Sandy Cluness

[number 7]

up helly aa's nae that far away ! hmmmm

[Para Handy]

burn him at the stake ! course he should resign along with the rest of his cronies!, wickermans the best thing for him!

 

He goes to the Up Helly Aa kill two birds with one stone

[whittleseyite]

Macbeth 3.4 141/142

for Lennox read Cluness

[KTL]

Cluness would be quite happy to push through cuts if he thought he could get away with it. An example?

The convener, along with most other councillors, voted to go forward with plans to close Scalloway Junior high. The educational justification for this was very weak. Instead a financial argument was wheeled out.

The highest single school cost is salaries, about £880,000 a year at SJH. The council says it can make savings of £1.2m, but if there are no redundancies at Scalloway Junior High, there are no real savings at all since most other costs remain.

[SouthernView]

The man should have gone long ago, he's been taking advantage of his position for years.

The council cant improve with people like him involved.

[oddtablet]

The man should have gone long ago, he's been taking advantage of his position for years.

The council cant improve with people like him involved.

well said

[Ghostrider]

Aye, but who's going to shift him, even Greenflee pittin a bomb under him barely shook the dust and cobwebs.

 

Until he's forcibly dethroned by the rest of the council, they're all going to be sadly clueless about making any progress with anything else.

 

While the war is being fought, the lackeys are sent out to be shot at. When the war is lost, the generals are lined up and shot. We're still waiting for the second bit to happen.

[keetiebairdie]

^^ JustMe probably shares the same opinion with others, in saying that 'the convener could not have done all the bad things he is meant to have done without at the very least a majority of the council going along with it', however is it not true that on the vote to build Mareel councillors' numbers both for and against the project were equal and it is the convener's casting vote which decided the issue.

 

Good for those who are for Mareel, 'just one more mistake' for those who opposed the scheme.

 

What he could and should have done was to abstain and have another vote at another time when more councillors could be present.

 

Who can forget the Smyrill line saga, whereby Mr Cluness received payment for his services - 'consultation fees' ? with no apparent guarantees or safeguards for Shetland's £4.7mil investment, which was totally lost.

 

Anyone think of any more mistakes?

[Gorgonzola Butt-cheese]

Having been very critical of Sandy Cluness's performance in the past, I now feel that as he has made it this far he should see his time out as convener.

 

I only hope he will achieve something truly inspirational in his last year of service to the community that lifts his name out of the quagmire of eternity.

 

Go for it Convener!

 

Please make all Shetland proud again!

[Ghostrider]

^^ Its what he's not done that's the biggest problem as I see it.

 

He is the leader, and IMHO the leader's job is a whole lot more than smiling prettily while wearing a gold chain for photo ops, and scrawling a siggy at the foot of documents and letters.

 

A leader needs to be a source of ideas and inspiration, and inspire the same in others, they need to be a negotiator, a peacemaker, a mediator, they need to be decisive, be fully in control, and be seen to be fully in control. They need to be able more often than not, to second guess where the majority of people they lead are on any given subject at any given time, and be able to "read" reactions in such people likewise. They need to be able to pull all the variable opinions and reactions of those same people together in to some sort of middle ground compromise, that at least the majority of them can feel happy enough with to give their backing to by way of a vote.

 

They need to one way or another take the organisation they lead forward at a an acceptable and steady pace, even if that means certain minority factions within it are kicking and screaming while bouncing off the walls of their padded cells in the process. As a figurehead leader SC has been an okay, it would be kinda difficult to goof that one up, but as a practical leader, I've been aware of next to nothing he's actually done to demonstrate leadership.

 

The council has been wallowing dead in the water for the last 10 years, on the occasions it did take one step forward, it took one step back shortly afterwards, and on the rare occasions it managed to take two forward it invariably immediately also took one backwards. That can only last so long before everything starts to come apart at the seams, which is well on its way to happening.

 

SC is far too laid back, relaxed and all too often AWOL when the brown stuff gets in the air conditioning, to do things any different. What the council needs is a leader with some fire in them that has a sense of urgency about getting things organised properly, and getting them done, both as quickly as possible. And who steps up to the plate immediately to put out the fires when things go wrong, being "unavailable" simply isn't acceptable for a leader to be in times of crisis, unless in exceptional circumstances such as health reasons. In which case the deputy leader should then immediately take over and do it. Keeping heads below the parapet, and keeping schtum maybe worked 40 years ago when the only media was the "Times", but it doesn't work now with modern communications, if anything it exacerbates the issue and makes it grow several heads.

[Shoogler]

Again - who is the candidate from within the present crop who could do the job now and in the future?

[Ghostrider]

^^ There is none IMHO. Those that are known to have talents that could make them suitable are apparently unwilling or uninterested, as they're making no outward attempt to gauge and garner support.

 

As far as I'm concerned this council no longer has a mandate to govern, the events and the sundry enquiries, and subsequent reports that have followed them IMHO constructively, if not outrightly say so. The only reason they're still there is that short of taking tips from Guy Fawkes, there seems to be little way the public can shift them.

 

After where they'd taken things, and the way they'd been condemned by their superiors for it, ideally every one of them should have resigned and stood for re-election in a by-election. At the very least, the chiefs should have offered their resignations.

 

Some might say its admirable that they're all trying to fix what they broke, and I'll concede they have a point. But the bottom line as I see it is that I have no faith that the same crew and Skipper who drove their ship high and dry on the beach, and squabbled among themselves while she drove further and further ashore. Instead of trying to salvage and re-float her, until they were ordered by higher power to get their act together and get on with the voyage PDQ, can be trusted not to run ashore again, never mind get on course, keep on course and at a reasonable speed.