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The first thing you must realise when you are dealing with so called urban regeneration paid professionals, such as the people who administer the Kensington New Deal for Communities (NDC) is, they are all under Liverpool City Council terms of employment; in other words they are council officers. This means that every thing they do is monitored by the Liverpool City Council's Regeneration Department, which is headed by the £110,000 per year regeneration supremo Charlie Parker. Mr Parker is also a member of the Kensington NDC board.
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The charges which led to me being excluded
The Kensington NDC area and its community are mainly comprised of working class people and as such a working class culture exists within the community. When middle class regeneration experts such as Stephan Boyle and his colleagues enter a deprived working class area they immediately make strenuous effort to establish certain boundaries, and if anyone over steps these boundaries a whole set of repressive dynamics are set into motion to suppress and discredit that person or persons. Here we have a classical example of how middle class people, by using the oppressive system that they have created, oppress, subjugate, domesticate and eventually dominate the largely unsuspecting people within a poor regeneration area. The so-called paid professionals, always, by using stealth, go too great and elaborate lengths to impose their oppressive community participation agenda onto the regeneration community.
One of the most common methods used to subjugate and oppress voiceful people is the threat of using the draconian, recently updated and made even more draconian, laws of Harassment. One of the main ways in which the regeneration administrators apply this draconian law is by building up a dossier on the targeted person. Small incidents and even telephone calls are collated and blown up out of all proportion. This practise is applied with the express purpose of resurrecting any incidents, even if they are trivial, and using them against the targeted person in a court of law. Although this practice is normally only used as a last resort it is becoming more common as ordinary people start to understand and question the complex way in which the regeneration industry has evolved and is evolving.
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Incidents which led to my exclussion
Below is a brief description of an incident, which included the spin doctoring of Panel minutes by a NDC staff member that took place at a Citizens Panel meeting that was held in the Job Bank on the 25th January 2001. Also included is a letter complaint that was sent by me to the NDC chief executive Stephan Boyle and to Government office.
It was quite obvious to me that strenuous attempts would be made by Kensington Regeneration staff to manipulate, control, and domesticate the 5 Citizens Panels.
This is nothing new; regeneration administrators allways go to extraordinary lengths to impose their community participation methodology onto unsuspecting communities. This brief outline will give the reader some idea of the way in which paid regeneration staff operate. As already mentioned above on the 25th of January 2001 whilst attending a Citizens Panel meeting (I only ever attended three meetings) I tried to highlight what I perceived as influence upon the Panel by paid workers. When trying to highlight my concerns to the Panel, which consisted of 5 people, the KR staff and the hand full of people who were present shouted me down. One of the KR outreach workers and former board member spin doctored the minutes of the meeting in an inaccurate and emotive manner. Outrageous allegations were levelled against me based purely on vindictiveness. I believe this was perpetrated against me because I dared to criticise the control freakery of the KR staff and a certain amount of community cronies. The particular outreach worker, as well as spin doctoring the minutes, did in my opinion, along with a hand full of community cronies, pull every trick in the book to have me excluded from the NDC project. Not content with spin doctoring the minutes of the meeting the KR team, then in a further desperate attempt to discredit me in the NDC community and amongst the other 4 Panels, and to quell any decent, produced an oppressive code of conduct, obviously based on the inaccurate portrayal of the minutes. Now they are imposing even more draconian rules as to how people should conduct themselves at Panel meetings. This means if you speak too loudly, (as in my case because I suffer from partial deafness) show any decent, or say something they don't like, (by they I also mean community cronies) a vote will be taken to have you thrown off the Panel indefinitely. This is control freakary in its most perverse form. I believe that the KR staff along with their community cronies did this to isolate and marginalize me in the NDC community and to stop me from gaining information to print in the "Whistle Blower".
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Below is the letter of complaint I sent to Stephan Boyle:
It was over six week before the illustrious chief executive replied to my letter and as was expected he took the side of his staff. The KR team have now moved in to the Job Bank.
Mr Boyle Chief Executive,
Kensington Regeneration,
29 Prescot Road,
Liverpool L7 OLA
21/2/2001
Dear Mr Boyle,
I wish to formally complain about the way in which paid workers manipulate and record minutes and actively work to exclude people from a process that is designed to include. Further more the same officers discriminate against me on grounds of disability.
To support my complaint I wish to draw your attention to the Minutes of the Panel meeting of the 25th of January 2001. The tone of the minutes are a vindictive attack on me.
Throughout the minutes reference is given that I "complained" others however are quoted as making a "request", "makeing an inquiry" "stating".
With regard to the first item it is said that I "complained" objected would have been appropriate. Second paragraph quotes me as "loudly talking and complaining". I have repeatably pointed out and apologised for the way I speak. I am fully aware that I speak loudly and because of my large stature this appears to be aggressive. I am partially deaf linked with a very loud voice. Any reference to my speaking loudly when this has been explained I consider to be discriminatory.
Paragraph 3: A totally irrelevant paragraph serving no purpose except to portrait me in a bad light. If I did abstainer why is my name mentioned?
Item 2. makes reference to my mobile phone ringing off. In all my time at meetings and reading minutes I have never seen or heard an account of someone's mobile phone going off. Are these minutes or a storyboard for a play?
Item 2 paragraph 3. Reports that I disrupt the meeting and argue. Is it not the purpose of the meeting for me to express my views? This paragraph proves the point I was making, that we are forced to agree and if we don't we are classed as “disruptive" and argumentative.
Item 3 paragraph 6. States I "demanded" other people are quoted as requesting.
Item 4. I am quoted as raising my voice and being disruptive. No mention is made what I was inquiring about. My question was "are the computers going to selected people". Is this impossible to minute?
Item 4 paragraph 7: Does not make sense.
The remainder of the minutes continue to make allegations about me being "disruptive", "rude" "derogatory", "abusive", and deliberately confusing matters.
I suggest that the purpose of these meetings is to get people to pay lip service to a process that is dictated by paid workers. When people disagree or wish to offer a difference of opinion they are recorded as being disruptive and argumentative. As a volunteer and unpaid attendee at these meetings it is obvious that paid workers wish to exclude people like myself from the process.
I consider these minutes to be a personal attack on my character and a method of excluding people.
Having raised this matter already with you and on the phone I would like a response within the next 5 working days in order to consider my next cores of action.
Yours sincerely,
Mike Lane
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Finally excluded from a process that is supposed to be inclusive
On Thursday the 19th April 2001 I was voted off the Wavertree (now renamed Edge Hill) Citizens Panel. I am, to this day, still largely ignorant as to why I was excluded from the NDC project. Apparently a Panel member wrote a letter of complaint to the Panel chairman requesting that I be removed. Just 4 or 5 people voted to have me excluded. I believe that the real reason behind this was because I was asking too many questions and fighting for my rights as a socially excluded housing association tenant. As was reported in one of my newsletters the "Whistle Blower" talks had already taken place some moths previous (in my absence) with the KR chief executive Stephan Boyle, about whether it would be possible to have me excluded for writing the "Whistle Blower".
I believe that the real reason for my exclusion from the NDC project was based primarily on the issue of the critical newsletter the "Whistleblower". I have posted 75,000 copies of this newsletter, which amounts to 19 issues, in the Kensington NDC area. I have done this because I believe that in a democratic country a person should have freedom of speech and should not be excluded from an initiative that is meant to be inclusive because he sees things differently and has a diversity of views. This is not the behaviour of a democratic organisation but the actions of despotism.
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Chief Executive Stephan Boyles "Public Warning" against me
Below is Mr Boyles Public warning against me followed by my reply and request to Government Office:
E-mail from Steven Boyle to me 9/7/01
Mr Lane
This is the last time I will be communicating with you unless we receive a
public apology for and full acknowledgement of your disgusting and
threatening behaviour towards me and at least two other colleagues. Whatever
your agenda really is, there is absolutely no excuse for obscenity and
personal threats. I am left with a very strong feeling that this behaviour
is deliberate and calculated to intimidate. In view of your continued
attempts to force us to correspond with you, I now feel that I have no
alternative but to make this behaviour a matter of public record in order to
explain to GoNW and your many other correspondents why we are not prepared
to enter into any further dealings with you. As a matter of courtesy I think
it only right to inform you of this. I must also warn you that I will not
hesitate to act very firmly to protect the welfare of Partnership members
and my colleagues from any future outburts by you of the kind that we have
had to endure recently.
Stephen Boyle
My reply:
KENSINGTON NEW DEAL FOR COMMUNITIES
My name is Mike Lane and I have been excluded from the Kensington NDC project by its chief executive Stephen Boyle, a regeneration fat cat who earns £57,000 per year. I believe that my exclusion from the Kensington NDC project, an initiative that is meant to be inclusive, is because I ask to many questions.
I have decided to make a democratic protest in defence of the slanderous remarks that have been levelled against me in a public warning issued against me by Stephen Boyle.
Mr Boyle, who does not even live in Liverpool, excluded me based on two or three meaningless incidents, one of which, in my opinion, was deliberately and deviously orchestrated by Mr Boyle.
These incidents have been blown up out of all proportion and used as a tool to discredit me in my own city and to try and discredit me in my own community were I have lived for 18 years.
These scurrilous allegations have been levelled against me in a deliberate attempt to exclude me, totally, from the Kensington NDC project.
Mr Boyle has never even given me the opportunity of defending myself against these scurrilous allegations. These regeneration fat cats, it seems, can do, as they like, they are accountable to no one.
I publicly refute all the allegations that have been levelled against me and demand that a meeting is arranged for me to defend myself against these allegations.
IS THIS DEMOCRACY?
CAN THESE REGENERATION FAT CATS DO AS THEY PLEASE?
WHO ARE THEY ACCOUNTABEL TO?
For more information read our web-site www.whistleblower.nstemp.com or www.kensingtonregeneration.com
Or telephone 07770-478756 and speak to Mike Lane (Campaigner for democracy and social justice)
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