Question - Why does Cllr. Cooke not have surgeries like other Councillors?
Chris Cooke replies - I thought about this when first elected. Costs of “surgeries” (makes us sound like doctors doesn’t it!?) and advertising in the local papers is free for all councillors. But I know that most Councillors’ surgeries rarely have anybody turn up to them - and many councillors use the line “...come along to my next surgery...” to “fob” people off who come to them with problems. If anybody comes to me then I like to deal with it straight away. So rather than waste public money on pointless surgeries I believe it is better that I am always available to people (the latest I’ve been called is one in the morning - no problem if it’s a real emergency!) . Chris
Question - Why don’t other Tamworth Councillors have their own web sites?
Chris Cooke replies - Tamworth Council has been talking about giving Tamworth Councillors their own web space on Tamworth Council’s servers for a couple of years or more now. However it hasn’t happened.
I felt it was important to provide my own web-site to keep people properly informed as to what is going on (at least from my perspective) on Tamworth Council. Even though this is my own web-site I must of course still abide by Council secrecy rules and cannot put anything on the site that breaches Councillors Codes of Conduct. If you feel there is anything here that may breach Council rules I would be grateful if you tell me. Tamworth say they will link this site from their site providing I make it plain Tamworth Council has no control over this site - however the site’s been running for over a month now and no sign of the Council putting up a link from my personal information on the Council’s web-site! Never mind - I can’t say I was really expecting it! :-) :-)
In any case I prefer to have my own web site. I don’t like to sign up to the rules, surveillance and censorship policies the Council exercises on its server. (See here as for an example of what can happen!!) So I neither have any council laptop nor am I allowed to see their intranet. They did provide a Council “dead” email box too - a black hole for my email communications to disappear into. Despite me asking for it to be closed it still seems like it is open. Why don’t they close it?
But at least my emails - and your communications to me - are secure on this web-site.
This web technology is all new to me, so the site’s fairly basic - sorry! It does a job! Anything you want to see, question, comment, or problems on site - let me know. Any helpful advice? Please! There’s got to be teething troubles - I’m a novice at this! Email or call me anytime. I’ll try to keep the site updated. I’ll also try to get a forum page, or a least a letters page. I hope you find it interesting.
Chris
