How you can help taxpayers this Thursday!

This Thursday will see Bournemouth Council vote on its pay increases we detail here.  Since last Thursday we’ve been lobbying hard for the full council to reconsider this plan and we have to keep up the pressure.  How can it be right that a council loses a star rating from the Audit Commission then uses a 4.9% Council Tax increase to push their salaries up by well over 17% for councillors, and 30%+ for the cabinet.

In the real world, if you or I don’t get results – we lose our jobs.  Yet Bournemouth’s Cabinet think they can get away with rewarding failure.

Not on my watch!

If you’re free on Thursday evening and live in or around Bournemouth, please go to the Full Council on Thursday 21 February at 7PM and sit in the public gallery, as is your right.  You can also put a question to Bournemouth Council’s Cabinet by simply emailing sarah.coley@bournemouth.gov.uk with your question on councillor pay BY 6PM TONIGHT.

Ask them why they want to reward failure with taxpayers’ money!

You can find travel directions here and a map to the Town Hall here.

Please turn up and make your voice heard.  But also if you can’t turn up, please continue to lobby Bournemouth’s councillors.  You can find the contact details of those we have not heard replies from here.

It’s times like these that we can challenge the mistaken belief that you can’t change anything in politics.  We’re close to achieving a breakthrough for direct taxpayer lobbying, normal people campaigning to stop politicians wasting our money.  You can make that change.  By just taking that small amount of time in your day to lobby Bournemouth Council, you could save the taxpayer money.  Not bad for 10 minutes work…

Comments

[ATFlynn]

I'm sorry I have not yet entered this discussion, but I have been lobbying South Norfolk District Council.
This year, SNDC, have kept the Council Tax at the same rate as last year. This is their first Budget since being Elected. I was allowed to speak and I congratulated the Council and said I expected a reduction in 2009. The meeting didn't end until after 11:00pm. and that is way past my bedtime. So today has been a bit of a waste. Although
I did manage to come up with an idea I mentioned to Martin Wilby, Deputy Leader of the Council. I have suggested that the council take on some commercial activities,
in the area of "agencies", or go-betweens to
secure one or two essential services for the TaxPayer, at a cost that requires the people of Norfolk to take up the offer. And the inducement to gain this advantage, would be the exclusion of any other supplier. The object is to get all Councils to cut Taxation and start looking at the Services market to find pro-active contracts so as to Earn Income and reduce the cost to the local population. I'm sure this used to be the case many years ago.
Enough for now, Regards, ATFlynn.