ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL…..

Some time after the erection of the KALC site fencing late in 2012 – the ‘Berlin Wall’ as we like to call it – we became aware that the KALC site included a small area of green space, behind the site office complex, and immediately adjacent to Grenfell Tower, which was not immediately needed for construction work. Over succeeding months this little area became neglected and overgrown and it became obvious to us that it would not be developed until the very end of the KALC project when the contractors finally turned their attention to the landscaping of the so-called public realm. We therefore wrote to the Director of Housing at RBKC to ask if this little piece of precious green space could be returned to the community in the interim, as it was badly needed as amenity space.

We could hardly believe our eyes when we read the response to this query issued on Friday 4th April by Amanda Johnson (Head of Housing Commissioning) on behalf of the Rotten Borough.

“With regard to the grassed area at the rear of the huts the Council discussed with BYUK how feasible it would be to return it to use whilst Kensington Academy was under construction. The contractor advised the Council that there would be a cost attached to removing and realigning the hoarding as a temporary measure and it would be short term as it sits within the areas that are to be redeveloped either as part of the KALC project or refurbishment of Grenfell Tower and its surrounds. It was therefore decided that it was not feasible to spend time and money on returning a small grass area which at best would be large enough as a dog toilet and at worst a dumping ground for rubbish. There is also no capacity within the KALC budget to facilitate works of this nature or any desire to introduce this sort of amenity into the area.”

Ms Johnson’s email is particularly revealing in that it makes no reference whatever to the essential nature of the amenity space/green space lost completely by the residents of Grenfell Tower as a direct consequence of the imposition of the inpenetrable barrier of the KALC site fencing so close to the base of Grenfell Tower. Indeed she is clearly utterly unsympathetic to the very notion of returning any such space, even temporarily, to the community. Her pointed references to the alleged prohibitive cost of such a plan and the possible use of this space (in her eyes) as either a dog toilet or a dumping ground is therefore very revealing and seems to betray an attitude of utter indifference, if not active and intense antipathy, hostility and intolerance, to the needs of the residents of this area.

Reading between the lines of her response this writer cannot help but be reminded that, at the time of the Rwandan catastrophe, the genocidal Hutus referred to their Tutsi victims as cockroaches, and that the Nazi’s, in their propaganda, had earlier described their Jewish victims as rats.

Is it possible that our Masters at Hornton Street, and the officers they employ, might hold similar views of the poor and disadvantaged who inhabit the northern ghettoes of this most rotten of boroughs?

Is Jaw-Jaw Better Than War-War?

The correspondence below was sent by a member of the Grenfell Action Group to the Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, Nick Paget Brown, on the 11th Febrary 2014. Sadly we received no response to this letter and we are asking Councillor Paget Brown to take on board the fact that we in the Grenfell Action Group believe that we have legitimate complaints that need dealing with and should not just be swept under the Hornton St. carpet.

Dear Councillor Paget Brown,

Thank you for your email dated 30th January 2014. Once more, I would like to reiterate that it was very disappointing that Cllr Feilding Mellen and yourself choose to question the credentials of the Lancaster West stakeholders during our visit to Hornton St in November 2013 rather than concentrate on the general constructive points we were trying to make.

While we may not have been able to give conclusive answers to some of the direct questions you were asking (i.e, whether we all favoured re-construction or refurbishment) Lancaster West stakeholders are totally united in our wish to learn what the long-term investment plan is for the future of our Estate and to ensure that current residents are fully involved in the formation of these plans.

With respect, you are completely incorrect in your assertion that I am the only person on Lancaster West Estate to consider that we live in “slum like conditions”. In fact, at a EMB Meeting in 2012 Bob Bryans, who was Chair of the EMB at the time, described the Estate as a “slum”. Talk to the majority of residents and they will tell you the same. The likes of Cllr Blakeman and Cllr Feilding Mellen do not allow us to refer to our homes as a slum but the truth is that forty years of complete lack of investment in our community by RBKC and the TMO have left indelible scars of neglect. You only have to look at the recent post on the Hornet’s Nest to see conditions in Wornington Green and I can assure you that we would have absolutely no problem finding similar examples of this appalling squalor on Lancaster West Estate.

http://fromthehornetsnest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/a-catalyst-for-housing-disaster.html

At our meeting with you on Lancaster West Estate in October all those stakeholders present explained very clearly to you and Cllr Campbell how embarrassed and ashamed we all are to live in such neglected and run down conditions. At the time you gave us the impression that you had taken this point on board. Are you now telling us that our living conditions are fine and our complaints without foundation and illegitimate?

The one flat that you have visited on the Estate belongs to a member of the Lancaster West Residents Association who has been fortunate enough to have benefited from receiving a new kitchen and bathroom. Most flats on the Estate do not look like the one you visited and are, instead, plagued by a myriad of different problems making their tenants’ lives a complete misery. Your assertion that the common parts of the Estate are up to standard is a joke and we intend to publish photos of some of the worst areas of the Estate’s residential amenity on our blog so people can make up their own minds if this is an acceptable environment to force people to live in one of the richest Boroughs in the UK.

How could our Estate be anything else but a slum? We have had no investment to the infrastructure or residential amenity of Lancaster West Estate for forty years now. It is known around the Royal Borough as the “forgotten” Estate and for very good reasons. The windows and heating system on the Estate are very nearly defunct. It is only possible to ever get 3″ of hot water to bathe in, there are large cracks in the gaps between our windows and the outside leading to many residents experiencing fuel poverty, water supply (hot and cold) always breaking down, building so hot all year we have to keep our windows permanently open, faulty electrical wiring caused a recent power surge that endangered our lives and destroyed many residents computers, fridges, televisions (all not compensated for)…. I could go on but there is probably little point. Instead, perhaps, we should re-invite all RBKC Councillors down to Lancaster West to see for themselves how we are forced to exist and they can judge for themselves as to whether we live in a modern aged slum or not!

With regards to the Grenfell Action Groups’ suggestion that the RBKC Council are intent on the “social cleansing” of our community, it is our belief and the belief of a great number of residents on Lancaster West Estate and in North Kensington social housing, in general, that the Council and TMO are overseeing the “managed decline” of our Estates. The fact that the Council/TMO do not even have a plan for future investment in their social housing stock is further evidence that the “managed decline” of our community is an active policy.

A result of this immoral treatment will lead to our homes declining to such an extent that “regeneration” will follow and the dreaded “Decant Policy”, that offers no guarantee that residents can return to their communities, will be enforced on us. To try and allay these concerns, members of our community have been asking a succession of RBKC Cabinet Ministers for Housing and Property to explain what is their long term plan for Lancaster West Estate and we have never received any other answer than the Royal Borough does not have a plan for our homes.

As you can imagine this totally inadequate response from RBKC has only helped to fuel speculation that the policy of “managed decline” is the only show in town and our homes will be knocked down and replaced by gerrymandered “mixed communities” leading to the widespread “social cleansing” of existing tenants.

Finally, it is not a crime to campaign for better housing conditions and members of the Lancaster West Residents Association, Grenfell Tower Leaseholders Association and the Grenfell Action Group urge you to continue to engage with us and involve us in meaningful conversations about the future of our homes rather than sideline our concerns by claiming that constructive dialogue has been exhausted.

We are aware that Savills are currently undertaking a study into the future of social housing in the Borough and members of the Grenfell Action Group and other stakeholders would, at least, like to be able to discuss the outcome of this report and it’s implications for future of Lancaster West Estate with you in your role as Leader of RBKC Council.

I will look forward to hearing back from you in due course.

Regards,

Grenfell Action Group

 We are seeking an honest and progressive dialogue with the Leader of the Council but we cannot do this if he continues to deny that 40 years of non-investment has reduced the Lancaster West housing stock to a slum. We need the Leader of the Council to stop trying to shoot the messenger and listen to what stakeholders on the estate have to say. Cllr Paget Brown may not like dealing with difficult subjects, but he owes it to the Lancaster West community to be honest and to communicate with us rather than employing the Council’s tired old trick of trying to “crush residents” by denying them a voice.

 

VOTE RBKC LABOUR – GET RBKC TORY!

Yes, folks, it’s about this time in the RBKC four yearly election cycle that residents of Lancaster West Estate can expect to receive a most unwelcome knock on their front-doors from our local Labour Councillors begging for our precious votes.

However, the backstabbers in question are likely to receive short shrift from the vast majority of Lancaster West residents who feel abandoned and betrayed by the RBKC Labour group who sold our community’s well-being down the river after our local Councillors Blakeman, Atkinson and Foreman sacrificed their souls at the alter of the Kensington Academy and Leisure Centre (KALC). Many residents who voted for Blakeman and her quislings in past Council elections will certainly not be so stupid as to do so again.

It is noteworthy that, while we in the Grenfell Action Group consistently opposed the whole KALC project as a gross overdevelopment of the Lancaster Green area, which would severely impact the Lancaster West community, Blakeman and her poodles broadly supported the project and opposed as overdevelopment only the luxury housing element at the Bomore Road end of the site.  It seems to us that this objection amounted to little more than a cynical exercise in tokenism, and a fat lot of good it did, as the Council approved the whole plan regardless.

We strongly believe that, instead of fighting for the rights of Lancaster West residents, Blakeman and her crew chose instead to oppress anti-KALC activists in the Lancaster West community. They certainly denied us their support in voicing our legitimate complaints and concerns, and appear to have actively worked to obstruct and sabotage our efforts. Given their shameless collusion with the Ruling Party in Hornton Street it has been near impossible at times to work out what political side the local Labour group has been representing (ie Labour or Conservative).

Someone needs to remind Councillor Blakeman that the UK is a democracy in which the Labour Party has traditionally claimed to represent and support the working class and the underprivileged. It seems this support can no longer be counted on. Residents who campaign for better housing conditions should not be villified by Labour councillors, like terrorists and criminals, and denied their right to free speech. Cllr Blakeman, of course, does not have to worry about her own housing situation as she is safely ensconced in well maintained, privately owned, middle class accommodation that is set to become a gated community at the first sign of intrusion from any troublesome Kensington Academy students.

Anyway, the Grenfell Action Group has put together a few points that you might like to raise when that Labour knock on the door comes begging for your vote:

Councillor Blakeman might like to explain why she supported, and continues to support, the likes of Todd Foreman to become a local Notting Barns Councillor? We believe that Foreman has never had any real interest in representing the residents of this constituency and that he is just an opportunistic careerist more interested in climbing the slippery pole of political ambition than in representing the real needs of the underprivileged inner city residents on the backs of whom he has attempted to climb to power. Oh, and the idea that Foreman was ever going to use his supposed legal skills to help the ordinary residents of North Kensington is simply laughable.

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/pants-on-fire-no-2-todd-foreman/

To continue, RBKC are spending £1.5 million of our Council Tax on the Holland Park Opera every year, yet we are forced to live in slum like conditions on Lancaster West Estate and are now facing massive yearly rent increases. The Grenfell Action Group would question why Cllr Blakeman will be openly seen puffing up her ego along with her neo-con Tory pals (Coleridge, Ahern, etc) attending the Holland Park Opera rather than organising robust opposition and demonstrations against this immoral frippery?

We would ask also why RBKC Labour have tried to claim credit for securing the £9 million for improvement works at Grenfell Tower and the new windows in Verity Close? We believe Blakeman and her poodles have done very little to help improve living conditions at Lancaster West, both prior to and after the imposition of KALC, and they certainly had little to do with instigating the funding for both the Grenfell Tower and Verity Close projects. The Grenfell Action Group believes that these investments were made possible by community outrage at KALC and the determination to hold Cllr Coleridge to ransom after he promised that KALC would be “an opportunity” for Lancaster West.

We would ask also why Blakeman has allowed herself to become an enemy of democracy by working with the Ruling Party at Hornton Street, and their quislings at the TMO, to prevent collective representation on Lancaster West Estate? A little bird told us, in the not too distant past, that Blakeman was seen demeaning herself and the democratic process by ripping down information flyers put out by the Grenfell Action Group in the vicinity of Grenfell Tower. Shame on her for acting in such a petty-minded, undemocratic and oppressive manner.

Blakeman has had one serious challenge in her political career, the inappropriate and wrong-headed imposition of KALC at Lancaster Green, and the Grenfell Action Group believes that she has failed to meet this challenge in the most spectacular manner. Rather than putting herself up for re-election, we suggest Cllr Blakeman would be better shuffling off into retirement, but she should firstly apologise to the residents of Lancaster West for abandoning and betraying them in favour of her blinkered vision of KALC and to curry favour with the Hornton Street tories.

A HARD RAIN’S GONNA FALL – GAG JOINS THE RADICAL HOUSING NETWORK

The Grenfell Action Group is delighted to announce that we have recently joined the Radical Housing Network. The network is a collection of different housing groups in the London area who are committed to collectively challenging unjust housing policies in  London through sharing knowledge, collective working and a willingness to use “Direct Action”.

http://radicalhousingnetwork.org/

This may be of interest to Councillor Feilding Mellen (Cabinet Member for Housing, Property and Regeneration), Laura Johnson (Director of Housing) and their quislings in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Housing Dept. who think that they can act with impunity in their treatment of those in need of housing, those currently at risk of being hounded out of their social housing tenancies and those who are still stuck on the RBKC Council’s housing waiting list.

The RBKC Housing Dept has recently removed 6500 households from the Council’s Housing Register via the inhumane decision to change the rules governing eligibility for social housing in the Rotten Borough. In one brutal stroke RBKC has decided that these households should be removed from the existing housing list because the Council has decreed that they do not have sufficient priority for re-housing or have not been able to reside in the Borough for the last three years. In addition to this RBKC will no longer offer social housing tenants a life-time tenancy and instead successful applicants will only be offered fixed-term tenancies , usually for five years and sometimes, in exceptional circumstances, for only two years.

RBKC has no intention of responding to the housing needs of the poor and excluded in the Borough and has redesigned local housing allocations criteria to cater for the needs of  supposed “hard-working families doing the right thing”.

Readers of this blog will already be aware of the Council’s policy of the “managed decline” of the social housing stock in North Kensington with the aim of letting our homes descend into slum’s before the Council  then intervene to “socially cleanse” our communities under the guise of “regeneration”.

Readers of this blog will also be aware of the Council’s recent decision to increase social housing rents by 10% every year for the next five years with the explicit intention of pricing working class community’s out of the Royal Borough.

The Grenfell Action Group believes that by joining forces with other radical housing groups we can work more effectively towards bringing “Direct Action” to the streets (and parks) of Kensington and Chelsea to fight against the unjust and immoral policies of the RBKC Housing Dept.

STOP PRESS

Upcoming Radical Housing Network events:

Starting Saturday, April 26
Two days of housing action across London
Come together to take action on the Housing Crisis
In: Brent, Camden, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark and Central London.
Bringing together those affected by bedroom tax, housing benefit caps, the squatting ban, rising rents, dodgy landlords, poor quality housing and gentrification.

DAY ONE: Saturday 26th April
Events in: Lewisham, Southwark, Brent and Camden, Lambeth and Hackney

DAY TWO: Sunday 27th April 11am-6pm
Discussions, Action planning, Workshops, Training, Tea and Cake.
33-37 Moreland Street, EC1V 8BB

https://www.facebook.com/events/835629819798075/?context=create&source=49

 

GRENFELL TOWER RESIDENTS STILL WAITING

The Spring daffodils and cherry blossom have arrived in North Kensington and yet the Grenfell Tower Improvement Project saga grinds on and on with no sign of any tangible progress. Surely the TMO can’t still be arguing with their contractors over money (?) The Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) has presided over this shambles since the RBKC Council agreed funding for the project in 2012 and residents are sick and tired of being kept in the dark about what is actually going on. It is hard to believe that the original plan was to carry out the works to Grenfell Tower in synch with the KALC construction project, and it is testament to both the RBKC Council and the TMO’s  huge incompetence that they have completely failed to do so. Residents are still wondering if the improvement works will ever take place at all.

SO, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE CAN THE COUNCIL OR THE TMO TELL RESIDENTS OF GRENFELL TOWER WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Residents have not received any communication from the TMO for at least three months since we were last told that works on the Grenfell Tower project would start in the Spring of 2014. Obviously, these were just more hollow words from the TMO who can’t even be trusted to count their own rents!

Meanwhile, there is a rumour going around that the TMO are favouring the views of some Grenfell Tower householders while excluding the legitimate views of others. We know that some householders have been contacted by the TMO (some of whom are not even in the UK) while many other residents of Grenfell Tower have not seen hide nor hair of the TMO for months, and certainly have not been asked to contribute their views. We believe that this favouritism of certain vested interests by the TMO is completely unjust and that all residents who live in Grenfell Tower are entitled to be consulted and not just the ones that the TMO find amenable (for whatever twisted reasons).

What we do know for sure,  is that Claire Williams and Peter Maddision from the TMO have no intention of recognising residents of Grenfell Tower who have come together to form any kind of “collective representation”. It seems that we will get what the TMO will allow us, and only what the TMO will allow us.  Shame on them!

THE OLD TMO MANTRA OF ‘DIVIDE AND RULE’ STILL HOLDS TRUE AND GRENFELL TOWER RESIDENTS’ VIEWS COUNT FOR NOTHING. WE DEMAND REAL CONSULTATION AND TO BE GIVEN PROPER INFORMATION BY THE TMO THAT KEEPS US FULLY AND APPROPRIATELY INFORMED ABOUT THE GRENFELL TOWER WORKS AND THE FUTURE OF OUR HOMES.

FLOGGING A DEAD HORSE (?)

THE GRENFELL ACTION GROUP BELIEVES THAT THE ROYAL BOROUGH OF KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA COUNCIL’S DECISION TO SERVE A “BREACH NOTICE” ON THE ESTATE MANAGEMENT BOARD (EMB) IS UNJUST, UNREASONABLE AND HIGHLY UNDEMOCRATIC .

WE BELIEVE THAT THE COUNCIL NEEDS TO EXPLAIN WHY THEY COLLUDED WITH THE EMB IN COVERING UP ITS’ SERIOUS FAILINGS OF RECENT YEARS  AND WHY THE COUNCIL FAILED TO NOTIFY THE WIDER COMMUNITY OF THE SERIOUSNESS OF THIS CRISIS, OR SEEK TO ENGAGE EITHER THE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION OR THE WIDER COMMUNITY IN THE SEARCH FOR A SOLUTION, WHEN THE EMB HAD CLEARLY AND DELIBERATELY DECLINED TO DO SO AND WAS CLEARLY OPERATING INCOMPETENTLY AND BEYOND ITS AUTHORITY.

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/rip-emb/

WE WROTE RECENTLY TO MR ROGER KEANE, A SENIOR OFFICER AT RBKC COUNCIL, AND ASKED HIM TO EXPLAIN HOW OUR COMMUNITY CAN APPEAL THE COUNCIL’S DECISION TO CLOSE DOWN THE EMB:

Dear Mr Keane,

I am writing to you on behalf of the Grenfell Action Group following receipt of the Breach Notice that RBKC Council have decided to serve on the Lancaster West EMB.

Please can you inform us how our community can appeal the Breach Notice and the decision to remove the democratic voice of residents on Lancaster West Estate?

We believe that one of the reasons for the decline of the EMB was the fact that the RBKC Council did not act in the best interests of the EMB after they had been warned of irregular conduct by the Chair of the EMB, Mr Bob Bryans.

We believe that members of the RBKC Council including Councillor Blakeman and Laura Johnson (Director of Housing) all acted to keep Bob Bryans in post and that this inappropriate support for Mr Bryans ultimately played a part in the demise of the EMB. We would not like to speculate whether this support for Mr Bryans was done with explicit intention of helping to bring down the EMB as we do not have this evidence. What we do know is that  RBKC Councillors and their Officers failed to come to the assistance of the residents of Lancaster West Estate and it’s EMB members after the initial and persistent allegations of misuse of EMB resources were made against Mr Bryans.

However, it would be wrong to lay all the blame for the demise of the EMB at the feet of Bob Bryans and the support the ex-Chair of the EMB received from the RBKC Council for propping up a “puppet” Estate Management Board.

It is our believe that the RBKC Council did not act in a democratic fashion and, instead, acted against the best interest of residents when they were made aware of the fact that the EMB was completely dysfunctional and had completely lost it’s moral compass.

It is well documented that both the EMB and RBKC Council deliberately withheld all information about the EMB’s internal problems and parlous condition, including the Bryans issue, from the members of the  Management Association and from the wider Lancaster West community for at least two years. We believe that Councillor Blakeman, Laura Johnson (Director of Housing) and yourself, Mr Keane, were fully aware of this cover up and colluded with it. The RBKC Council’s failure to insist and ensure that the Lancaster West Management Association and the wider Lancaster West community were fully informed of the crisis besetting the EMB was ultimately what set the EMB up to fail and led inevitably to it’s collapse.

We would request that you consider the matters we have raised and re-consider the RBKC Council’s decision to close down the EMB. If not, please can you inform the Grenfell Action Group about our rights to challenge the Councils decision to remove our community’s democratic voice and how we can appeal the Council’s decision to  eradicate the EMB?

Kind regards,

Grenfell Action Group.

From: Roger.Keane@rbkc.gov.uk
To: ********************
Subject: RE: Appeal of LWEMB Breach Notice
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2014

We believe that the EMB Board were given sufficient time and support to address the issues we outlined in the Breach Notice and the preceding Warning Notice. The Board did not demonstrate that they had taken sufficient measures for the breach to be remedied in accordance to the Modular Management Agreement (MMA) we have with them. The MMA does not provide any further opportunities for the Board to remedy the breach, and therefore the agreement we have with them will come to an end on the 31^st May 2014.The EMB will have to wait  24 months from the date of the end of this agreement, before it can apply to exercise its management function. 

Regards

Roger Keane – General Needs Housing Commissioner

From: zerofrancis
To: Roger.Keane@rbkc.gov.uk
Cc: cllr.paget-brown@rbkc.gov.uk
Date: 21 March 2014
Subject: RE: Appeal of LWEMB Breach Notice

Dear Mr Keane,

Although I no longer live at Lancaster West, having been forced to abandon my tenancy to escape the effects of the KALC construction works on my already poor health, I feel compelled to challenge the content of your reply to my friend and colleague in the Grenfell Action Group.

Firstly I would remind you that the management agreement in question, which has never been honoured by RBKC, is between the Lancaster West Management Association (not the EMB) and the Council. The EMB is supposed to be accountable to the Management Association and the wider Lancaster West community for its actions, and has a duty  to keep the Management Association, and the wider Lancaster West community,  informed about and involved in its affairs. This duty is especially pertinent when EMB members are found to have compromised the EMB and brought it into disrepute by dishonest, dishonorable or fraudulant behaviour in office.

I am sure you are aware that it was I who raised the complaints against Mr Bryans, firstly with Councillor Blakeman, and subsequently with successive TMO Area Mangers and with the Director of Housing at RBKC. I also provided the evidence that proved Mr Bryans guilt. I had great difficulty persuading any of the above to act on my complaints and had to persist stubbornly for at least a year and a half before you were eventually tasked with investigating the Bryans affair.

You were present at the EMB meeting in October 2012 to report the findings of your investigation. On that occasion you witnessed the vote of the EMB to take no punitive action against Mr Bryans and to withold all information about these events from the Management Association. It must have become clear to you at this point, and more importantly to the Director of Housing, with whom I had regularly corresponded on these issues, that the EMB had become a law unto itself and was acting, deliberately and cynically, against the best interests of the Management Association and the wider Lancaster West community.

By December 2012 the EMB had become so completely dysfunctional and was so completely isolated from the Management Association and the wider community that it had effectively disintegrated. It was only at this point, despite repeated earlier pleas and warnings from myself, that the Director of Housing saw fit to “intervene”.

It seems more than clear to me that this “intervention” was designed, not to support the EMB or the Management Association (which had not even been informed that there was a crisis), but to deliver the coup-de-grace, which is what RBKC and the TMO had connived at all along. During the crisis the Management Association was at no stage informed, involved or empowered to act by either the EMB or by RBKC.

I am sorry to say that your reply to my colleague appears therefore to be no more than a shabby attempt to justify the indefensible.

In closing I would add that it is utter hypocrisy for a Council officer such as yourself to quote the letter of the Management Agreement as justification for ending the agreement when the Council has never honoured the letter of the Agreement signed in 1993, which appointed the Lancaster West Management Association as the Council’s managing agents for Lancaster West Estate. The LWMA has never been permitted by the Council to exercise the powers or management functions granted in that agreement.

Yours sincerely,

Francis O’Connor

WE WILL NOT SURRENDER THE DEMOCRATIC VOICE OF THE LANCASTER WEST  COMMUNITY WITHOUT A FIGHT AND WITHOUT A PROPER FRAMEWORK FOR FUTURE COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION IN PLACE.