As we all know by now that ever perfect target of easy jokes and current "leader" of Thanet District Council aka Cllr Sandy Ezekiel shows no sign of being got rid of by his party.

One has to ask why?

All cynicism aside for a moment what motivation do the conservative district councillors have for retaining him? What merits does the man have that cause his peers to want him of all people?

Does he throw a particularly good party?

I honestly want to know.

While we are on this topic do you guys (the readers and passers by) think that the conservatives are doing themselves a disservice or is the average party political voter for the right in Thanet the sort of person that loves the sort of person that Sandy is? Your opinions on a post card, as they say.

In honour of the latest report into Thanet Council's "leader" Sandy Ezekiel I think it is time to offer those of you with a funny bone a chance to do your best (or worst).

Sandy Ezekiel was found guilty of bringing his office into disrepute by a report recently published.

In section number 6 (pages 30 to 31) under the title "Conclusion and Recommendation" the report concludes that in joining the traders' meeting once he was aware of Cllr Johnston's involvement, and in failing to withdrawn (sic) once the altercation became heated, Cllr Ezekiel deliberately set out upon a course of action which he should have known would lead to a very public and very fractious confrontation between Council members which, whilst not the most serious of cases, would inevitably reflect badly upon the Council, and in doing so he therefore acted in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing his office or the Thanet District Council into disrepute. it continues to note that During that confrontation he made statements to the effect that Cllr Johnstone was speaking a "lie" and thus failed to treat her with respect.

The conclusions carries on to say that Cllr Ezekiel was not found to have bullied Cllr Johnston.

There are some questions to be asked however. As first publicly noted by Thanet Strife, (as far as I know) one witness was clearly missing - the shop keeper.

Why was she not interviewed or why was her refusal to be interviewed not noted?

Did Ezekiel "get to her" first?

Was she just "over looked?"

Keep reading for more findings from the report.

...

» Continue Reading: Cllr Sandy Ezekiel - Guilty!

This election it looks like we could expect to see the battle fought right here on Thanet blogs. Which rather puts Roger Gale at a disadvantage given that despite encouragement from me he still refuses to touch the likes of twitter or blogging.

(Not so the green's)

In a recent letter to me he stated that he "appreciated my enthusiasm" for the media but a web site and email had served him well enough up until now and that's what people still want.

Were I running for MP I would not want to leave my opponents free run of any platforms or media. The latest President of the USA used twitter to great effect but apparently some MPs feel they are too good for the platform or something. I will watch the emerging contest with interest.

Email + Website vs Everything available.

Seeing that Thanet is finally coming to terms with more than just the basics of new media I felt it was about time to create a directory of sorts. This one is not a blog list but a micro-blog list. A list of Thanet users of Twitter.

For each user you can get a look at the last three things they said (if indeed they have said anything).

You can also see the last mentions of Thanet in all of twitter. Depending on the news and time of day one or two accounts tend to dominate that listing but that is likely to change.

Thanet Twitter List

On 28 September 2008 T Thomas used whatdotheyknow.com to file a request to Thanet District Council asking how many Freedom of Information Requests it had received and how many were answered on time.

Prior to that A Johnson filed a Freedom of Information Request on 25 August 2008 via whatdotheyknow.com asking about findings of maladministration the local government ombudsman within the prior ten years.

On the 8 October 2008 Rose Donnelly of the Executive Support Unit acknowledged the repeated badgering of the whatdotheyknow.com system in follow up tot he unanswered A Johnson request and enquired about any earlier requests. The A Johnson request was finally answered on 15 October 2008 - (making it late in anyone's books).

For those that wonder - the reply (from Vicki Williams the Business Manager within the Chief Executive & Leader's Office at Thanet District Council) indicated that there have been six cases of maladministration between 2004 and 2007 inclusive.

Yet on 20 October 2008 Donna Reed the Head of Customer Services at Thanet District Council replied to the T Thomas inquiry saying Attached is the request received within the Council, all were on time. (link)

Just twelve days later Thanet District Council denied ever being later with a Freedom of Information Request. As of 8:22pm Sunday 1st March 2009 I counted 3 enquireies marked as Response Overdue out of a total of 9 requests through whatdotheyknow.com.

So Thanet District Council lied (deliberately misled the public) or were incompetent in tracking even basic information and so misled the public as if they had lied. The result is that a freedom of Information request was answered authoritatively with incorrect information.