WHAT is happening in the town hall since the introduction of the voice mail service?

Ring any particular person, and the odds are that you will get an answering machine informing you that the person you want is unavailable and they will ring you back.

Sometimes they do, usually when you are out, and the whole process starts again. The usual excuse for their absence is that they are 'in a meeting'.

For example, quite recently a meeting was to be held in the town hall at 10am. A letter was circulated informing interested parties that they would be allowed to attend. Together with several neighbours I decided to attend.

The day before the meeting I rang the writer of the letter for further information. The answering machine gave me the usual response. Nobody rang me back. I tried again on the day of the meeting. Same result. Finally, with neighbours, I went along to the town hall to be told by an embarrassed receptionist that the meeting had been cancelled.

Nobody from the department concerned had the common sense to ring one or even two of the people concerned, and consequently people had taken time off work and been greatly inconvenienced for nothing.

Furthermore, nobody from the department knew where the missing officer had gone.

So, what next. Complain? You've guessed it - nobody in the complaints department, they were in a meeting!

If you do manage to lodge a complaint, you will be informed that it may take up to a month to find out what has gone wrong. Imagine any commercial enterprise wishing to stay in business, needing a month to find out where one of its senior officers has gone.

Don't dare ask why it takes a month, because, one uncivil servant considers questions like that to be vexatious!

However, where was the boss of the department? Were they unaware that one of their senior officers had gone missing? If so, why? If they did know, why did they allow the vexatious answering machine to continue chirping out its inane message for three days when no one was there?

Is it not time for our councillors to start asking a few pertinent questions? Or as a mere ratepayer, am I asking too much?

TOTAL CYNIC