BREAKING NEWS! MIKE BARNES SPEAKS OUT!

Following his debate with Paul Breeze on the politics show today Mike Barnes of Democracy for Stoke has just posted this comment on our blog:

Mike Barnes said...

Firstly,

Don't let Paul Breeze con anybody into thinking he is just a concerned resident. He's an ex-deputy Elected Mayor, and a councillor who lost an election in his own area. (All deputy elected mayors have lost their next election!).

So far the Elected Mayor system has closed over half of all elderly care homes. It has led to the council, for the first time in its history having government intervention in Children's Services - effectively paying a private company to close decent schools - when we had already agreed (and had government agreement) on other proposals.

It tried to close Dimensions - but failed due to campaigners and a few brave councillors.

We had the ice rink farce that cost £150,000. We've had the gravestones heartache where thousands of headstones were knocked down only for the council having to compensate them.

Now EM wants to close our community centres to save money.

You know what I find odd? 5 months ago the Elected Mayor wanted to close Dimensions to save £60,000. Yet when we recently lost £5m in that Icelandic bank, council comment was, it doesn't impact on services????!!!!

Elected Mayors are more open are they? Well tell me why the cabinet have a private meeting the week before the open one with exactly the same agenda? How open and democratic is that?

Finally it has led to having 9 BNP fascists on the council, with a good possibility of having a BNP Mayor next May. If we still have a Mayor system on 24 Oct, my advice will be: get yer coat, yer bag, yer hat and yer loved ones, and get as far away from Stoke as possible, as it could be burning next summer if the BNP have their way.

It is time for me to nail my colours to the mast and say that I fully support the Leader and Cabinet model and I will be voting YES on Thursday 23rd October.

There is no point in having 60 councilors and having them paid £7000 per year and when we need them to act on our behalf they have no powers to act. Rob Flello is 100% right in my opinion when he says that we need a "time out" from the mayoral system. We need our councilors to represent us, not to be able to go so far and then fall at the last hurdle because of the ego of one man.

We have three excellent ward councilors in our ward and they work tirelessly on behalf of their electorate and I want them to have the power to follow their hard work through to a conclusion.

Finally, if I am unhappy with my council leader then i will have the opportunity to kick him/her out a lot sooner than four years!

For these reasons I urge everyone to vote YES for a leader and cabinet model on Thursday 23rd October..... You know it makes sense!

This is my opinion, other bloggers may have different views and they may post their thoughts as is their right to do so, after all we live in a democracy don't we?
This is what we want isn't it? Democracy for Stoke!

Nicky, in her very accurate way will be posting her views on the mayoral debate that took place on the BBC's Politics Show later on tonight......................

PAUL BREEZE OF THE PEOPLES CHOICE SPEAKS TO PITSNPOTS!

Following on from my earlier blog when Mike Barnes of Democracy4Stoke spoke to us it's now the turn of Paul Breeze to give us his reasons why we should vote to keep the Mayoral system. So in the "VOTE NO" corner weighing in with the "Peoples Choice" argument:

WHY PEOPLE SHOULD ‘VOTE NO’ ON OCTOBER 23rd.

Don’t be confused about this referendum. What it boils down to is very simple.

IF YOU WANT A LEADER AND CABINET SYSTEM WHERE JUST 60 COUNCILLORS CHOOSE WHO RUNS THE CITY – VOTE YES.

IF YOU WANT AN ELECTED MAYOR AND CABINET SYSTEM WHERE 186,000 PEOPLE CHOOSE WHO RUNS THE CITY – VOTE NO.

I am one of those 186,000 Stoke-on-Trent citizens. I don’t want to give up my vote to just 60 councillors. I am appalled at the arrogant contempt the majority of councillors have towards us as citizens that they have actually forced a referendum to put this insulting proposition to us.

I will categorically be voting NO in this referendum. I urge every fellow resident of Stoke-on-Trent to do the same – because if you vote YES, you will be giving up your own vote and choice, and also that of your children and the next generations to come. We will no longer have any say in who runs our own city.

We already had a referendum in 2002. We, the people, chose to change the governance arrangements of Stoke-on-Trent to give ALL current and future residents across the city the opportunity to choose to vote for the person we wanted to be the directly accountable city leader, a directly Elected Mayor; and more importantly, the power to remove them if we don‘t like them or we don’t think they are doing a good job.

In a Leader and Cabinet system, councillors choose, from amongst themselves, the leader they want. We have no power to remove them.

The reason we voted for an Elected Mayor system in the first place was because our existing Leader and Cabinet system, under councillors and MPs control, led our City to: *decades of chronic decline; *a clueless lack of visionary leadership; *absolutely no adequate political, social, economic response to the decimation of the mining, steel and pottery industries; *behind-closed-doors deals, open to rampant corruption; *repeated financial disasters like the Cultural Quarter and Worldgate; *£millions of crippling debt, which ordinary council tax payers suffered from; *a rise of deep public cynicism and resentment, leading to many veering towards extremist views as a protest; *and ultimately Stoke-on-Trent shamefully being named in 2001 as the worst place to live in the UK.

Since 2002, under an Elected Mayor system our city is now on the right track. We are progressing: *up from a poor one star council to 3 stars and improving; *introduction of Building Schools for the Future programme; *investment of £millions of Renew regeneration money; *introduction of co-ordinated Area Implementation, Neighbourhood Management Teams tackling local issues; *reduction in crime; *£millions of investment coming through North Staffs Regeneration Partnership business plan; *rated as the best place to base a business in the UK; *the real, exciting prospect of Stoke-on-Trent being transformed into a dynamic, modern, city environment taken seriously across the country; *and the true democracy of a directly Elected Mayor accountable to all the citizens of Stoke-on-Trent.

Don’t be fooled. *Scrap the Mayor = Scrap your vote. *Democracy4Stoke = Democracy for 60 councillors and NO democracy for the rest of us. *The cost of an Elected Mayor & Cabinet is just the same as a Leader & Cabinet. *On the threat of extremism: you don’t disenfranchise the whole city population because some people might vote for something you disagree with. *On the complaint that Mayors have 4 years in office: so do councillors, MPs and MEPs.

The simple questions to bear in mind on October 23rd are: *Do you want to lose your vote? NO. *Do you want just councillors to choose who runs our city? NO. *Do you want this city to go backwards and return to the dark old days? NO.

If your answer to those questions is also NO, then make sure you vote NO on October 23rd. – and keep the power in the hands of all the people of our city.

Deciding who runs this city is everyone’s democratic right. We don’t need a handful of people deciding for us. It should – and must always be – the people’s choice in Stoke-on-Trent.

That is why we must VOTE NO on October 23rd.

Paul Breeze

Organiser/Chairman ‘People’s Choice’ Vote No Campaign

Follow this link to the Sentinel article:

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/news/D-day-looms-Stoke-Trent-elected-mayor-referendum/article-397328-detail/article.html

MIKE BARNES TALKS TO PITSNPOTS!

The 23rd October is nearly upon us, the date of the most important referendum in the history of our City. Pitsnpots has been host to some heated debate on the subject of which system of Governance would best serve Stoke on Trent. Councilor Mike Barnes (pictured) who is heading the "vote yes" campaign has spoken to us here at pitsnpots and here is what he has had to say:


"In the forthcoming Referendum, Democracy4Stoke, is asking the people of Stoke-on-Trent to vote YES for change – YES to scrap the Elected Mayor. Democracy4Stoke was formed in 2002, and has gradually grown to over 100 members from all political parties and non, and from all walks of life. Our aim is to restore democracy back into all our public services – local government, health, police and many other quangos – so that everybody has a real says in their community and how things are run. Our greatest achievement has been to effectively force the council to have a referendum, following our 10,000 name petition that was delivered to London. Make no mistake, there would never be a referendum had the petition not been done. Those that support an Elected Mayor would have carried on and we would all have been denied our right to choose. For 5½ years now Stoke-on-Trent has suffered under the Elected Mayor system. Since its creation over half of all our elderly care homes have closed with more to come; we’ve had the scandal of over £100,000 wasted on an ice rink that went bump within days of its opening; who can forget the heartache cause by the Elected Mayor and Council Manager knocking down thousands of headstones in our cemeteries, then having to dole out tax payers money to compensate them. If you want to stop these things happening vote “Yes” to scrap the Elected Mayor. More recently, for the first time in the city’s history, we have had direct government intervention in a key public service, Children’s Services, handed over to a private organisation, SERCO, who torn up previously agreed secondary school proposals, in favour of closing some of our more success schools. Dimensions would have been closed if there hadn’t been a major community campaign to keep it open: and now even our community centres are threatened with closure. The list could go on and on. Even a recent government report said that our city is “leaderless”, “fragmented” and desperate for change. Vote Yes for Change. The cost of having an Elected Mayor is spiralling out of control. The salary of the Elected Mayor alone is £1500 per week, added to which are two secretaries, a personal assistant, and ten political advisors paid over £17000 each, all costing us, the taxpayers, nearly £1/2m per year. The leader model, which we campaign for, costs just of 1/3 of this amount. An Elected Mayor, has now been proven to be distant and out of the reach of ordinary citizens concerned about their communities and their local services. Why should an Elected Mayor care when once elected, they don’t have to worry about what anybody else thinks for another four years. The leader model, by contrast, hands the decision-making powers back to local communities, through local representatives, councillors. Through councillors, once again, any leader, would have to listen to local people and councillors every second of every day, knowing that making the wrong decision could be their last as leader. This is real democracy accountable 24/7. No one system is perfect, but surely, having 60 people making decisions must be better than leaving it to one Elected Mayor. Sixty people from all over the city, from all walks of life, from Meir to Golden Hill, and from Trentham to Bucknall. 60 people or just 1 - which is more democratic? Having an Elected Mayor takes away a key plank of our local democracy. Removing the opportunity of every citizen to stand up and represent their local community, to make a difference and change things in their street, their community or their city. Instead the Elected Mayor is centralised at the Civic Centre, beyond the reach of all but the most elite and those with the money to get there. There is even the likelihood that the BNP could take it, this would be the final straw for anybody thinking of bringing jobs to the city. We want change: change that comes right from local communities - upwards. A council that takes everybody into account, and along with them, would be a council of real strength, leadership and vision. We cannot continue along our current path – leaderless, no direction and ridiculed by those outside with little chance of outside investment. Five years has already left us well behind other great cities. If we fail to act now we have an Elected Mayor forever, the law says we can never have another chance to get rid of this dictatorship of a system. Bring this government experiment to an end! I urge everybody to vote, and vote “Yes” for change – “Yes” to Scrap the Elected Mayor."

The three city MP's have come out in favour of the Leader and Cabinet system over the past few weeks.
Look out for an article by Paul Breeze the Chairman of the "Peoples Choice Campaign (vote NO) in the next few days.
Over to you what do you make of Mikes Blog?.........
Follow this link to the Sentinel article:
http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/news/D-day-looms-Stoke-Trent-elected-mayor-referendum/article-397328-detail/article.html

Web Response of the Week Award!

We here at pitsnpots love to recognise examples of high quality web posting. The first recipient of the "Web Response of the Week Award" goes to Trentham Action Groups very own Nicky Davis!

In response to a letter sent by Tory Shaun Bennett to the Sentinel this week taking issue with Councillor Zulfiqar Ali's letter supporting the Elected Mayor system Nicky left this response:

"I agree with you Shaun in favouring the leader model.A leader is less able to become dictatorial. Also can be more easily removed. I'm sorry but in SOT we clearly have to be able to do this. If they start to wreak havoc we don't want them carrying that on for 4 years.I completely agree with you when you say "he goes on to argue that under a Leader and Cabinet model there would be constant backroom dealing between the various groups to negotiate positions of power in a coalition. But just what on earth does he think goes on now under the existing mayor and advisory cabinet system?"I commented as such on the web when Councillor Zulfiqar Ali's letter was published.You go on to say;"Do we not have a coalition of the three main parties at present? Was this coalition not negotiated behind closed doors without any input not only from the electorate but from their own party members?" Very well said, bold of you.It would be good if you go that bit further though, you have not mentioned that one of the worst possible outcomes for mayor (also for leader) would be Roger Ibbs! But of course you couldn't possibly say that could you?Ibbs is currently off on his own tack, pursuing some sort of land deal so he can build, on a green wedge, an academy school that Trentham doesn't want and Blurton doesn't want. Is this some crazed tory policy disaster or just something from planet Ibbs? Are you not concerned that if Ibbs has his way, children from your community in Blurton will have to travel to Trentham to go to school, in the absence of a safe walking route? What Blurton needs is a new school, in Blurton, as promised years ago. If families there are keen for it to be an academy then fine, but they should be given the choice. What Trentham needs is to keep the fantastic school it has. Trentham families want a federation, not an academy, so they should be allowed that.I've just seen Balls on BBC parliament spouting a lot of, well, as the name suggests, labour lies, on how much they want parents to be involved in their children's schools. Well that's not being allowed for us is it. So what does mayor Meredith think he's doing in the labour name? Labour promote academies, but they are also suposed to support federations and other arrangements, so let us have what we choose for our community.But then I've also got these tory lies, sent to me in an email, 22nd September, from the Consevative Party Chairman's office, CCHQ:"David Cameron has stated that we have to look at expanding the provision of education. But that any reforms have to be done with the support of the community and the parents which they serve."That's very far removed from what Ibbs is doing in the tory name! Don't let your mighty leader tell you he is doing the best thing for Trentham and Blurton, he's barely speaking to any of us, he doesn't speak to me at all.Labour and tory alike are doing nothing for communities, just dictating to us! Neither of them are any good. Neither of them are communicating with us. And I know why, neither of them have any intelligent arguments to make. I recently emailed all 60 councillors about the schools issue. None of the 11 responses I received came from the conservatives, or labour, or libdems. All 11 were supportive.Disclaimer: Save Trentham High is a non-political organisation with the sole aim of saving Trentham High. Individuals within it may express their political views but do not necessarily speak for STH."
Nicky Davis, Trentham

It's a testing time for all concerned with the Trentham Action Group but there is one thing for certain these guys will NEVER give up. They have fought their fight hard and there is still a big desire to see it through. Nicky encapsulates the spirit within the Group and with strong leadership from Dan Jordan and Donna Dewar the council, mayor and Serco will know they are still in a battle.

Well done Nicky you are our first winner keep up the posting on the Sentinel and of course here on pitsnpots!