Transcript

Transcript

Hello, everyone. We'll make a start at seven o'clock. Good evening. Welcome to the meeting this evening of the important and standard subcommittee hearing. We've brought in front of us. We've got one report tonight. The purpose of the report is to determine whether or not this panel accepts the findings of the investigation report regarding complaints received against the subject member, Councillor CASSIDY. And what section, if any, determinants should be imposed on the subject member? I think we'll start off because these are quite unusual when we have these very often. We will go around the table and introduce ourselves, which is about the record as well, starting with Mr Darrow. I'm Geoff Darrow, and I'm the Silicon Member Support Officer of the Newcastle World Council. Geoff is not used to speaking as a microphone, so I don't know. I don't know. I think this pleases your microphones. For those who are using the specificity, you're pushing about the incentive microphone. The red light will come on on the deck and on the corner if it's working. And then it will be heard for the broadcast as well, but and CASSIDY will end up with. Hello, I'm Councillor. The next format and I'll present the kids' wave area and I'm on the audience standards hearing comments. Councillor interjecting. Yes, Councillor interjecting. I'm also a Councillor for the Councillor for the problem I like. Councillor MARX, I'm Chairing Councillor interjecting. I'm Councillor interjecting. I'm Councillor interjecting. Thank you very much, everybody. It may all go to the huge sheets and we have got very details independently of the huge reports in front of us and appendices to that board to include comments and statements on the project subject and others involved in the researching of that board. But I wouldn't clarify as the way it's in mind, it says, The principal authority, the victim also in Ryan Hill, Irish Council, I think, have got to live with Irish rights. Many apologies about that. In accordance with local government standards regime, we are responsible for analyzing standards complaints in this way and I'm not sure the officer and his predecessors were involved in this stage. I will open up then the report on our agenda, which is, or I should say, a declaration of interest, first of all, I think we don't have any, if anyone does, the declaration of interest now would be the time to raise it. Without having a way, item number three then is the hearing. We don't intend to move by item number four of the disclosure of exempt information, but if at any point tonight we are advised by our monitoring officer, we shouldn't do so. We may be compelled, we may feel compelled to move that motion. If that happens, both public and the president grades are excluded from meeting. Until then, the hearing is taking place in public. I suppose I'll start off then and if I may ask a question, the recommendations are agenda and they're common to all of these similar items. We need to make the finding. We're invited to determine whether a subject member was subject to the code at the time that the pay could be complained of and if so, whether the power can code the findings in the investigation report, which has been submitted, that the behavior complained amounts to a reach of the code. Now, I think my understanding of it, having read the report and the rebuttal to it, my understanding is that the subject member accepts that you were subject to the code conduct at the time of the exception, that anything that was published on the website, anything that was published on the blog was ruled out of scope by the person in the person in the execution report. Everything else, the answer is yes, you were subject to the codes you're acting on behalf of a post-cancer or ask a parish cancer. You have not, I don't think, displayed or disputed some of the actions and the words that were attributed to you, but what you would say is that given proper context that those words and actions did not reach the code. Is that accurate assessment of your position, Councillor? Yes, I think in context. Excellent. Thank you for that. That's helpful. Members on the panel, would you like to ask any questions? Councillor, I don't want to include the report that we've all had time to read the report, but there's one particular section made in the marks about the memberships, what's the organisations? One of your old comments is that you don't believe that political parties should be involved in political parties. Can you expand on that form? Why do you believe that, and what effects political parties have on post-cousals? I understood that parish cancer was a simple reason for people working together to get something done, but there wasn't the same conflict that you get when political parties are involved, and when choices have to be made, then I can put them politically. Okay, and then by and so on at the face volume, I think there is a massive value in political parties moving in post-cousals. From my point of view, to post-cousals, it's a wonderful breeding round for Councillors that wish to go on to bother in any of the county-level to learn their craft. So at this point, that must definitely be legal, it's just can't not be, in fact, you will be allowed to be biased if you could. The other thing in that section as well, that it's sort of especially kind of an interest here, when you talk about why would you be relationally or any other societies into Irish culture, I think? Sorry, so this comment made me understand the new code of comedy, as members are supposed to declare an interest if they belong to any kind of organisation, any kind of political party. It's a really political party, it was amazing, it was just to emphasise that these aren't an interest, shouldn't it then? Apologies, I'm just getting back into it from the back of the group saying that I think people who are here observing a big difficulty hearing, more Councillors say, can bring this, so I don't know if it's a second response, but I think we've all involved up different levels of volume in our voices, and if these would go up, so you can just repeat. I think I have a potential for that, if I can repeat that, is that the new code of comedy that we've had in 2020, in 2022, states that if people have an interest, and they did exemplify, sorry, as an example, they stated political parties, and I think Mason's also in that list, and the people to declare that as an interest. I've been by accept that, and we've all felt a form in our new innovations to update that much. Why would that come into a term, Councillor Mute, to understand why you've been bringing any work of, for example, Mason's, it's the least chosen anti-Kingdom, why would it be used in a derogatory term, I don't understand, but the report, it's the difference, Councillor Mute, that's what I say to that, I'm actually comfortable in the special and stuff issue that goes on. Sorry, I do not recall that I raised it in any derogatory way, it's simply a statement of them discussing the total content, and that was raised that these things should be essential to coping with you, thank you, Councillor, Councillor, Councillor, Councillor Mute, I have anything to add at this stage, so I don't wish to be anti-comactic, I mean this is a serious meeting, the allegations have gone to us are quite serious. I am satisfied, I think, with your comments, Councillor, that it's the context and the loss based on the word actions, which is the point of departure between yourself and the independent review of the mission that has been brought to us, the findings of the report is that you did reach the end of conduct, and we are required, as a committee, as a subcommittee, to take a view of an independent person, the independent person has read this report, our monitoring officers were in this report, it's been referred to us to look at in part because you disagree seriously with the findings, I think I understand that, and at the end of the meeting, we will give you the opportunity to sum up and to say anything you would like, I'll give you in a short space of time, which we will then go away and think about as in private, so not in big, but the panel will come to judgement on the things that we've been asked to, which are our agenda, it seems to me as though working through the numbers, number one, the subject, number was subject to the code, I think there is agreement on that, that's not your challenge, if someone in the panel can come with findings in the report, which have been submitting to behaviour, amounted to a breach of code, so we have had extensive prior, we had all the material that you shared with us with the authority, we had all the comments, the complainants, we had the very, very detailed report that was produced for us, we had a few words of wisdom from our monitoring officer, so I don't need to ask any more questions, and I would like to examine other parts of the report in more detail, it is all done in writing, and if other Councillors don't have any comments to make at this point, I will be very happy to give you one more ten-minute advice or use for a little bit longer, so I'll see you in a minute. In that case, it will blink at you to tell you you're speaking for too long, but at the time we have to accept the Councillors in our own meetings, that will be very rarely just at the time. In that case, thank you very much, then, Councillor Tonkall, thank you for your comments, if you'd like to make a statement now, please do, and we'll be serious with it. I was chanting this here, obviously, because it's important to know what it is I'm being accused of. The monitoring officer in June 2023 asked the complainants to provide him with the specifics, that is the editors to support their allegations. Without it, he stated he could not proceed. It sustained him two years as a new monitoring officer to arrive at this juncture. 2024 was a different country, it seems. The evidence was submitted and I did not see it. I had looked at the allegations against me, and I do not recognise myself or my behaviour in any of them. From the first meeting I attended, when I heard open the door, someone shouted at me to get out. That set the tone for the next two years, where the effort and hard work of this Council seemed to me to be persuading me to resign. Placing a similar position, many people would have bailed out not before this. I have remained to see how authority deals with truth and justice, and because residents have asked me to be accused of bullying, harassment, intimidation and all the young words which meet the criteria through the reach of the government conduct. I am not a bully, I am not a liar, I do not intimidate or anything else that I am being accused of. I am direct and I try to be clear in what I say, especially to authority. Speaking truth to power is never easy and seemingly dangerous if there is anything to hide. However, this is not the same which should not be confused with bullying, harassment and intimidation. I have not built parish council into this recruit. In fact, I have tried to prevent that from happening, which is why I have not brought complaints against it or my fellow councillors. Any disputes or flash of mules I thought could be dealt with internally and within the parish council. Except in this parish council, there is no rule or procedure to deal with any internal disputes, a new referral, straight to monitoring officer for consideration. Clearly the allegations were not considered to justify a complaint, since they were made with the monitoring officer for the past two years. It was my understanding that such complaints had to be dealt with as soon as possible or at least within a year. The monitoring officer suggested that making a complaint would be expensive and counter-productive. Also, if evidence was not forthcoming, then the case would not be brought. If evidence was provided, then I do not see it and this might raise issues of fairness, even in partiality regarding this hearing. I have refuted all the allegations made against me by the three councillors and those who made against me by a better resident. The evidence of my rebuttals of these complaints are contained in a box which I would have brought with an article. It is not that much. This is the complaint that the chair could be insisted on taking a matter further. This is why we are here tonight and it is not in residence of a better marriage, 23,000 pounds and counting. The solicitor in her report stated that she did not focus on the individual complaints, but instead she had chosen curious examples rather than a decision in relation to different complaints. In using this methodology, it seems to me she has focused and relied heavily on 15 phrases which have been selected by the clock from around 1200 pages. That would be around 2%. The phrase is used to be bloomed in their context and the interest of this hearing, context is everything. Having minutes and emails being scrutinised, it would be noted that what I had written that being misunderstood, misinterpreted and in my view, and as the author, even misused. There was certainly a lot of emails and I did not generate them all which have been suggested. It takes two to prolong the work or widen a discussion or to have an exchange of view and to come to a compromise. In better ear seems to be only one point and that seemed to be that of a chair supported by the club. But any one time there were up to six pansellers by emails that made, also the club and chair to whom I was obliged to respond. I was damned if I did, and damned if I didn't, it seemed. The context, if it had been included, was shown that these phrases were often explanation and came with all kinds of caveats and were tempted by words such as might, could, if, perhaps, etc. Unfortunately, these phrases have been devoted to these words which then present them as bold statements which they were not. To remove them from their context would be of the service and a misinterpretation of their meaning. For example, if minutes of meeting were not entirely accurate and if they had been voted by members of being accurate when they were not, then they would indeed and in one view, not be worth the pain they were living on. In pointing this out to not, I was trying to prevent the council from being brought into dispute dispute. In asking questions and raising issues, I believe my duty to a councillor, I rightly glossed in about twenty two, I met the information papers and policy documents, and especially the next. The solicit claims that it was not heard brief from the very council to determine whether the minutes were or weren't accurately recorded. Marietta's hearing rests mainly on that issue. Because they had the minutes on to choose each month, each month they raised issues and they thought comments from me, especially when I have been mentioned in a derogatory way. Really it should be objective and impartial. In pointing this out, I'd be ostracised when the objective is being to try to reintroduce amendments and corrections which are made and accurate. This endeavour, as you tend, is also evidenced by the two books. The stating points also appears to be attached to giving information to residents. I started a newsletter and I keep an independent blog in order to keep writing a residence informed. The parish council is an illustration and a bureaucracy. It generates information that if not the council's property but public property, which needs to be distributed and made known to this public. On this point, there's a clear clash between my view and out of this pensioner's soil, which could have been reconciled in fact. It's flashing. I drew up a list of ten contentious issues of these eight were contentious because they were about me producing and distributing information and all placing the information into the public domain. I'm here today charged with disrupting my federal councillors, possibly going to be occasional regretful use of praise from time to time, born out of frustration. However, as the public council's code of conduct, disrespectful behaviour can take many flaws. For example, any behaviour which a reasonable person would think would influence the willingness of the councillor to speak up because they expect the encounter would be unpleasant. It is one definition that is respectful. Every time there needs to question your relation, eyes are rolled, glances are shared, and reverence to tell you taken was continually made. Standing alone in a room with the hostile atmosphere, month after month is hardly the action of the body. For you may be characterised as offensive, insulting or humiliating behaviour, but if you make a person feel vulnerable, upset, more than denied, all things that I have accused of today. I have been subjected to collective offences with my influence on directly given, such as the labour people and shared months like highly asleep, handsome Dracula Smith, for instance, or made to feel that I did not fit in because it was interpreted by one councillor that I am upsetting that the apple cart. I wonder which box in the interpreting and respect criteria for the code of conduct this colour and behaviour would be ticking. Unfortunately, much of this could be avoided and certainly reconciled with discussion, not argument, patience, not the inflation. My questions and any attention to a sure accuracy or comments or issues that were raised in meetings were interpreted and quickly in dealing and targeting as a regulatory and criticism of the council. And this might have been because my questions revealed really omissions and lack of a written procedure which cancels the need in order to operate openly, transparently and adaptability. I was therefore attempting to do my duty. I did not harass the clerk or believe him or do anything else that is being alleged. Although it must be bold that the stylism in this could change so that they would feel more objective, impartial and less pointed at what is individual. This behaviour could also be brought into question. Each month the new set of minutes will produce in style adopted since May 2022 when I joined the council. Since I objected to the fact that failure to change it could be construed as a ball of bullying which was guaranteed to bring a response to me that the clerk knew me down a yet. Fact behaviour could also be interpreted as an harassment as an attempt to build in a case of repetition, the evidence would suggest this. The clerk had a long history of and experienced and handsome and political work. In a bit he revealed in documents that I am voting recently soon that he was a parliamentary candidate, a long member of a political party, a counsellor and a clerk elsewhere. With all this experience I would have expected that he would have known how to maintain a balanced meeting council, how to ensure that intelligence was well isolated and targeted, bullied and intimidated, and to ensure that there were procedures in place to deal with any such behaviour. This would be the realest I would imagine at any o'clock. It has happened at a time and a week before retirement but the club to make a complaint against me and another three months after retirement can write at any entrance such as it is. I am therefore sorry that the first three months of retirement is actually spent in this way. Unfortunately the complaints have dictated how I spend my time too. It's something I would like to say and although I say at last it is not least. I did not envisage that he tried to be a good counsellor but I would be upsetting my fellow counsellors and that I would be spending most of my time fighting. To create an intentional upset because it was never intentional. I apologise. It is unfortunate that there was being what the former ever called a 'clench of personalities'. I am not known as an attack then but I am certainly defended. To avert a clash however, there has to be compromise. Mediation was offered to the chair in December 2022 as a positive, even cheaper way to go with it but the chair didn't offer to do that. I also offered to sit down with the club and talk them through. I do not receive a response. Perhaps I also felt a few modelling that a panelled council was a tier of government and governance. In this I have had expectation that it will not allow me to do the practices or view of this council. Perhaps my expectations for accuracy in minutes and other council business were also too high. So for that I also apologise. I have a high regard for truth and honesty, fairness, justice and objectivity. I can say in more honesty that in good faith, back by the context of my absent box, that I have stepped to those principles so I am not going to apologise for that. As the old one out I was expected to compromise and fit in regard to this. When I came to this council I did not expect any concessions but I did come with the expectation of being treated as maple. I apologise for making that assumption. As per the local authorities of hold a conduct I have been given democratic mandate to represent public interest and inform them of the actions of the council. As I ensure this hearing is aware, the code of conduct key states that the council are expecting to express, challenge, criticise and disagree with the views, ideas, any ideas, opinions and policy. Therefore, as a council, I have informed my duties of the legal authority and the legal authority of conduct. I don't think there is actually really anything else that needs to be the report. You clearly got the report and within that there are various options that you can consider and is obviously a step process once and for. What I would just say, and I will just say this for the public benefit as well, is that the way it works, the system works in relation to parish councils is that if there are members of this panel, which apologies, whichever decision this panel makes, the seed name, if there are recommendations, those will be recommendations to the Bentley, Bosley and Ryan who encouraged council to take any action that they may be in the event that you as councilors find, that the case is made out of the solicitor's report. In terms of evidence, provided with all the evidence I have seen, you have also had the opportunity of hearing directly from the subject member, Councillor KARPS, Smith, and she has been invited to ask any questions as if it was any further or by statement being made. There is an opportunity, I'm just presuming that you are satisfied that you have made your submissions in full today. Well, very welcome to answer that. If you would like to, but only for me and the subject, I just wanted to draw a sense of the fact that at some point in the throughout this episode of all that, there was a suggestion by one of the councilors in the chair to for answer to make an apology. I'm told, well, it's documented that answer did make such an apology. We're told by the independent, the representative that apology was more than sufficient, it wasn't accepted. We could have avoided this. If that apology had been stated and based on it, I think we're together to get to a solution we call, we end up in this situation today. As I say, the report was independent and they said the apology was more than enough. I believe that the clerk himself wanted to write his own apology, to be signed by Councillor. That she wasn't prepared to do because that would lead to her own information by missing things, she was being accused of. In summary, this could have been a whole lot. If people have worked together to come to a solution, be sure to know what he said. Thank you for that contribution. I'm sure those comments will be taken on board by the chair and the panel. I would just remind the panel that there are actually five complainants with us. Yes, thank you very much for raising that. I know that the solicitor's report in front of us does it, according to the description of that apology and its sufficiency, it wouldn't be a conspiracy in mind if the concentrate helped the solution. It's different with regard to what is regarded as evidence. A lot of the evidence I saw was actually circumstantial, what he is saying. People were talking about feelings, they were talking about something different that they haven't even read, they were making an opinion on, or taking a stand on. I understand that the solicitor adjudicating did not look at everything. She sent me the report for minutes and, as I said in my statement, that they were quite crucial to events, because a lot of my comments were of a badly accuracy, and in the way the minutes were sometimes raised, particularly, but especially due to myself. I found some of those phrases that the doc used was in laundry, and that I was made to look at things, which I found somewhat offensive. There's nothing I could do to change that, even if it was just a word that I refused to alter that to make those minutes and that minute was correct. I was not trying to change the circumstance. I was trying to say, this is how it happened, and this is how it would be more correct, or really correct, than I would agree with it, but as it stood, I didn't want it. I had a right to say that, I don't think. Notice that the minutes or military vote in me were written in such a way that it was impossible, or it would take more nights to adjust them to make them accurate. Making an amendment was difficult, and when I did, I was not going to get one person standing at the most level. It was pretty natural, probably. With regards to the five complainers, they be adjudating some visitors there, more or less said to say a thing. Was that collaboration in a letter to the monitoring officer? Mentioned the word collaboration, and give me evidence of that. Thank you for your further comments. Obviously, I don't think it's for us now to go into each and every one of those parts of the world. What I would add is, as I tend to say, there is a lengthy, what is turned to me, and it goes from page 40, now to page 18, quite considerable amount of pages there, of what you regard as a report, and obviously that has been presented to the panel, and the considerations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor, for drawing our attention to that. Quite rightly, some detail is brought into. It would be our officers' advice that we don't need to consider anything further. If I'd like to take everyone to your time this evening, thanks to you. This panel's findings, and its comments, will take the form of a letter, address, to the honing answer, but we will also write to the subject member. If there is anything arising out of this process that we feel needs to be considered, more generally, by the standards of this Council, we may well write a share of community. I think that concludes the hearing tonight. Thank you very much, everybody. Good night. Thank you. [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO]