Sunday 12 January 2014

Councilor surgeries in Penzance, are you interested?

I managed to get on the agenda for tomorrow's General Purposes a motion about holding public surgeries. It's something I've heard lots of councilors talking about, but not any action on. One of the many things I've found with being a councilor is that the desire to change something and the opportunity to do so, don't always correspond.

I think it's important that councilors make efforts to engage with the public. To make people aware of what they do, and can do as a council, and for the public to express their ideas about council business.  Crucially what people think should be happening.  Unfortunately for local authorities the general malaise with politics stemming from scandals such as MPs expenses reflect on councilors too. Other events like the creation of unitary and the distant authority of Cornwall Council. Lead to a dissatisfaction,  but Penzance Town Council shouldn't shy away from our community because of others faults. Public events before the election led to a good deal of interest in the council, which is encouraging.

So on tomorrow's agenda is a discussion about holding public consultation events.  This is an early stage of the process, there will be a vote tomorrow,  a suitable venue has to be found and other details have to be ironed out. Hopefully people will be interested in these events and bring forward their ideas for the town,
problems with current services and get to know their representatives better.

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