May 2 2006 email: oldgrumpy.mike@virgin.net
Childish games Last week, we had the three grandchildren to stay overnight.
In the morning, a dispute arose over where to go for a day out with the choice between Llysyfran and Little Haven.
Eventually, the elder of my two grandsons appeared in the kitchen and informed me that he and his younger brother had voted in favour of the hills.
"That's fair, isn't it?" he said.
In the circumstances, I didn't think it appropriate to burden him with a lecture on minority rights, so I just nodded.
As long as the beach bum was happy with the outcome, why sow discord where there is harmony.
But how was I to know that he hadn't enlisted his little brother's support by bribing him with a piece of chocolate, or regaling him with lurid stories about the boy-eating monster that lurks in the sea at Little Haven - both tactics regularly used by politicians.
Of course, so far as it goes, and in relation to this particular disagreement, it may well be that a vote is the fairest way of settling the matter.
However, what happens if these preferences remain fixed?
Is it fair that my granddaughter never gets to parade around the beach in her new wet suit?
Surely it is fairer if the choice of venue is subject to some simple rule.
Each to choose in rotation, for instance.
In a nutshell that is the difference between the rule of law and dictatorship of the majority.
My grandson is only five so it can be hoped that, as he matures, he will learn to understand that it isn't necessarily fair - democratic is the usual description - to use your numerical superiority to get your own way.
Of course, we can't be sure that he will eventually see it that way.
After all, Old Grumpy knows plenty of grown men who take the opposite view.
Forewarned As a bridge player, I should know better than to allow the opposition a peep at my hand.
But that's what I did last week when I rubbished the council's claim that members shouldn't be allowed to submit Notices of Motion by e-mail because of the risk that outsiders might infiltrate the system (see Everybody else is wrong).
So it was that when I came to put the case at last Friday's corporate governance committee, the Independent Political Group had moved the goalposts and security had been replaced by reliability as the main reason for rejection.
According to the Leader, there had been cases where e-mails sent to the council had failed to reach their destination.
I could have pointed out that, on that basis, as the Royal Mail loses 10 million letters a year, the council should insist that all NoMs are delivered in person..
But what would have been the point?
With eight out of the eleven members present on the Leader's payroll, the result was already a foregone conclusion.
Numbers' game When the leader put forward a Notice of Motion to increase the membership of scrutiny committees from 10 to 12, the Independent Political Group voted in favour because it was considered that it "would strengthen the overview and scrutiny process within the authority."
When I put forward a Notice of Motion calling for the committees to be increased from 12 to13 the Independent Political group voted against on the grounds that it would make them "unwieldy".
Quite by coincidence, of course, when the four committees were increased from 10 to12 the complex political balance rules meant that the IPG collected seven of the eight extra seats, while an increase from 12 to 13 would be wholly to the benefit of the Labour Group.
According to my calculations, the result of Thursday's Maenclochog bye-election could have a bearing on the future distribution of places.
If it is won by an independent with a dictionary, Old Grumpy might even get a seat.
Open plan When the new political arrangements came into force in 2002 (Cabinet etc) the council's constitution had to be rewritten.
As this was a task undertaken by officers, it should come as no surprise that the revised constitution shifted power away from elected members and into the hands of the authors.
And what little power remained with the elected arm of the council was vested in the leader because, cynics like Old Grumpy would say, it is easier to pull one set of strings than several.
The result is that ordinary members have been reduced to the role of spear-carriers.
Nowhere is this shift in the balance of power more obvious than in the field of planning where huge areas of decision making have been delegated to officers.
Under the new constitution, all the limits for major developments that had to come before planning committee were doubled.
Out went the rule that applications that had met with objections from elected members, statutory consultees and members of the public, should be determined by the committee (for a full list see Planning delegation).
All this was done in the name of efficiency and streamlined decision-making, though, as I never tire of telling my opponents, these qualities and democracy are not always easy bedfellows.
After all, one of the main claims of supporters of Mussolini was that he made the trains run on time.
Over the years, members of the opposition have tried to modify the constitution in order to put more power back in the hands of ordinary members of the council, including at least two attempts to loosen officers' grip on the planning system.
At last week's meeting of the corporate governance committee, I made another attempt with a NoM which would have required applications to go before the planning committee at the request of the local member.
Needless to say the officer's report recommended that this proposal be rejected and, also needless to say, the Independent Political Group, which had an 8-3 majority on the committee, voted the measure down.
Not for nothing are they known as the political wing of the Chief Officers Management Board (COMB).
Through the Looking-Glass Old Grumpy has recently drawn attention to the ongoing fiasco surrounding the sale of the Mine Depot in Milford Haven.
To briefly recap: last June the Cabinet agreed to sell the property to an unnamed "property consultant" on terms "acceptable to the Director of Development [Roger Barrett-Evans]."
According to the report before Cabinet, this "property consultant" intended to use the site as a camp for travelling LNG workers and, in the longer term, "establishing a container port."
Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we now know that all the "property consultant" was offering was "To explore the economic viability of the provision of a container port".
Even the Chief Executive would agree that this is hardly the same as what was in the report (see below).
That the Cabinet should agree to this sale without enquiring as to the identity of the proposed purchaser; his true intentions; and the likely price is a disgrace in its own right.
After all, ultimately this land belongs to the people of Pembrokeshire and they have a right to expect that those they have entrusted with power will protect their interests.
Back in 1998, following a similar fiasco involving the sale of the former Yorke Street school, the council drew up a set of rules for the sale of publicly owned land (see Legal tender).
In an attempt to have those rules formally incorporated into the council's constitution, I put forward a Notice of Motion which came before last Friday's corporate government committee.
I also included an additional provision (c) that, before land was bought or sold, the Cabinet should give"Approval of the terms and conditions for the sale or acquisition of land and/or buildings over a financial threshold determined by the executive from time to time."
The Director of Development's report to the corporate governance committee stated: "With regard to the proposed addition set out in part (c), details about the sale of or acquisition of land and/or buildings over a financial threshold are reported to Cabinet under the present system."
As my proposal (c) specifically referred to terms and conditions for the sale of land, it is reasonable to assume that this is what the Director claimed to be reported to Cabinet.
Old Grumpy had already been in correspondence with the council on this issue and on 2 February this year I received an e-mail containing the following:
There is no requirement under the Council’s Constitution for prices of property disposals to be reported to Cabinet (my emphasis). However up to November 2005 it was the practice of the development Directorate to include information relating to tenders for property disposals, on the returns provided to the Committee Services officer for the purpose of half yearly reports to Cabinet on contracts which had been let. This practice has now ceased (my emphasis) as under the Constitution , the half yearly reports are meant to apply to contracts let in accordance with Standing Orders relating to contracts i.e. contracts for the supply of goods or materials, or the provision of services, or the execution of works or the sale of goods or materials. Property disposals are not included within this definition (my emphasis).
It seemed to me that there was a clear contradiction between what was in the Director's report to committee and the council's e-mail, but, although I pressed the Chief Executive on the issue several times, he refused to agree.
Perhaps this is the sort of thing Lewis Carrol had in mind when he got Humpty Dumpty to say: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean. Neither more nor less."
Grass menagerie Old Grumpy was in to composting long before it became fashionable.
For a long time, I made do with a roughly made box covered by two old corrugated iron sheets and a couple of years ago I bought a plastic conical affair that was being subsidised by the council.
Unfortunately, because of the Wildlife and Countryside Act neither has ever yielded any usable compost because both heaps have been comandeered by families of slow worms - a protected species under the act.
And last year, when I lifted the iron sheet on my original contraption there were a pair of lovely reddish brown bank voles - though they seem now to have moved on leaving the slow worms in sole occupation, or so I thought.
The grandchildren love going down the garden with me to see what they call "grandad's snakes".
The other day we made our regular visit and when I raised the sheet my first thought was "that's a big slow worm" but, as it wriggled off into the bushes, I could see it was a proper snake.
Fortunately, after typing British snakes into Google I realised that what we had seen was a harmless grass snake.
Unfortunately, this is yet another protected species so the compost looks as if it will be very well rotted before I get round to using it.
Still, mustn't complain - the other day I read of someone whose compost heap had become infested with rats.
And one thing I've learned is that either grass snakes don't eat slow worms, or this one wasn't hungry (see below).
My eco-friendly tip for this week is to always keep an empty jam jar and a piece of card in the greenhouse for use when a bumble bee can't find its way to the door.
Wait until the bee settles on some flat surface (usually the glass) then place the open end of the jar over it. Slide the card between the jar and the glass before taking the whole lot outside and releasing the bumble bee.
I expect most of you had already worked that out for yourselves, but I thought I'd better explain in case any members of the IPG happen to log on.
Using this method, I have liberated five bumble bees already this year .
I can't be sure this makes even the slightest difference in the great scheme of things, but it certainly makes you feel better about yourself.
[Pic Old Grumpette]
