MP Jo Swinson asks if secret meeting was legal
CLAIMS that the closed-door Kilmardinny meeting breached council rules were dismissed this week.
MP Jo Swinson has written to East Dunbartonshire Council calling into question inconsistencies in the council's account of its secret meeting on Kilmardinny.
In a letter to chief executive Gerry Cornes, Ms Swinson asked why the council is giving mixed messages on last week's secret meeting on the Kilmardinny development.
Last week, she questioned why the meeting, where the Labour-Tory administration voted to approve the unpopular CALA and Stewart Milne proposals, was not publicised as council procedure requires. She said the council had broken its own standing orders by not giving three days notice of the meeting and making the agenda publicly available at Tom Johnston House.
Council officials admitted in a phone call to Miss Swinson last week that the meeting had not been publicised, but the council told the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald that public notice of the meeting was given.
Ms Jo Swinson said: "Last week the council told me that the agenda for
the February 4 meeting was not made public because it was a private meeting, but council rules say that the agenda should still be made public. Then I was told it was a continuation of the council's previous meeting on January 21, but the papers for the February 4 meeting clearly state that it was a Special Meeting, which the previous one was not.
"Now the council is claiming that the notice and agenda for the meeting
were publicly available, but staff at Tom Johnston House knew nothing about it on the day of the meeting and had no agenda to show.
"This is beginning to look like some kind of cover-up. If, as it appears, the council did not follow its own rules in making the public aware that the meeting was happening, then can the vote that was taken really be considered legitimate?"
A council spokesperson responded: "The council's standing orders require meetings to be called by a notice published at Tom Johnston House and by a summons to attend mailed or delivered to councillors.
"Both of these actions were carried out. The calling of the meeting was therefore fully in compliance with the standing orders and the decision taken at the meeting was legitimate."
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Tuesday 07 February 2012
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