses have been put out of joint and consequently a lot of that brown smelly stuff is being flung about.
There is a power struggle going on in more ways than one - and, from what I had heard previous to the local elections in May, certain staffing issues have been brewing for some time.
It seems the ousting of the ancien regime has brought it all to a head.
If Dawlish cant seem to sort itself out ..would it be a good money saving idea if Teignmouth Council were given the task to look after Dawlish affairs!?
Wondering - Teighmouth have had their own problems, wasn't that long ago that their Councillors were constantly sniping at each other through the press.
AndyMac & Lynne- why give them a chance if the first thing they do when then take office is screw it all up? What people have been sabotaging? If you mean letters from former Councillor Tom Bush in the Gazette - it's an opinion, some of it based on heresay but that's on here all the time, what axe does he have to grind, neither he nor his wife stood last time so they weren't directly affected. If he's disgruntled because no Lib Dems got elected - well that's tough and was reflected nationally.
Mugonhead seems to get my point. (thanks).
I was told the staff were quite prepared to work for the new council, they knew it would be a tough few months but accepted that.
Instead VFD have gone in all guns blazing and throwing everything they've got at the staff - so the staff do what many of us would have - cracked under the pressure.
The whole situation stinks. Think about it, you've ten brand new councillors, many have never been councillors before, some have never even sat in on a council meeting. What's the thing they need most - time to find their feet, time to reflect, guidance. So what do they do? Take all chairs of committees, all vice-chairs of committees, take the Mayor and Deputy Mayor role - then to top it off they drive off their Clerk who has all the knowledge of proceedures, legalities etc they need (whatever you think of the post holder - that's why you have a Clerk!).
Absolute shambles and I hang my head in shame too - I voted for some of them.
Oh dear..perhaps Newton should over see Teignmouth and Dawlish then and have no Council at all in either town..
As it took years of incompetence from our former councillors, to screw up this town . Its good to see our new ones , chucking out the dead wood. What makes me laugh is the defeated and deadwood , spitting dummies out left right and centre. They'll do anything to disrupt the new councillors, which shows they never put the interest of this town 1st . Typical Tories and Liberals, destroy everything , so they can get their grubby hands back in the pot. They've even been known to use multi-names to push thier point. Take The Tories, they put up a paper candidate, thinking they wouldnt win.The liberals bombed so much , the candidate won. Next thing we have a by-election as candidate didnt want the job in the 1st place.Yet again the Tories didnt give a dam about Dawlish. Lets just hope we get another independant in place of Those useless Tory/Liberals.
Actually the result was a complete shock to the Tories, they'd complacently believed they'd get in again. That was their biggest mistake, that and putting up a candidate they had barely spoken to.
But Hells Bells has a vested political interest doesn't she? And as for Brazilnut, you need to stick to motorbikes, as sensible political discussion is clearly beyond you...
Brazilnut or whatever name your calling yourself today, yes FLO was totally right. Just like you she didnt like the truth.
Hells Bells the tories didnt complacently believe they would get in again.They already knew the minute they were against the independants they would struggle.This is why they couldnt find candidates.Hence the paper candidate, who was told she wouldnt win and was only down to make it look like the party wasnt struggling.Ask her and she'll tell you what went on.
If your version is true , then why would the tories put up a candidate that they had hardly spoken to and knew nothing about. Now if we'd been talking about the wishy washy Liberals that would make sense.
This link will upset our esteemed unwell Town Clerk
http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2011/DEP2011-0549.pdf