Heated attack on community councillor
Leonard Gray berated by Mary McNeill
A VERY heated - and very public - attack on a prominent Lanarkian was made on Monday night by one of the town's councillors.
At the monthly meeting of the Royal Burgh of Lanark Community Council its vice-chairman, Ex-Lord Cornet Leonard Gray, was berated by South Lanarkshire Council member for Lanark North Mary McNeill over a letter he sent to the Gazette, published in our edition of March 15.
A clearly outraged Councillor McNeill accused Mr Gray of questioning her ''integrity'' in the letter which questioned her grounds for refusing to take part in - or even listen to - debates on local planning issues at community council meetings.
Community council members appeared taken aback as Councillor McNeill demanded of Mr Gray: ''How dare you? How dare you question my integrity? Community council members have no right to respond as individuals. You have no right to have an individual point of view,'' adding that she was going to have South Lanarkshire Council's legal department write to him on the matter.
Mr Gray defended his action, stating that his letter was in response to a story in the Gazette about Councillor McNeill's claim at an earlier Community Council meeting - from which he was absent - that she and her SLC fellow Lanark councillor Brian Reilly were legally barred from taking part in public debates which might prejudice their votes at subsequent planning committee meetings.
He questioned if this was an accurate interpretation of the rules covering the conduct of SLC councillors, claiming that Councillor McNeill was citing a Code of Conduct that didn't actually have any legal standing. He quoted further Scottish Executive advice that elected councillors should use community councils in their areas to gauge local feelings on issues.
Councillor McNeill stated: ''You think you are here to to scrutinize the local (SLC) members. Well, I have got news for you. We are here to scrutinize you.''
Community council secretary William Stewart commented that he suspected that ''tempers are getting high'' as the May 3 SLC elections approached but Councillor McNeill's colleague, Councillor Brian Reilly, claimed that the timing was immaterial; if the issue had come up a year ago, Councillor McNeill's response would have been exactly the same.
He added: ''It doesn't need to be dealt with in public. He (Mr Gray) could have taken it through the appropriate channels and not written to the press.''
Councillor McNeill warned Mr Gray that he could have been breaching the code of conduct for community council members by writing to the Gazette. Mr Gray pointed out that the letter was signed by him with only his name and home address; no mention of his position on the community council was made.
Councillor McNeill retorted that Mr Gray's position on the community council was well known in Lanark; rightly or wrongly, the general public in the town would have taken him to have been commenting as the vice-chairman of the community council.
She distributed to the meeting a copy of a letter she has submitted to the Gazette, re-stating her position. This appears on Page 6 of this week's edition.
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Weather for Carluke
Thursday 24 May 2012
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