Every month each Councillor gets the chance to pose a single question which the Executive Member or Committee Chair responsible must answer. To this point each month I have had an obvious question to ask because of various issues that have arisen around the ward. The question could be about a specific issue which the council had so far not answered (e.g. parking on Bishey Barnabee Way) or about general strategic council wide issues (e.g. time spent to improve run down council housing stock).
I believe in avoiding nasty political point scoring (unlike some Labour and LibDem Councillors) and as this really is the "nuclear option" for finding out information I also think the question should be something you couldn't find out easily any other way.
So, with the deadline looming on Wednesday I'd like to know what you would like answered from the City Council. I can't guarantee I'll choose a question from this blog, but it would be good to ask something suggested by a blog reader.
You can, of course, ask your own question at council by e-mailing it to andy.emms@norwich.gov.uk - you'll even get a supplementary question too! You need to be a resident of Norwich to do so and you'll have to turn up at the Council Meeting on the last Tuesday of the month to ask it. It is however your way of getting an answer straight from the horse's mouth!
8 comments:
Does the council believe grafitto is both a symptom, measure and further encouragement of Anti Social Behaviour. Much of the city's street furniture is grafitti stewn! What is Norwich CC doing to get gang grafitti cleaned up on many of Norwich's green British Telecom exchange boxes?
Why is Council going up by 5% when inflation is half that?
This is a question I have asked again and again - does the council see any community use for lakes in Bowthorpe e.g. boating centre like Whitllingham?
I'd like to ask why the council and police won't take on the yobs who EVERYONE knows are taking the piss in our estate - We know an YOU know who they ARE.
What a great idea Antony - well done on it. I'd like to ask somebody why you can never get an answer on any of the council tax lines during the day. Why don't City Hall do what the banks do and hire more staff during the busy lunchtime periods?
Everybody knows about the recent problems with the City Care contract. What have the council actually done since then to make sure something like this never happens again?
Personally, I don’t think graffiti is much of an issue in the city. In fact, I was quite impressed with the graffiti-art walls near the flyover. I’m guessing that was council-organised......
Then again, I’m not a resident of the city, which is probably also why I’d have difficultly deciding on suitable questions. However, totally ignorant of the ‘avoid political point scoring’ and the ‘something you cannot find out any other way’ criterion, here are Pete’s top 10 suggestions, all very general, and some solely for comical value:
1. Will council tax always be a despicable pinnacle of inequality and a ruthless burden on society as the current non-proportional system presents?
2. Could the council collectively find just 10 people in a whole 5 minutes on Gentleman’s Walk who actually know what ‘unitary’ is, let alone have a view on it?
3. Will our local MPs ever get involved with local-level politics?
4. Does Keith Simpson ever campaign for something that isn’t road expansion?
5. Is there any hope for a bio-fuelled public transport system?
6. Will referendums ever be used effectively?
7. Why are the councils’ rags not nearly as frequent/dynamic/informative/interesting/reader-contributed as they should be?
8. Will the various council party members ever see that their pointless bickering appears to be far worse than its equivalent is at a national scale, and severely hampers efficiency and progress?
9. Shouldn’t the council make it their duty to ensure the public have easy access to a summary of its council’s changes/policies and budget, as well as current members, after a designated time period?
10. How is reducing the subsidies of post-16 transport an effective way to combat one of the lowest post-16 stay-on rates in the country? (you knew it was coming)
And to anonymous no.2 - since when did taxes have to change only in line with inflation?
(gets ready to be beaten with ‘We love Thatcher’ posters)
Peter.. I assure you Grafitti is a huge problem in the City where anything that resembles tasteful "art" grafitti is outstripped many fold by mindless stuff that offends and costs. Check it out locally some time. The talent and artistic gap is quite easy to spot. Such as gang tags everywhere like products of lamp post addicted dogs, or Aleisa 4 Jonny. Little seems to facilitate more, which in turns seems to excuse mass coverage, extending to private property.
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