Rift over Omaha in Naas Twinning Committee
Signing the twinning in Omaha - voluntary twinning committee members say they were 'left out' of arrangements.
NAAS, 22 June 2002: by Brian Byrne & Trish Whelan. A rift between voluntary and politician members of the Naas Twinning Committee has arisen over the latest twinning with Omaha, Nebraska.
Committee secretary Orla O'Connell has written to the council 'on behalf of the voluntary members' complaining that they had been ‘left out of’ the planning of the latest twinning.
The Omaha twinning was instigated by Cllr Timmy Conway, and the Omaha local authority voted to twin with ‘the City of Naas’ late last year, with very few people in Naas being aware that any such thing was in train.
A Naas council delegation, along with representatives of a number of local cultural groups and some individuals, went to Omaha for the St Patrick’s Day festivities in the Middle America city.
Members of Naas Town Council appoint themselves en bloc each year to the Naas Twinning Committee, which is not any part of the council’s operations but gets an annual grant towards its activities. Cllr Pat O’Reilly has been chairman of the committee for a number of years.
There are a number of voluntary members who have worked solidly behind the scenes to develop and try and maintain Naas’s other twinnings in Germany, France, Wales and Italy.
But now those voluntary members want ‘the procedures, protocol and courtesies’ to be ‘adhered to in the future’, Ms O’Connell said after her letter to this effect had been read to the council.
