BAD BEHAVIOUR in council meetings should not be tolerated and the mayor took the right actions when a councillor swore in the chamber last week.
That’s the view of council leader, Cllr Clive Jones.
Towards the end of a fractious full council meeting on Thursday, November 18, which included a debate on plans to raise parking charges and numerous challenges by opposition councillors, there was a cry of ‘bollocks’ from the opposition benches.
The mayor, Cllr Caroline Smith, was chairing the meeting and reprimanded the guilty party, reminding them bad language “is not suitable in any meeting room, particularly no so here”.
She also had to remind councillors not to chat while someone was giving a speech.
“Can all members respect the person who is speaking by listening and not chatting and making comments,” she said.
After the meeting, Cllr Jones said: “Bad language is just not appropriate in any council meeting, and the mayor was quite right to hold the Conservative member to account.
“The Conservatives said in July they would disrupt council meetings and that’s exactly what they try to do every time there is a council meeting, with childish taunts, comments and interruptions. It is very disappointing.”
He said that while he didn’t think his party’s members would behave in a similar way, if they ever did, he wouldn’t hesitate to take action.
“We would reprimand them, and remind them they are there to represent the public, and the majority of them do not accept that type of bad behaviour.”
In June, we revealed the Conservatives had received a briefing on how to cause mischief in council meetings. The PowerPoint presentation was titled Disruption And Getting Our Own Way and detailed strategies to adopt such as challenging the mayor, raising points of order and trying to take credit for opposition policies they agreed with.
Wokingham Conservatives leader Cllr Pauline Jorgensen said she would be reminding her members about the mayor’s comments on using respect language and listening respectfully to speakers.
“It is something all councillors of every party should do,” she said.
“(At the same meeting) we also had a Labour member try and drown out Cllr Rebecca Margetts before she even started presenting a residents petition.
“The residents in the gallery were not amused with that at all.”
