Mayor urges councillors to “moderate behaviour” in the chamber
October’s monthly meeting was one of the most heated in recent memory, with opposing councillors going toe-to-toe on several issues with tempers, at time, boiling over.
At one point, the Mayor, Cllr Phil Owen, told them to “calm down, calm down”, but last night he slanted a criticism at MyWelshpool’s report of the night by saying: “Really? Was I at a different meeting”.
Cllr Owen then went on to say that our coverage of the verbal spats and walk-outs overshadowed some of the good work being done by the local authority.
“What distressed me about this month was the reporting,” said Cllr Owen. “It focussed mainly on the spats and disagreements in the council chamber and deflected from all the good work that we have done.
“I think I remember reading things like ‘meltdown’; that it was the worst or the most disruptive in living memory. Really? I don’t know, was I at a different meeting? Yes, we had some spats but that is part of the rough and tumble I think of the democratic process. The work that we actually did was overlooked because of it.”
Cllr Owen then backtracked to say he was "not blaming the ladies and gentlemen of the press” adding that “they (press) will report what they think people will want to read”.
But he concluded his address, which started last night’s full Town Council meeting, that: “It’s a lesson to us that I think if we want to not have that sort of negative, harmful publicity, we just need to moderate our behaviour a bit in the chamber.”
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