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Minutes are being altered [editor's title] I write to express my dismay, and that of others, at the way in which the minutes of the Kingsbury & Kenton Area consultative forum are being doctored when things have been said deemed unfriendly to the powers-that-be. The latest series of incidents concerns the refusal of the Chair to accurately minute the admission of the civic centre project director (Anna Woda) in November 2008 that Brent Council had not consulted residents on the need for a new civic centre and (in her view) did not need to. Whilst this admission may be politically inconvenient to the Council, or they may wish to contest its validity (they'd be right that the Council does need to consult but wrong that they had), the fact remains that what was said cannot simply be erased from the record (as what somebody, with the benefit of hindsight, might wish had been said). Yet that is precisely the state of affairs that the Chair, Cllr Kanta Mistry, has presided over on no less than three successive meetings since - in January, April and now July this year. In April, I asked for specific wording to be agreed by the meeting as accurate and this was adopted unanimously. You can imagine our disbelief when the minutes circulated at the 22 July meeting showed textual alterations to what was agreed. At the July meeting, the Chair put it that because a complaint was being pursued by the consultation department on behalf of another resident, that somehow accuracy could not be established at that meeting. What a contrived means of having this key part of the agenda hijacked! As one resident cried out, “unconstitutional!” However, the truth will prevail. The discrepancy between the handwritten transcript of the minute taker of what was unanimously agreed in April can readily be cross-checked against the manipulated version of what has been put in the public domain. We need answers to who deleted eight words and substituted their preferred 28 in a clear attempt to falsify the record. The Chair has presided over this sorry state of affairs and we shall be watching closely to ensure that the minutes of the last meeting do not get recorded as formally agreed when they have not been. Shahrar Ali, Resident of Leith Close, Kingsbury Countersigned by Residents from the meeting: Ian Lee and Michael Freestone |
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