Paul Harley wrote:
On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:56:00, Tom Barry
wrote:
The issue of replacing Cooke was raised - the Tories didn't want the
Deputy taking over (she's a Labour councillor!) so there's going to be
an open invitation to current members to put themselves forward as an
interim until September, when a new one would be appointed anyway.

The Transport Committee did have the option of giving Brian Cooke
three months notice of termination of contract, which would have
carried TravelWatch over (almost) until the new appointee took up
his/her post, but they chose the most severe action open to them.

Interestingly, London TravelWatch have issued a manifesto for the new
Mayoral term 2008-2012, which can be seen he

http://www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/document/3159/get

Paul Harley

Watching it on the live feed, the decision was made by taking a vote on
the severest action first, and continuing down the scale until a
majority decision was reached. As it happened, on the first vote the
Chair, the other two Labour members and the Lib Dem put their hand up
for instant dismissal, the three Tories voted against and the Green
(Jenny Jones) abstained, so that was that. I think Jones would have
preferred a lesser punishment, from her comments, which ironically would
have meant it was her choice as the swing vote if the fourth Tory had
attended. The Tories had a hard time accepting that he'd done anything
wrong at all (a 'technical breach') was about the hardest line they took.

Tom