Former leader of the Smalltown and Dullbridge BeFuddled Party and Ex Town Councillor Fencesitter has leapt to the defence of Smalltown and Dullbridge Mayor, Councillor Kelsey Dullard.
Mayor Dullard has faced accusations of being underhand and overstepping the mark with regard to her clandestine meeting with Leader of the All-New-Yet-Unimproved Somerset Cuonty Council, Phil Crivens and Somerset’s Branch Manager for Trees, Phil Bitterman.
In what has been described as a ‘total stitch up’, Councillor Dullard acted beyond her remit by agreeing to the removal of the controversial tree at the junction of Vicarage and Barrow Road, before the matter was discussed at the SaD Full Town Council meeting.
With members of the Save Our Tree Protest Group up in arms because they were not granted sight of an Ecological report undertaken to assess the condition of the tree and were not given a chance to put their case for keeping the tree, ex-SaD Town Councillor Fencesitter tried to justify the Mayor’s deceitful methods.
Replying to comments on AceCrook ex-Councillor Fencesitter said “The Mayor invited three people whom she was aware of being interested, to meet at the tree. Only one turned up. Whether these people were part of the AceCrook group I do not know. It is quite possible the Mayor was not aware of its existence.
Unless you spend hours trawling AceCrook there are many groups you don’t come across – I only came across the group by chance. I hope we haven’t got to the stage in our society where we have to spend all our time searching AceCrook just to see if a group has been set up on every and any issue. The Mayor doesn’t have time for social media. She’s far too busy writing essays about what she’s been doing and drinking tea.”
If the group wanted to ensure that Councillors were aware of the existence of the group then all they had to to was invite them to join. They shouldn’t expect the Town Council to have to put out a Press Release advising anyone of any upcoming meetings. Especially secret meetings that they don’t want residents to attend.”
Councillor Fencesitter later clarified what he meant by ‘three people were invited‘ .
“I spoke to the Mayor last night. She had no knowledge of the AceCrook group. Not everyone lives online. Instead she asked one of the people she recognised from the photo in the original article on Media Tycoon, Mike Maxman’s website, to come to meet the Leader of Somerset and the Branch Manager and to bring others who were interested. In the event that person came alone.”
However, SomersetClive has investigated these claims and noticed discrepancies:-
If indeed the Mayor was savvy enough o have spotted and read the original article which included the photograph, why didn’t she also read the follow up article which detailed the existence of the Save Our Tree Protest Group?
If it is true that Cllr Dullard recognised one of the people in the photo, why didn’t any other members of the group who were also in the picture know which of them had been invited?
The answer is… None of the people in the photo were invited.
Instead the resident chosen by the Mayor to be invited was… A friend of the Mayor.