In the last few weeks the Citizen has published stories which have challenged the city council line.

As a newspaper we felt that the town clerk issue warranted further investigation. Little things like Mr Burrow's unannounced disappearance, his instructions not to speak to the Press plus an unusual and costly redundancy package made us and others question the council claim that it was an inventive management reshuffle.

We took a closer look at the goings on at the Town Hall and found proposals from the council leader at a committee chaired by the council leader to increase the council leader's special allowances by 635 per cent. We were told the increase would bring Lancaster in line with councils across the North West. We did some research and discovered that the increase put Lancaster top of the leader allowance league.

The following week a tiny item at the back of a council agenda caught our eye. It referred to a court case in which a judge had slammed the council as "incompetent, inefficient and bungling." We reported in full what the judge had to say.

Now, having refused to toe the council line on certain issues, the Citizen and others have been accused of mischief-making and carrying out personal vendettas by the council's ruling group and their friends.

'Mischief making' suggests that what you read in the Citizen is untrue yet none of our stories have been challenged by the council's solicitors demanding corrections or apologies. Personal vendettas suggests that it is somehow wrong to voice criticism of our council leaders and their policy decisions.

Just three stories which question the council line and suddenly the Citizen is at the centre of some kind of conspiracy theory.

This would be laughable if it was not slightly worrying. Is it now mischievous to question council policy? Is it classed as a vendetta to print alternative views to those of our rulers? If a group of concerned residents come to us to voice their protest at council policy are we to tell them: 'sorry we've ruffled too many feathers at the Town Hall recently and can't print your views because the council might not like us besides, you've got a new swimming pool, what are you complaining about?'

The mischief is surely with a ruling group that issues press statements about decisions taken at meetings before those meetings have even taken place! Or how about hiding the damning remarks of a respected judge from public view!

We have been amazed at the reaction of local people to our stories. Letters and calls have flooded in thanking us for not rolling over and unquestioningly accepting the council view. These are not politically motivated snipers or cranks writing in green ink they are council tax payers with a vote and they all have good memories. A few calls have been in hushed tones from people working at the Town Hall who are actually frightened to speak out. The Citizen is not running a concerted campaign against the city council where many employees do sterling work. But as long as ordinary, intelligent people voice their concerns about how the ruling authority operates then we will print their views and ask questions on their behalf. It's as simple as that.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.