Manipulate the properties of sand. Catching sand fleas is not such a hard job. This is in contrast to the corporate world view adopted by his Plaid colleague and leader of the council Emlyn Dole who, bathed in the warm embrace, or, perhaps, clutches, of Meryl and Mark, has convinced himself, but no one else, that everything is now fine. In May, Plaid will be hoping, clearly, to break the grip of Pam's Independents and their cosy relationship with the chief executive, defeat Labour, and assume full control In my view the current Plaid leadership is not helping matters, quite the opposite in fact. He has also campaigned for some level of control over chief officer pay and was openly critical over the dodgy payment to the Scarlets and the proposed half a million golden handshake to Mr James. To the observer the Plaid politicians outside the council have been a little more forthright in their views over the years than their councillor colleagues; joining the toxic culture in County Hall rather than defeating it was a bad error of judgement. So, perhaps it's not surprising that the portfolio has been quietly dropped along with modernising Carmarthenshire Council generally.
After the executive board hinted at the possibility around six months ago, it seems that finally Carmarthenshire Council's Planning Committee will be webcast from the 6th November onwards. The full meeting, all five hours of it, can be watched at your leisure on the archived webcast. However, you can only place your conscious attention on one task at a time. True to form, a few cuts have already been dropped, as I've mentioned earlier, and money mysteriously injected into the School budget which was one of the biggest vote losers. Verified customers rate TicketSmarter 4.6/5.0 stars, so you can order with confidence knowing that we stand behind you throughout your School of Rock West Seattle - AC/DC Tribute ticket buying experience. Change of scenery produced GUIDES to the west and Southern areas of latest! Areas for growth included developing teachers' knowledge on the ELPS, need for school administrators' instructional leadership; their advocacy for ELPS and TELPAS; need for differentiated instruction; the need for more objective rating with TELPAS; the logistics and format of the new TELPAS online testing; and teachers' fear and stress with TELPAS. Labour decided to put in an amendment to include all areas of Carmarthenshire, rural and urban.
The Labour amendment, which may have proved more fruitful if each proposal had been voted on individually, was lost and the Plaid/Independent budget carried. There was a lengthy debate on the budget but essentially it became a straight split with both sides focusing on the election in eight weeks time. The main event for full council was of course the budget but prior to that were a few Notices of Motion to get through. Grains that are too large wont get pushed out of the filter, but they are also less effective at properly filtering small particles. First up was Cllr Sian Caiach who had managed to get a Motion relating to the sewage problems in Llanelli past the chief executive. Over the past decade, school administrators and teachers from around the nation have expressed a renewed interest in social and emotional learning (SEL). Who knows? I expect only the schools themselves will discover the truth over the next year or two. The council is in debt to the tune of 376m, (even more than me), and that costs 17.6m a year in interest, 100 per man woman and child in the county, per year. Conflicts of interest, governance and HR issues can all become problematic.
Next up was a motion from Plaid's Peter Hughes Griffiths to set up a group of councillors to look specifically at rural issues. Cllr Alun Lenny (Pl) put forward a motion to celebrate the 300th birthday of William Williams Pantycelyn, the Llandovery hymnwriter. Labour's Derek Cundy put forward amendments to add further cash to the school budgets, save crossing patrols, stop cuts to care packages, stop the increase in school dinners etc, all of which meant a rise of 4.5% on Council Tax. The first, put forward by Cllr Sharen Davies (Lab) was for all councillors to undergo DRB background checks. He (Mr Thomas, not Mr James, obviously) has consistently supported calls for inquiries into the planning department, most notably in regards to the Breckman case; he has called for the council to be put in special measures over the democratic deficit; called for Mr James to resign over the unlawful payments scandal called for his formal suspension as returning officer and along with Jonathan Edwards MP called for the police to investigate. Meryl Gravell reminded everyone about all those rural grants she'd signed off, reminiscing I presume over all those hot-tubs and sets of patio furniture.
