Last night’s Annual District Council Meeting was a good-natured affair. However it got off to a muted start, with the outgoing chairman, Tony Humphries, absent through illness.<\/p>\n
As expected Derek Stansby, the outgoing vice-chairman, was elected as this years chairman, with all-party support. His chosen charity for the year is the British Heart Foundation. Simon Smith was elected to be vice-chairman – the youngest person to hold that position for quite a while.<\/p>\n
Terry Cutmore remains Leader, and he has slightly reshuffled his cabinet. Michael Steptoe takes over the environment portfolio (including recycling). Colin Seagers takes over the finance and resources portfolio – a particularly good choice bearing in mind his financial background.<\/p>\n
Chris Black remains leader of the Lib Dem group, with Ron Oatham as deputy.<\/p>\n
The highlight of the evening was the election of the three Area Committee Chairs:<\/p>\n
Simon Smith was elected unopposed for West Area.
\nLucy Cox was elected as the chair of the Central Area Committee, beating Heather Glynn and Phil Capon in a threeway contest. None of them got a majority of the votes after the first ballot and Rayleigh Councillor Joan Mockford had to point out to the senior council officers that the rules required a second ballot…..
\nGill Lucas-Gill was elected for the East Area.<\/p>\n
On consequence of this is that Simon Smith, Lucy Cox and Gill Lucas-Gill are now on the local development framework sub-committee, which means it has two Rayleigh\/Rawreth members, two Rochford members, one Hockley member and one Hawkwell member.<\/p>\n
And finally – this was the last meeting for longserving council officer John Honey. We wish him well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night’s Annual District Council Meeting was a good-natured affair. However it got off to a muted start, with the outgoing chairman, Tony Humphries, absent through illness. As expected Derek Stansby, the outgoing vice-chairman, was elected as this years chairman, with all-party support. His chosen charity for the year is the British Heart Foundation. Simon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n