Ashfield Reform UK walk out of meeting in protest of new Council Leader
The dust is still settling in Ashfield in the wake of Councillor Jason Zadrozny's fraud conviction.
This came after he defrauded Nottinghamshire County Council out of thousands of pounds of public money.
He did this by setting up fake community organisations such as the Ashfield Heritage Society and then got public money granted to these organisations through the Councillors' Divisional Fund.
Zadrozny then withdrew the cash from these organisations' bank accounts, of which he was the sole controller, and pocketed it for himself.
He has since resigned as Leader of the Council but is still a sitting councillor claiming allowances from the taxpayer and influencing the council's decision-making.
However, his former party, the Ashfield Independents, have now elected a new leader to replace him.
This week, the council had the opportunity to turn over a new leaf by electing a new leader untainted by the recent fraud conviction of Councillor Zadrozny - and to make a statement that they condemned the actions that led to his conviction.
Instead, they elected Councillor Samantha Deakin, one of Councillor Zadrozny's former deputies who was arrested in connection to Zadrozny’s fraud investigation.
This new Leader of the Council is also one of the councillors who got public money granted to one of the fake organisations set up by Zadrozny which was used to steal taxpayers' cash.
That's right, £2,500 worth of the public money that was stolen was actually granted by Councillor Samantha Deakin, the new Leader of Ashfield District Council.
Ashfield residents had already had enough of councillors on Ashfield District Council who have a complicated relationship with the law.
The election of Councillor Samantha Deakin is a kick in the teeth to those people.
Meanwhile, at the full council meeting where Councillor Deakin was elected as the new leader, the Chair of the Council allowed no debate whatsoever.
Councillor Deakin was allowed a short speech of a few minutes, and nobody else was allowed to speak out against what was happening.
The Reform UK group walked out of the meeting in protest. This was the only way we could show our disdain for what was happening.
On another note, last week our MP Lee Anderson wrote to the Secretary of State for Local Government urging the Government to intervene at Ashfield District Council following Zadrozny's conviction.
We are pleased that the Government has now confirmed that it will be monitoring Ashfield District Council going forwards.
Given the nature of the conviction of the authority's former leader, and the fact that he was ultimately responsible for millions of pounds of taxpayers' money for 8 years, it is now a matter of urgency to give transparency to Ashfield residents about the way their hard-earned money is being spent by the council.
We fear that there may be more financial scandals to be uncovered at the authority.
If Reform UK takes control of the council next May, rest assured that every department at Ashfield District Council will be forensically inspected.
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