MEDWAY's Cabinet meets tomorrow. There's nothing unusual in that.

It's a month since it last met - that is less usual.

What is absolutely normal is that nothing is likely to be discussed by the august members about the Woodlands School debacle.

This shocking mess has cost council tax payers a couple of million unnecessarily-spent pounds on an education scheme that no-one is sure who authorised it.

One senior person to leave the council is Simon Trotter, an assistant director with a record of mistakes that include the mishandling of the primary school mergers, the scrapping of scheme one for Borstal's primary school rebuilding and - now - the little-short-of-disaster modifications at Woodlands School that were supposed to make 15 extra pupil places available.

Mr Trotter has gone with a golden handshake in the form of an enhanced pension following a disciplinary hearing.

As one person said to me: "It was either that or he would stay on sick leave, being paid and blocking a replacement."

Mr Trotter is not a well man. I am sorry about that.

What I am not sorry about is the catalogue of errors from which he has repeatedly escaped scot-free.

The report into the debacle that is Woodlands does not make it clear that the children at the school were safe. It may be half a century before some of those youngsters start to develop breathing difficulties leading to asbestosis and mesathelioma. They had unfettered access to the work areas where builders were merrily smashing their way through asbestos areas.

There was no segregation of the workmen from the children or teaching staff, no protective screens, no clothing changes, nothing.

If people suggest this is scaremongering, think again.

In Higham the wives of workers at the former British Uralite factory never went to their husbands workplaces, but they contracted the cancers that took their husbands lives. They got it because they breathed in fibres from the clothes their husband wore.

Let us hope none of the children and staff at Woodlands breathed in anything dangerous. The trouble is, if they did the symptoms can take decades to be known. By then it is too late.

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The matter will be discussed in open session tomorrow night by the normally lightly-loaded audit committee.

Among those expected to attend are the headmaster and the chairman of governors, Elena Mutter-Child.

The charismatic head teacher, Nic Fiddaman, strongly denies any responsibility for the appointment of his school manager's building firm to the contract. Whoever did - and it seems to have happened at the school rather than at the council - failed to observe European competitive tendering requirements. And he admits he did nothing to monitor the work.

The audit report is a masterpiece of understatement. It was, they said, "at best a catalogue of errors."

This type of mayhem could happen increasingly with the withdrawal of supervision from schools. This is because the government is increasing the ease for schools to opt out of local government control.

 Which is fine if they know what they are doing - and they have someone else to supervise them.

***

Cars have found Canadian Avemnue in Gillingham to be a fun place to race when there is a storm. It's one of those streets where the drains are incapable of moving all the water as quickly as the heavens empty it.

The result is that in sudden storms there can quickly be a foot of water outside local homes, followed by a tidal wave of tsunami proportions as drivers race into the flood..

It is, said Southern Water, an "extreme event".

That's correct - about every 16 weeks. That's how often the average gap is between "extreme events",

Southern Water has told householders new sewers are now in the company's five year plan - but that doesn't start until 2013.

There was a hint of genuine regret at the mayor-making ceremony on Wednesday night.

It was not that the mayor, Ted Baker, was not a fit person for the office for Medway's First Citizen.

It was because the gentlemen's agreement to keep the office above politics no longer exists.

The system developed at Gillingham more than 30 years ago was a way to get rid of the rows that are once again developing over who should have the honour. Each group started without a single point. Come the election they would have a point for each member that was elected. The group with the biggest total then selected the mayor to represent the Towns… and promptly dropped back to a position of nil points.

Twelve months on, the number of councillors then in each group would be added to the total left after the mayor had been picked. Whichever group then had the majority would chose the next mayor - and drop back to zero points.

It meant that each group got their chance based on what the electorate had chosen.

If it restarted this year (which of course it hasn't) it would mean that the Tories would have the mayoralty this year and next - the prized Diamond Jubilee year - and Labour would follow the year after.

Instead whether or not they intended it to be that way, the mayoralty is squarely a political issue, decided by the majority party.

That in turn means it is inevitable there will be an alternative candidate promoted by the opposition. In this case their choice was Ted Baker's successor in 2003, Nick Bowler.

His chairmanship of the council, his laid-back way of treating the arguments and pouring soothing oil on the vitriol, is still remembered with great pleasure by all who sat before him.

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Not that being mayor is an easy task.

Apart from keeping the warring factions apart in council meetings, the councillor chosen to be the mayor has to attend on average 16 events a week including at least one school trip.

For the councillor's partner that means being pitched into a limelight they might have sought for years to avoid.

It also opens up the world of temptations - of too much to eat, too many nibbles, a few slurps… One mayor I knew always started out with the highest of aspirations to stay fit, avoid too many meals and so on. Each time he failed spectacularly. He was the perfect demonstration of why we larger people are said to have corporations…

***

There is usually a guessing game in the local newsrooms as to who will be mayor.

For three years the Conservatives used up their stock of Davids - Royle, Carr and most recently Brake.

One argument was they would return to the beginning and select David Royle once again.

Instead Ted Baker emerged from the selection process as their choice for high office.

None of us saw there was still a direct link back to the previous mayor.

Baker is an anagram of Brake…

***

The Cabinet has seen one or two changes, the most notable of which was the appointment of David Brake to take over Tom Mason's adult services portfolio. Tom moved to tackle corporate matters.

Elsewhere some of the work carried out by the former councillor, Janice Bamber, has been shared among the cabinet members.

It is still 10 members strong, but that is neither surprising nor illogical.

After all, we are talking of a board of 10 specialist directors running a business with a turnover approaching a billion pounds a year.

***

Throughout all Wednesday night's fun and games there was no mention from the Conservatives of City status - nor of the fact that the council had handed in the bid papers.

There is an section of the community that doesn't agree with Medway becoming a city.

The majority of them continue to demand Rochester should be reappointed a city.

The trouble is that the government made it very clear that favourite towns like Rochester or Lichfield could not be nominated. Only councils could nominate - and it had to be the entire administrative area.

Consequently Medway's bid was the correct one, and no matter how many people bleat and complain about the rights and wrongs of Rochester's demise, the bid has been made according to the rules.

The reception in the House of Commons was officially sponsored by Rehman Chishti, councillor and MP for Gillingham and Rainham.

He treated me to a pot of coffee in the Pugin Room before the event, but he didn't fork out for the reception (equally sober and just as pleasant) in Dining Room No 1.

Nor did the council, well aware of the allegations of "high costs", "waste" and so on..

Instead, the cost was met by one of the many companies backing the bid - in this case the French-owned Veolia, Medway's rubbish collectors.

You might think that now the council is in Purdah, there will be no more meetings until after the election.

Wrong!

The councillors - about a fifth of whom are standing down - will hold their final coven on Thursday April 14.

Unfortunately, although the hurley-burley is nearly done, the battles will never be lost or won. They are certain not going to meet again.

The Inner Cabal, otherwise known as the Cabinet, will.

It has a final meeting on April 19, while the planning committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday April 27.

Who was it suggested there is now peace for the wicked?

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The team responsible for enforcing parking restrictions in the Medway Towns have recently excelled themselves in Chatham.

At half term they turned out in force to try to catch non-existent (and therefore non-errant) mums and dads who were not taking their children to the closed grammar schools in Chatham.

Then last Friday there were no less than four parking officers checking the massed cars in the car park behind Chatham Central Theatre.

Maybe they were expecting large audiences at the theatre for After Miss Julie. They (and presumably the council) were disappointed at the turn out. Only 10 cars were in the car park - and the theatre was virtually empty, I am told.

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I have been advised that while most of the other councils in Kent have published the provisional list of candidates following the closure of nominations on Monday at noon, the slow train on the Medway Line is not scheduled to arrive until midday on Thursday.

This may be rehearsing for the late night count on May 5/6.

While most councils have got their acts together and made their declarations by 2am (Gillingham and Rochester City both used to complete their counts by that time) Medway has got slower and slower. It is getting to the stage where it could vie for the slowest election count.

Just totting up the three sets of votes for the MPs two years ago took eight hours. By the time the mayor announced the results the PR benefits to the winning party had long been lost.... which just might be the reason the staff were not told they could pack up until 6am on the Friday morning.