A Special Council Meeting has been called for the 25th of August at 6pm. The reason for the meeting, and we do not know who called for it, is to confirm the edict issued by the Mayor, under his Strong Mayor’s Powers (SMP).

Here at the BurdReport we wonder why this was not done before the edict was issued  but we are happy to see this event take place.

This will not be just a usual Council Meeting – where the agenda is read and business is moved – hopefully real questions will be raised and answers given. But as usual the really interesting item in the discussions will take place in secret. The reason being is that the identity of Mr Challenger and qualifications, or lack of them cannot be discussed in public.

As the headline posits the question here is very simple – just how much criticism and how defensive will the Mayor be about being questioned on an edict issued under his SMPs? We suspect he will temper himself as he has brought the big guns into the meeting – John Mascarin; the Town’s lawyer, (read his Bio here). He would not want to look petty and small by walking out of a meeting with this guy present – you can bet his high-priced advice would be “Stay there and take it”

The questions for the people who asked for this meeting will have to be focused and pointed – not getting into the weeds and losing the momentum. Two questions come to mind”

• Why did the Mayor issue the edict, bypassing Council only to call on Council to confirm his decision instead of involving Council in the decision first?
• Why hire Mr Challenger immediately, instead of going the usual way of posting the job?

The first question reveals a much deeper problem – the lack of respect for each other in this Council team. The lack of respect shown by the Mayor to his team and the lack of respect by the team towards the Mayor. With only one year before the next election this problem cannot be solved easily. But with no identifiable Mayoral candidate emerging any time soon the Mayor should be able to make things easier for himself if he really wants to!

The final words are simple – thanks to the intrepid member of Council who wanted to place this item on the agenda of the next meeting and congratulations to the Mayor for realising he had to get out in front of this issue and bring it, belatedly, to Council.