MERKINCH Community Council at its April meeting moved to draw a close to the saga of its fraught relationship with former member Donnie Kerr. Chairman Clair Pieraccini said that he had written to Mr Kerr that day to say that as he had failed to apologise and had not attended a meeting since August, he was deemed to have disqualified himself.

Last summer Mr Kerr was suspended from the community council following a meeting in September 2001 when he abused both the local Highland Councillors. He subsequently also abused the then chairman.
Since then he had described himself in the press as an ex-member of the community council - yet inconsistently continues to send his apologies for not attending.
Nine members of the community council agreed that Mr Kerr was disqualified from the community council - there was just one abstention.

• The Northern Constabulary was represented by Sergeant Willie Maclennan, who is in charge of the eight constables in the Community Beat service throughout the whole of Inverness. He reported that this year so far the police had received 1731 calls from the Merkinch area as compared to 2069 for the same period last year.
  Members reiterated their desire to see the continuing presence of uniformed officers on the beat - they felt this did as much to keep crime down as any other measure.
  Sgt Maclennan was asked about press stories about “gangs” of youngsters in the city. He said that if people saw groups of 10 youngsters together they got worried and tended to ring the police.
  He agreed that high visibility was a valuable thing. If they found youngsters the worse of drink they would take them home, but there was no curfew as such.

 

• Councillor Peter Corbett reported that he would be distributing some of his discretionary budget o the Breakfast Club and the After-School Club.

 

• Brian Cain asked if he would consider a contribution to the Tool Club. He also reported that voids in the eight streets continued to go down.

 

• Members agreed to donate £50 to The Institute of Obstetrics & Gynaecology Research Trust following Mrs Bette McArdle’s successful completion of a 250-mile charity cycle across Cuba in aid of the cause. On behalf of the charity she thanked the community council for their unexpected and generous donation.