Cllr Donald Baldey, of Northumberland Place, Teignmouth, writes:

I am surprised at the comments made by Cllr Orme as quoted by your paper on October 3.

Cllr Falcao was merely requesting a true representation of the meeting to be shown in the minutes of the meeting held on September 2 of the finance and general purposes committee. This is a requirement of the law and a short discussion followed by acceptance was all that was needed.

At the original meeting, Cllr Falcao had quoted the rules governing amounts of tax payers' money that could be spent by the council without committee approval. In particular, he had been concerned about the acquisition of a vehicle which cost the tax payer in excess of £9,000 and this was not accurately recorded in the minutes.

Cllr Orme was meant to be reading out the minutes of the previous meetings in the absence of the chair of the F&GP committee. She was not at the meeting on September 2 and clearly did not know what was said at that meeting.

When Cllr Falcao tried to put the record straight, there were attempts to stop him from doing so by a minority of Conservative councillors. The majority of other councillors wished him to do so and voted in favour of the corrected minutes. It is therefore difficult to accept that there was any justification for her walking out and then publishing a rant.

Spending tax payers' money is not a matter to be cast aside as petty negativity and I can assure her that the people who complained to me about this matter are very angry about the way the matter was handled.

Councillors are responsible for holding the council to account. Cllr Falcao was doing no more than this in the meeting of September 2 and we have a duty to record his words accurately.

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