As we all know by now that ever perfect target of easy jokes and current "leader" of Thanet District Council aka Cllr Sandy Ezekiel shows no sign of being got rid of by his party.

One has to ask why?

All cynicism aside for a moment what motivation do the conservative district councillors have for retaining him? What merits does the man have that cause his peers to want him of all people?

Does he throw a particularly good party?

I honestly want to know.

While we are on this topic do you guys (the readers and passers by) think that the conservatives are doing themselves a disservice or is the average party political voter for the right in Thanet the sort of person that loves the sort of person that Sandy is? Your opinions on a post card, as they say.

It is my opinion that the KCC and TDC actions in the last few years are drectly responsible for an increase in the amount of fly tipping in the area.

Picture, if you will, a basic steam engine. On this engine there is the steam chamber from which the drive is powered under pressure. If you decrease the size of the opening that the steam has to pass through to power the drive less steam can pass through at any given time but there is still the same amount trying to do so. The result is more pressure.

If the pressure in the steam chamber becomes to great it starts to break and might even explode. If we a re luck steam forces it's way out of the system where-ever it can.

That steam chamber is the community and the steam is the rubbish that must be collected.

Now I am not suggesting that the council is responsible for the actions of criminals. Their actions are their own and they should be caught and suitably dealt with. However the cost of catching fly tippers is not going to be cheap. Yet it is our local government that have created the problem while seeking to "save the environment" and cut costs.

Furthermore the councils have been fining people that "over fill" their bins. This has created a situation where the system has "too much steam" and must vent it.

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» Continue Reading: Fly tipping - a product of failure

Times being what they are and all getting stuff for free has never seemed so attractive. That is possibly why MyOffers have such an impressive range of free stuff on, well, offer.

Thanet Star has partnered up with MyOffers to bring you news that you could win £1000 to spend in Boots, £2,000 in New Look vouchers or even a Win a Peugeot 207 CC

In the shopping department (which is where the current crunch hits hardest) there is on offer a chance to win a £1,000 spree shopping at Lidl, (or at Aldi), a £3000 shopping spree in Tesco and another £3000 to spend in Primark

You could also win a Nintendo Wii & Wii Fit (that one has closed but you could enter the for another Wii or DS)!

Just like win for now (with whom you also might win cars and cash and things) or iPointsit is free to sign up to the site and free to enter the competitions.

Some of the competitions are now closed but others exist. Check them out - there is something for everyone.

Therefore you have nothing to lose and plenty to gain to join me in grabbing a membership of these sites.

Find Out More

In honour of the latest report into Thanet Council's "leader" Sandy Ezekiel I think it is time to offer those of you with a funny bone a chance to do your best (or worst).

Sandy Ezekiel was found guilty of bringing his office into disrepute by a report recently published.

In section number 6 (pages 30 to 31) under the title "Conclusion and Recommendation" the report concludes that in joining the traders' meeting once he was aware of Cllr Johnston's involvement, and in failing to withdrawn (sic) once the altercation became heated, Cllr Ezekiel deliberately set out upon a course of action which he should have known would lead to a very public and very fractious confrontation between Council members which, whilst not the most serious of cases, would inevitably reflect badly upon the Council, and in doing so he therefore acted in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing his office or the Thanet District Council into disrepute. it continues to note that During that confrontation he made statements to the effect that Cllr Johnstone was speaking a "lie" and thus failed to treat her with respect.

The conclusions carries on to say that Cllr Ezekiel was not found to have bullied Cllr Johnston.

There are some questions to be asked however. As first publicly noted by Thanet Strife, (as far as I know) one witness was clearly missing - the shop keeper.

Why was she not interviewed or why was her refusal to be interviewed not noted?

Did Ezekiel "get to her" first?

Was she just "over looked?"

Keep reading for more findings from the report.

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» Continue Reading: Cllr Sandy Ezekiel - Guilty!

Despite my cross polar political leanings. The fairly right wing financial bent and the heavily left wing social one I also have a secret.

I secretly have some sympathy for the greens too. I am sure you are all deeply shocked to discover that I've got such liberal leanings but that's just the way I roll. (Honest).

But seriously I have a long held ambition to live an altogether simpler life close to nature. When I say ambition I am talking of a willingness to sell everything I own to follow it so more of an utter obsession.

I would like to see (one day) an Eco-Village established on specific Permaculture grounds and somewhere here in Kent. If you'd like to join me in attempting the seemingly impossible drop me a line in the usual way.

This election it looks like we could expect to see the battle fought right here on Thanet blogs. Which rather puts Roger Gale at a disadvantage given that despite encouragement from me he still refuses to touch the likes of twitter or blogging.

(Not so the green's)

In a recent letter to me he stated that he "appreciated my enthusiasm" for the media but a web site and email had served him well enough up until now and that's what people still want.

Were I running for MP I would not want to leave my opponents free run of any platforms or media. The latest President of the USA used twitter to great effect but apparently some MPs feel they are too good for the platform or something. I will watch the emerging contest with interest.

Email + Website vs Everything available.

To successfully create a profitable and local online presence one needs to have some understanding of "local search" what it is and how you can take advantage of it.

A problem for small business owners is the irrelevance of much of the traffic that their website gets. A lot of such sites get more global visitors than the local and so the Return on Investment (ROI) seemed to remain low. The conversion rate had been too poor and so any sales were few and far between.

It does not have to be this way.

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» Continue Reading: Profiting from Websites in Thanet

Seeing that Thanet is finally coming to terms with more than just the basics of new media I felt it was about time to create a directory of sorts. This one is not a blog list but a micro-blog list. A list of Thanet users of Twitter.

For each user you can get a look at the last three things they said (if indeed they have said anything).

You can also see the last mentions of Thanet in all of twitter. Depending on the news and time of day one or two accounts tend to dominate that listing but that is likely to change.

Thanet Twitter List

On 28 September 2008 T Thomas used whatdotheyknow.com to file a request to Thanet District Council asking how many Freedom of Information Requests it had received and how many were answered on time.

Prior to that A Johnson filed a Freedom of Information Request on 25 August 2008 via whatdotheyknow.com asking about findings of maladministration the local government ombudsman within the prior ten years.

On the 8 October 2008 Rose Donnelly of the Executive Support Unit acknowledged the repeated badgering of the whatdotheyknow.com system in follow up tot he unanswered A Johnson request and enquired about any earlier requests. The A Johnson request was finally answered on 15 October 2008 - (making it late in anyone's books).

For those that wonder - the reply (from Vicki Williams the Business Manager within the Chief Executive & Leader's Office at Thanet District Council) indicated that there have been six cases of maladministration between 2004 and 2007 inclusive.

Yet on 20 October 2008 Donna Reed the Head of Customer Services at Thanet District Council replied to the T Thomas inquiry saying Attached is the request received within the Council, all were on time. (link)

Just twelve days later Thanet District Council denied ever being later with a Freedom of Information Request. As of 8:22pm Sunday 1st March 2009 I counted 3 enquireies marked as Response Overdue out of a total of 9 requests through whatdotheyknow.com.

So Thanet District Council lied (deliberately misled the public) or were incompetent in tracking even basic information and so misled the public as if they had lied. The result is that a freedom of Information request was answered authoritatively with incorrect information.