Councillors close ranks to protect their own interests
Three controversial IWCA motions voted down by city councillors at the reconvened Full Oxford City Council meeting on 16th January serve to further illustrate the huge divide between local working class popular opinion and the opinion of our cloistered political representatives.
The motions called for:
a) means tests for councillors in order to stop wealthy councillors taking money out of the pot unnecessarily,
b) the resignation of the Council Leader for what many consider to be a conflict of interests over council transactions with Oxford Brookes University of which he is a director
c) plans to close down Temple Cowley Swimming Pool and sell off the land and to build a new pool on green space in Blackbird Leys Park to be put on hold.
Unfortunately, not one councillor was willing to second the motion asking for the resignation of the City Council Leader, so this motion automatically fell without debate.
The Greens supported the other two motions and the Lib Dems supported motion (c). Unsurprisingly all Labour councillors doggedly voted against both motions.
The motions and a brief explanation of the rationale behind them are as follows:
A. Means tests for councillors
This Council agrees that councillors with an annual household income exceeding 75,000 pounds have no need to claim their allowance and that this money would be better spent in the interests of the city's Council Tax payers.
With this in mind, Council agrees to set up a committee to decide the details of a system of means testing for City Councillors in order to remove the allowance from those councillors with annual incomes exceeding 75,000 pounds.
Council agrees that those councillors currently falling into this category voluntarily give up their allowance until a formal system is introduced.
Council also agrees to request that City Councillors who are also County Councillors put forward a motion to the same ends to the County Council.
Allowances for politicians were originally introduced to allow less well-off citizens the opportunity to stand for election, as previously only the wealthy, that did not have to rely on wages could afford to do so.
Historically, despite the background and orientation of the party hierarchy, the Labour Party had many grass roots working class activists and councillors who made use of the allowance to supplement lost wages and expenses incurred through their civic service.
Today's Labour Party councillor is more likely to be an Oxbridge educated career politician.
In Oxford, Labour is represented by a well-heeled middle class careerist MP and his city councillor/county councillor wife, a corporate lawyer, at least one very well paid GP, a University Director, a restaurateur and a number of property rich housing landlords.
These people clearly do not need the money, so especially bearing in mind the current financial crisis, the allowance should be returned to the council taxpayers of Oxford via improved council services.
B. Resignation of the City Council Leader
Oxford City County has engaged in a number of recent transactions resulting in public land being handed over to Oxford Brookes University. Council has also decided on a major planning application by Brookes that has received a large amount of opposition from local residents.
Council understands that it would be perfectly reasonable for members of the public to conclude that the Leader of Oxford City Council, Bob Price, has a conflict of interests when dealing with Oxford Brookes as he is a Director at the university.
With this in mind Council agrees, in the interest of probity, to ask Councillor Bob Price to stand down as leader of the council.
Ask most people in Oxford whether they believe that Council Leader Bob Price's role as Human Resources Director at Brookes represents a conflict of interests when presiding over transactions such as the Slade Park development which was sold at a considerable loss to a private developer in order to house Oxford Brookes students, and the invariable answer is 'yes'. Labour, Lib Dem and Green City Councillors obviously beg to differ.
C. Temple Cowley and Blackbird Leys Pools
If the current plans for a new swimming pool at Blackbird Leys were to go ahead, the land at Temple Cowley along with playing fields (and mature trees) in Blackbird Leys will be lost - probably forever.
As councillors we are entrusted to safeguard the City's assets for future generations.
With this in mind, this Council agrees to put plans for a new swimming pool at Blackbird Leys on hold until:
a) An alternative source of funding becomes available other than the proposed funds from the sale of Temple Cowley Pool.
b) An alternative site for the new pool, which does not encroach on existing playing fields or have a negative effect on neighbouring residents' properties, is found.
For a full explanation of why the IWCA opposes this development please see the article 'All that glitters Isn't gold'
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