Ramsgate Parish Council

It seems that the erstwhile supremo of Ramsgate ( Gerry O'Donnell )is getting hot under the collar about the lack of action from Cecil Street regarding the setting up of a mini Council for Ramsgate and has fired of a series of emails to anyone who will listen.
On Michael Childs Blog Tim Garbutt has joined in as well. From his incoherent ramblings it is very obvious that neither G.O.D. or T.G understand the first thing about Councils and Local government. reproduced below is my reply to Tim Garbutts post,

An interesting if somewhat off the wall post by Tim Garbutt, like most of the remaining members of Ramsgate First, (those that haven’t left or defected to the Tories) his proposal is full of holes.

1, You cant just vote off Charter Trustee’s they are appointed automatically by virtue of being ELECTED to Thanet Council, and incidentally don’t have the powers that Ramsgate First seem to think they have. Having a small ‘Council’ of 6-10 Members is not very representative is it, no prizes for guessing who would be on it.

2, Why not establish Monthly OPEN meetings of Ramsgate First, also no mention of how this is going to be paid for, Albion House is in the ownership of TDC at present.

3, Any Constitution would be subject to several Acts of Parliament and approval by the Secretary of State. You cant operate as a Council without Statutory Powers.

4, You cant have elections until you appoint a Returning Officer, again no mention of who is going to pay for these elections, estimated cost £60,000.00 about a pound per elector.

5, In the unlikely event that Tim Garbutt ever gets elected to Ramsgate Council eventually he will soon come to understand about Exempt Information and peoples salaries with few exceptions are deemed exempt, unless of course he would like to publish his earnings and exactly how he earns his money for all to see.

6, Fine, but just ask those unemployed in Ramsgate about stopping the prospect of jobs coming to the area. In fact it shows a myopic attitude to taking Ramsgate forward.

7, Again this demonstrates a fundamental lack of knowledge about how Local Government works and who funds what and how the money is raised.

In short it is an ill thought out argument and takes absolutely no account of how any of this is going to be funded, a Town Council will need a Chief Executive, Staff, both office and white collar, accommodation, vehicles, not to mention a lot of money to undertake the various projects that RF seem to think will regenerate the Town.
And how is this going to be paid for?
Well the current precept for Ramsgate wont cover it !