We had two brief full council meetings today. The first was to decide on which of the government modernistation schemes we wanted to adopt. It was a bit pointless as this is legislation that is a hangover from the last Labour government that will probably now never come into force. As a City Council we don't like either option but have a statutory duty to choose one of them at the moment. The Greens wasted a lot of time with a ridiculous amendment trying to wreck the whole thing. Thankfully it fell otherwise we would have risked being outside of current legal requirements on the council. I fully expect the Greens to produce another misleading leaflet that claims that Labour and the LibDems have voted against democracy. We'll see.The other council meeting (which legally had to be a separate meeting) decided on a couple of committee memberships following the Barton by-election and I'm pleased to see that our own Cllr Mark Mills is now a Lib Dem member of the appointments committee. We also talked about e-petitions and I got an amendment accepted by the leader of the council that just clarified a few things around e-petitons and collecting validated e-mail addresses rather than actual signatures. I was pleased to be able to make a constructive and accepted amendment, as a member of the opposition.
After those meetings we had the Lord Mayor's Christmas reception which is a great opportunity to invite people from local charities to meet local councillors and other dignitaries. Councillors all get to invite a friend too so I invited Pearl Lewis, the coordinator of Oxford Street Pastors and Martyn Chalk, a neighbour and local film director, founder of Chalkstar Films. Excellent networking opportunities were exploited to the full by all present. The event is always a joyous occasion and it's a great opportunity for the Lord Mayor to express his or her gratitude to all those who do so much for our City on a voluntary basis or as part of its many charities.
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