Apology follows 'stupid' rebuke (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Apology follows 'stupid' rebuke

12:40pm Saturday 4th July 2009

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AN ANGRY email slamming council staff as “blind and stupid” led to a district councillor issuing an apology.

Councillor Stephen Gorys, who represents the Odiham ward on Hart District Council, delivered his outspoken rebuke after he was given a parking ticket while on council business.

The comments were in an email written to Geoff Bonner, chief executive of Hart District Council, on November 13 last year.

Mr Gorys, a former leader of the council, also claimed Mr Bonner needed to “get a grip” of the council’s parking department.

The district council published the email following a request made under the Freedom of Information Act by an elector.

In the email, Cllr Gorys said that on November 13 he had parked his car at the district council car park in London Road, Hook, to travel to London “on council business”.

When he returned to his car, he found a car parking ticket, despite displaying a badge that should entitle him to free parking.

He wrote: “Has the management and staff gone completely blind and stupid?

“Some idiot parking attendant has given me a ticket OBVIOUSLY without looking properly.”

Cllr Gorys (pictured right) added: “You need to seriously get a GRIP of this department before we councillors are forced to sort them out.

“Oh, by the way, if anyone takes offence at this then bloody good job too. I expect NO LESS than a grovelling apology and not some half-arsed letter basically blaming me.”

Rod Hursthouse, chief solicitor at Hart District Council, told The Gazette that a complaint was made to the sub-committee of the district council’s standards committee.

It decided in December 2008 that Cllr Gorys did not breach the councillors’ code of conduct, but asked Mr Hursthouse to seek a letter of apology from Cllr Gorys to the person who complained.

Cllr Gorys made his apology in writing in May after Cllr Ken Crookes, leader of the district council, stepped in to mediate, according to the minutes of the Standards Committee of May 28.

It reads: “The committee expressed its disappointment as to the time taken to conclude the matter and expressed their disappointment that the apology only materialised following the intervention of the leader of the council.”

Cllr Sean Haffey, a member of the Standards Committee and like Cllr Gorys, a Conservative, told The Gazette: “It was clearly a matter that he needed to apologise for.

“He has done a huge amount of good work for the council and it is a real pity that he made this email but he has now apologised for it.”

Cllr Gorys told The Gazette: “I have made the apology and that’s it.” He declined to comment further.

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