When I originally decided to become a Town Councillor, I did it with the knowledge that it would mean some meetings, helping residents where I can and doing what I can to help improve the town. What I wasn’t prepared for was dealing with the petty complaints, the pathetic moans, and especially not the vitriolic abuse, and personal attacks, which I have been subject too. Oh, and far too many meetings as well!
I have given my time freely, as a volunteer, to be a Town Councillor for this town. I don’t get paid, and I never expected to be paid anything. I did however expect to be treated with some respect. I also expected residents to take some responsibility to try and help themselves and have a basic understanding of which council is responsible for which services. How stupidly naive I was.
But now I have had enough! The minority has won, and the abuse has been extreemly tiring, and it has taken quite a toll, so I am resigning as a Town Councillor with immediate effect. This is all thanks to an increasing number of pathetic, small minded, ignorant people, who think the world owes them a living, and think just because I am a councillor, I must help them, and do everything for them and if not, they moan, gripe, swear at you, then accuse you of taking back handers, bribes, or being responsible for the death of their cats! Oh, but I am not allowed to respond, lose my temper or criticise them in any way.
I have helped several residents with queries, especially around issues dealing with poor repairs by housing associations, and they have been very grateful, I have been willing to do this because these people have tried help themselves, but have reached a dead end, so needed the very small, extra sway, the title of Councillor has.
It was me, that without any prompting from anyone else, successfully applied for a banking hub for this town, which will be opening on the 6th of December, but despite this, the most resonating comment I got was not a thank you for trying to improve banking after we were abandoned by the last bank in town (Lloyds), but rather “Why can’t we have a real bank in the town?“
I have had another person, a former Councillor who themselves was harassed out of the council, threaten me by saying she had taken a copy of Facebook post where I lost my cool with a resident from another town who was trying to tell us, Calne Town Council, that we should not let Our kids use Our skate park in Our town. I had initially been a touch offensive in my response as I was very annoyed at the time, but quickly decided to edit it out, within a couple of minutes as it happens. Aparently as a councillor I am not allowed to express my anger or frustration with idiots, who hide behind their keyboards.
The final straw was when the other week I had to get the police involved and had to report an individual, for making a very public, very personal, deliberately aimed, homophobic attack against me, as a Calne Town Councillor, and then expanded this abuse to include all councillors and employees of Calne Town Council and Wiltshire Council. This was in relation to when this individual’s cat had very sadly been run over, when their road was being used as a rat run, whilst another road had been closed by Wiltshire Council. I had objected to Wiltshire Council at the time about them keeping the road closed in the evening and night when work wasn’t going on as it could have easily been opened, and told the individual this at the time, but apparently that just makes me just as responsible as the person driving the car!
At the time, I did feel quite threatened, hence my decision to get the police involved. I cannot fault the police response, and the individual has admitted to the offence (Aggravated Public Order), and they are now subject to a Community Protection Warning, local resolution and engagement, to address their behaviour, only time will tell if that works! It’s a shame the venues response, where the incident happened, was to not enforce their zero-tolerance rule and not ban this person, but I guess being friends with the management must have some benefits.
I have to say that Calne Town Council must also bear some responsibility to my resignation as well. There are far too many meetings and working groups, all which require preparation. I did count that in my role within the council, I would be expected to attend over 55 meetings in a year, this is on top of the full-time job I do, like many other councillors. Being a councillor feels, like a second full time job, but without the benefits of being paid, it’s been frequently frustrating and on the very rare, odd occasion very rewarding. But its now time to leave and concentrate on my own life. No doubt this blog entry will give the trolls on the various calne facebook pages a good laugh, and the opportunity to hurl more abuse.