http://perspicuuseboracum.blogspot.com.au/
Shire of York
Friday, 27 March 2015
Thursday, 26 March 2015
REQUEST FOR A FORENSIC AUDIT ON THE YORK RECREATION & CONVENTION CENTRE’S FINANCIAL SITUATION
Dumas House
2 Havelock Street
WEST PERTH, WA 6005
CC Mr. Colin Murphy
Auditor General.
Your Ref: A REQUEST FOR A FORENSIC AUDIT ON THE YORK RECREATION & CONVENTION CENTRE’S FINANCIAL SITUATION.
In the 2014-2015 Financial Year the Shire of York Council (Council) approached Mr. Guy Lehmann of Muntz & Partners, York, with the intent to commission him to provide an in-depth, future business development plan for the York Recreation & Convention Centre (YRCC). The projected cost for his services was in the vicinity of $10,000.
The YRCC is thought to be a $7.8 million local community asset facility funded by Royalties for Regions, Local Government grants and municipal funding. To my knowledge no known appropriate cost estimates, including whole-of- life cost projections or any other reasonable financial evaluation was done for the overall expenditure on the project compared to its cost-benefit value to the local community it was supposedly built to serve.
It would appear that there were no key performance indicators attached to continuing outlay, nor were there efficiency, effectiveness and economy standards set for the completed facility and its future use, including affordable staffing levels and required maintenance- and any required compliance with the terms and conditions of its commercial Tavern Licence.
The granting of a commercial Tavern Licence to a Local Government agency, Council, has serious connotations regarding competitive neutrality. It placed a ratepayer funded licenced premises in direct competition with the private sector, conceivably assisting in the closure of four privately owned licenced establishments over the past three years.
This fiduciary duty of care for the YRCC should have been undertaken by the senior Local Government, Public Service Officers employed by Council to do so. The overall performance of said officers is an integral part of your jurisdiction- encompassing the Department of the Auditor General in financial risk management matters.
In the 2013-2014 Financial Year Council’s projected estimate of the gross revenue return from the YRCC compared to outgoings was exceedingly overstated. At Council’s Ordinary Meeting of October 21, 2013, the budgeted amount of return from the YRCC was nominated as being $2,268.163 when the actual return was just $754,710.
In the private sector, such a colossal over estimation would see those responsible dismissed.
It could also be considered to be highly suspicious that such a definitive revenue forecast could be made and be presented on an official Council document without being queried at any future audit.
Council’s senior Local Government, Public Service Officers’ explanation for the massive discrepancy was that the figure quoted related to total recreation not just the YRCC. The obvious response to this would be- that as the YRCC was a purpose built facility to encompass most, if not all, recreational activities where did the massive shortfall of $1,513.453 in projected income come from?
To put this into perspective, based on the current population, every man, woman and child in the
Shire of York would have to contribute at least $600 each to accrue a return to the YRCC of $2.27 million in any given financial year- with the meaning of ‘total recreation’ the great unknown..
The second question should be- given the potential for such a discrepancy why was such an expensive project as the YRCC mooted, and then built, in the first place?
The designated Local Government, Public Service Officers acting on behalf of Council in this matter, in attendance on this date, was Mr. Ray Hooper, Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Tyhscha Cochrane, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Jacky Jurmann, Manager Planning Services and Mr. Gordon Tester, Manager – Environmental Health and Building Services. Mrs. Gail Maziuk, Projects and Senior
Finance Officer is not listed as having attended this meeting although she should have been there.
Only two of this administrative group remain as employees of Council, one being the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Tyhscha Cochrane. Although still employed, Mrs. Maziuk is no longer Projects and Senior Finance Officer and is no longer publically listed as being a senior staff member of Council.
Therefor the reason for Council wishing to contract an external expert in business, taxation and financial consulting to provide a business development management plan for the YRCC should be patently obvious.
On October 21, 2014, the then Chief Executive Officer, Michael Keeble, went on record, in writing, to say that the Guy Lehmann Report, ‘as being the business plan for the YRCC’, would be ready shortly.
This was a blatant untruth. At that time it is highly unlikely that Mr. Lehmann had commenced any tangible formal investigation into the future business direction of the YRCC. It has been alleged that required, relevant financial records were deliberately withheld from him, possibly by senior Local Government, Public Service Officers, who acted without due authority in preventing his access to this information. There may well be personal reasons for this suppression, including fear of future accountability and liability regarding past, possibly indictable offences caused through the financial mismanagement of the YRCC project as a whole.
At the Ordinary Council Meeting held on February 16, 2015, chaired by Commissioner James Best,
those in attendance were advised that Mr. Lehmann had resigned from his post because of “external pressure”. What this external pressure is should be of major concern and the subject of an external, independent investigation. External pressure, in certain circumstances, can be deemed as being ‘coercion’, a criminal offence.
At the same meeting, Mr. Best stated that Dominic Carbone and his firm Dominic Carbone and Associates would deliver the report on the YRCC as the replacement for Guy Lehmann.
The fact that Mr. Lehmann resigned from the post, obviously given to him shortly after the departure of Council’s Chief Executive Officer, Ray Hooper, on April 15, 2014, suggests that for an inordinate and inexplicable length of time he may have been prevented from exercising the terms of his contract of employment. Therefore there may be the potential for him to seek legal redress from Council for its lack of proper support. This could involve financial recompense above and beyond any payment for the services he was prevented from providing.
Mr. Best’s determination to hire, Dominic Carbone, is fundamentally flawed.
Mr. Carbone could be considered a failed Chief Executive Officer from the twice sacked City of Canning Council. This Council refused to renew his contract because of an alleged financial erratum.
His website, Dominic Carbone & Associates, states he is an Accountant and Auditor with no specified qualification in accountancy or degrees in business management and/or business planning.
Mr. Carbone is a close associate of former York Council Chief Executive Officer, Ray Hooper. Mr. Hooper is a senior Local Government, Public Service Officer who arguably failed in his Fiduciary Duty of Care to adequately ensure the financial viability and sustainability of the YRCC.
It is a logical matter of principle that a failed senior Local Government, Public Service Officer, Dominic Carbone, should not be given the responsibility of undertaking a financial management report of any kind which involves the activities of another failed senior Local Government, Public Service Officer, and a close associate. This person, Ray Hooper, is, allegedly, currently being investigated by the WA Corruption & Crime Commission.
Mr. Best states that Dominic Carbone has a detailed understanding of the YRCC. The question is why? It suggests is that Mr. Carbone’s comprehensive knowledge of the YRCC is because of his financial advice involvement in the initial research, development, final approval and construction of the YRCC, dating back to 2007. Any failures in Fiduciary Duty of Care could therefore reflect on Mr. Carbone.
Mr. Best’s assessment that Mr. Carbone has credibility in business planning is also a matter of some conjecture.
Along with Mr. Hooper, Mr. Carbone played a major role in the development of the South East Avon Voluntary Regional Organization of Councils (SEAVROC) which became the South East Avon Regional Transition Group (SEARTG).
Mr. Best may not remember but Mr. Carbone was the Executive Officer of SEARTG when it was involuntary closed down by the Minister for Local Government and Communities (DLGC).
However, in the minutes of the SEARTG final meeting of July 8, 2014 it was suggested that SEARTG had underestimated the reduction in funding provided by government. It could be assumed that as Executive Officer, Mr. Carbone, bore some responsibility for SEARTG‘s financial affairs and any deficiencies in such.
An official email regarding the GUY LEHMANN REPORT/YRCC dated March 4, 2015, from James Best, suggests he may now have withdrawn his publically stated support for Mr. Dominic Carbone and it is his intention to personally review the report and possibly complete it.
Mr. Best suggests that the report had gaps, inferring that Mr. Lehmann may have failed to fully comply with the directions given to him by Council. Due to the high probability of duplicitous actions being taken by Local Government, Public Service Officers to prevent Mr. Lehmann’s access to financial information required to make any proper business analysis, it could be considered to be a pejorative inference by Mr. Best.
Mr. Best also states that there would be a change to the liquor licencing structure inferring that the original Tavern Licence application was not justified and now found to be totally inappropriate for the amount of viable commercial usage the tavern and the attached convention centre could conceivably receive.
Mr. Best refers to the finalization of a Competitive Neutrality Plan. This is probably because, in the past, the YRCC management has openly touted for increased business by establishing such commercial enterprises as a coffee club in direct competition with local cafĂ© proprietors. This is in contravention of an official agreement signed by the senior Local Government, Public Service Officer at the time of application for a Tavern Licence, Councils’ Chief Executive Officer Mr. Ray Hooper, stating the YRCC would not attempt to attract business away from local, privately-owned, commercial enterprises.
On two occasions during the licence application process, Mr. Hooper was advised, in writing, by the Department of Racing, Gaming and Liquor (DRGL) that Councils application may be rejected because its community interest assessment was at first virtually non-existent, then un-substantive, incongruous and flawed. With hindsight, Mr. Hooper’s commitment to competitive neutrality and community interest could be considered questionable.
You would be aware of the media reports suggesting that the Premier, Colin Barnett, has serious concerns regarding the probity of Local Government including its lack of accountability, statutory compliance and the numerous suggestions of misappropriation of municipal funds.
You would also be aware that the Minister for Local Government and Communities, Tony Simpson, has admitted there are endemic and systemic weaknesses relating to basic compliance in Local Government financial management. He has called on the Auditor General to expand his role to prevent the prevalence of fraudulent misappropriation of funds and corruption, both being potentially criminal offences.
The Auditor General already has the statutory authority to investigate the fiduciary performance of Local Government, Public Services Officers.
At the York Annual Electors Meeting of February 25, 2015 electors voted not to adopt –That the 2013/14 Annual Budget for the Shire of York is received. That the Shire of York’s Annual Financial Report for the year ended June 2014, as presented, be received and That the Shire of York’s Independent Auditors Report, for the year ended June 30, 2014 be received. This is not a resounding endorsement of the abilities of those hired by Council to provide financial management services and guidance.
In addition, Council’s senior Local Government, Public Service Officers have, in the past, refused to release financial information documents referring to YRCC to a member of the public claiming that the public already had access to such information. This gives credence to the allegation that the same officers, and others, may have attempted to withhold information from Guy Lehmann.
The Freedom of Information Commissioner’s response was that not all of the requested documents are publically available. His summation therefore was that the agency (Council) was required to deal with the request for these documents. The judgement can be found in Walters and the Shire of York (2014) WAICmr 24 of December 22, 2014.
The Auditor General is quoted as being a totally independent arbiter of the performance of Local Government, Public Service Officers in their financial duties to the State and by inference, the community at large- and each individual community in particular.
I now call on the Auditor General, Mr. Colin Murphy and his staff to undertake their prescribed duty and investigate all financial matters concerning the YRCC in relation to the fiduciary performance of individual Local Public Service Officers of York Council dating back to 2007.
Given that Mr. Murphy has been requested to assist in the assuring the much needed compliance by Local Government Council’s regarding financial management issues I would hope that it is placed on public record what measures he will exercise to ensure such compliance.
Yours sincerely
David Taylor.
York Ratepayer.
Tuesday, 24 March 2015
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 4 James Plumridge
Over the last couple of days, I’ve been looking
more closely at David Morris’s Briefing Note to the Minister (see the recent
article Morris Dancing with the Mob). I’m talking about the document that revealed
Cr Pat Hooper’s role in persuading Mr Morris, and through him the Minister,
that the only way to save democracy in the Shire of York would be to suspend the
Council for at least six months.
I say ‘at least’ because I have a sneaking
suspicion that Minister Simpson has a mind to go on with the suspension for a
bit longer—say, until all we ‘passionate extremists’ have gone to our reward
and the shire is safe for a new generation of rustic despots and their
departmental overlords.
Not that Cr Hooper was the only influence on Mr
Morris, who seems to have entered more than once into secret conclave with a
couple of former councillors and two disaffected former CEOs.
Mr Morris may also have offered a receptive ear
to the grizzles of members of Shire staff irritated by that interfering wretch Shire
President Reid, who kept poking his nose into Shire business that didn’t
concern him, which of course from their perspective was pretty much all of it.
I have found no evidence that Mr Morris or his
colleagues offered a receptive ear to the complaints of President Reid about
serious improprieties in the Shire administration. President Reid was left languishing out in
the cold, where he remains to this day, wandering like a weary ghost through
the desolate streets of the town he loves.
Anyway, back to the Briefing Note, which is
proving to be a treasure trove for ‘snappers up of unconsidered trifles’
(Autolycus in Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale,
if you’re wondering).
The note doesn’t tell the full story of the
so-called ‘Probity Audit’ and its aftermath.
To find that out, we‘ll have to consult Briefing Notes E1437502 and
E1437589, which in our case we have not got and if Brad Jolly, David Morris and
their colleagues have their way we’ll never get to see.
What the note really does—all the nabobs from
the Director-General down signed off on it— is demonstrate that in the opinion of
the Department of Local Government and Communities honesty is far from being
the best policy in dealing with the Shire of York.
The Department received the Shire’s response to
the Minister’s show cause notice on 15 December 2015. Mr Morris’s briefing note is dated 22
December 2014. In effect, Mr Morris had
at the most six working days to study and discuss the response, which given its
complexity hardly seems adequate, and I’m fairly sure he would have had other
important things to think about, like his Christmas shopping. As he says, the response ‘contains a raft of
information and commentary’ (hundreds of pages of it, as I recall).
However, according to Mr Morris that
information and commentary is ‘not specifically related to the areas of concern
detailed in the original notice’. To borrow from Commissioner Best’s lexicon,
that is bullshit*, even more so than the show cause notice, which contained a
raft of spiteful untruths and was as poorly drafted as the worst document I’ve
ever seen issue from a lawyer’s office or government department.
I will go so far as to say that Mr Morris’s entire
‘analysis’, as he calls it, of the Shire’s response is bullshit. All it does is reinforce the idea, shared by
many, that the whole process of probity audit, show cause notice and suspension
was a stitch-up from start to finish.
The departmental nabobs had to find some way of
protecting their own backsides, and those of their mates in York, from the
reforming zeal of Shire President Reid. Who
knows what inconvenient truths the idiot** might have turned up, if left to his
own devices? ‘Good governance’ had bugger-all
to do with it. It was all about
self-preservation.
Significantly, Mr Morris tells the Minister
that despite the Shire’s request for an inquiry into past wrongs, ‘…the course
of action undertaken to date has been to seek to rectify current concerns and
deficiencies. It is not intended to
revisit historical issues’. You bet it
wasn’t.
Casting my mind around for historical
parallels, I’m reminded of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Admittedly, that took place on a much larger
scale, with tanks, guns, soldiers in uniform, international protest and a
student self-immolating in Wenceslas Square, but most other ingredients,
including a nest of perfidious conspirators, were present in York. And we now
have our own Gustav Husak, briefed by the Department to ‘normalise’ Shire
Council actions and procedures.
To paraphrase Karl Marx: Historical events always
occur twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. (He had to be right about something.)
·
Bullshit:
At the ‘Council’ meeting on 23 March, Mr Best denied using this word,
much to the amazement of a young woman present who had heard him thus describe
the contents of the blog. The word he
actually used, he said, was ‘pathetic’.
Did he use that word in its primary sense of exciting sympathy, or in
its modern vernacular sense of ‘miserably inadequate’? You be the judge. (I still think he said
‘bullshit’.)
** Idiot:
This is another word Mr Best has denied using, in his case to describe
contributors to the blog. I’m beginning to worry about his memory.
Priceless
Historical Document Discovered in Shire Safe
Readers with a love of history will be stunned
by the news that I have in my possession a rare copy of a priceless relic on a
par with Magna Carta, the Grand Remonstrance of 1641 and the American
Declaration of Independence.
The original is kept at the back of a locked
safe, guarded by dragons, in the Shire’s main office. My copy was made and smuggled out to me under
cover of night by—no, I can’t tell you, sorry, I won’t put innocent lives at
risk.
By now you may have guessed that what I’m
talking about is Ray Hooper’s letter of resignation from the position of Shire
of York CEO. Dated 15 April 2014, its
deathless prose has the power to stop traffic, move the bowels and bring a tear
to the eye. I find particularly
affecting the reproachful tone of the third paragraph, in which he accuses the
Council of failing to provide him ‘with a safe and secure workplace free of
fear, intimidation and denigration’. I’d
never before thought of Mr Hooper as a friend of irony.
The veiled threat of legal action in his final
paragraph is nothing short of a literary master-stroke. Pure genius, to introduce just at that point a
note of subtle humour.
You can see the letter below. Respect it, read it with reverence and attention. Tread softly, reader, because you tread on
his dreams.
FOI Notice of Estimate of Charges
STOP
PRESS
By email has arrived a rather testy letter
dated 20 March 2015 from the Department’s inimitable humorist Brad Jolly.
Headed ‘Notice of Estimate of Charges’, the
letter informs me that the total cost of providing copies of the documents I
requested through FOI would be—wait for it—$5,325. It also demands a deposit of $1331, payable
within 30 days.
I shall forward the letter to the FOI
Commissioner. It may be a sly dodge to warn
me off, keep the truth firmly under wraps and save Mr Jolly and his colleagues
from exposure and embarrassment. Or it may simply reflect the high cost of
information as a commodity subject to inflexible economic laws, to sum up: we’ve got it, you want it, we don’t want to
part with it, so if you still want it, peasant, you’re going to have to pay
through your snivelling nose.
A friend tells me that the Shire administration
is getting up to the same shameful lark with FOI enquiries about expenditure on
the Recreation Centre. Apparently the
chameleon Mr Best, who said only recently he didn’t think FOI applications
should be necessary (yes you did, James, please don’t pretend you were
misquoted), is now taking his cue from the staff and supporting outrageous
demands for payment. At least the commissioner knows who his real friends are.
Why should we have to pay for information,
particularly about the expenditure of public money, that ought to be
automatically disclosed in financial reports and freely available online to
all? Why the secrecy, if public servants
have nothing to hide?
I’m no Julian Assange or Edward Snowden. I recognize and support the need for secrecy
in matters touching on national security and diplomatic relations. But secrecy in local government? Give me a break.
Needless to say, I won’t be forking out that
kind of money, mine or anyone else’s.
But never fear: I won’t be dropping my bundle on this one. In the first stage of my application I got
only one document of real value, the one that inadvertently shed light on Cr
Hooper’s game of footsie with Mr Morris.
That alone was worth the application fee. I’ll just have to target my requests more
carefully in future.
James Plumridge
Thursday, 19 March 2015
Latest chapter in the Show Cause chronicle
click link below
http://perspicuuseboracum.blogspot.com.au/
YOU CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC…
Beware, bloggers, retribution may be at hand in
the form of a Supreme Court writ.
A person I dare not name but will gingerly refer
to as El Supremo has said that people who make personal comments on the blog
will be held accountable under the law of defamation. In other words, they will be sued.
Most of the people who contribute to the blog
do so anonymously. I find that
regrettable. I wish more contributors
would have the courage to identify themselves, and that some of the people who
contribute anonymously would take a little more care to avoid sounding like
trolls.
Don’t forget, we are the good people. We wear the white hats.
It's very hard to sue a person who writes
anonymously on the Internet. If it were
easier, the courts would be clogged for decades.
It would be difficult to sue the publisher of
this blog, because nobody seems to have the faintest idea who he is, and the
only physical address he has given us belongs to a former, fondly remembered,
Shire of York CEO. (I’d love to think he is the mysterious blogmaster, but on
balance I’m sure he isn’t.)
That leaves only the handful of brazen fools brave
enough to subscribe their names to what they write.
On this blog, the most prolific of those fools are
David Taylor and myself. Of the pair of
us, I would say that I am the more restrained, but both of us could easily be
in the firing line for legal action, depending on what the august personage
whose name I tremble to speak, or his bureaucratic friends, would count as a
personal comment.
I don’t know David, and won’t presume to speak
for him. For my part, let me say that I
don’t regard threats of litigation lightly.
Most of us are defamed at some time in our lives, but only the wealthy,
the powerful and the publicly funded can afford the luxury of dragging their
critics into court for saying rude things about them. The rest of us must simply take our lumps.
As is so often the case, the scales of justice
are tipped in favour of those who can afford to pay for it, or can prevail on
the taxpayer or ratepayer to meet the cost.
All the same, I consider such threats cowardly
and ridiculous, especially when they are made by or for people who occupy or
aspire to high office, or choose to live in the public eye. For those people, being the butt of jokes or
unkind remarks goes, as they say, with the territory. But it’s only too easy to forget, as I may
have done, how pompous and self-important such individuals can be.
People in those positions have usually enjoyed
the benefits of a good, often tertiary education and are perfectly capable of responding
personally to whatever nasty things may have been said to expose them, in the
common law phrase, to ‘hatred, ridicule or contempt’. (I’m not keen on hatred or contempt, to be
honest, but ridicule is another matter; it’s the atom bomb of the
disadvantaged.)
Alternatively, if they lack the confidence to
speak for themselves, the privileged can hire a personal ‘bugle’ in the shape
of a PR firm or ‘spin doctor’—a lot cheaper than a firm of lawyers.
If ‘important’ folk who believe their reputations
have been traduced, or just want to silence their critics, scurry off to the
Supreme Court, this may have the effect of shutting down until trial all
further discussion of whatever it was that might have brought public odium upon
them. For that reason, defamation writs used
to be known as ‘stop writs’ and for all I know may still be.
I think I’m right in saying most defamation
actions don’t go to trial. They are usually
settled out of court, and the wicked defamer silenced further, or permanently, by
a confidentiality agreement.
Until a few years ago, each state had its own
law of defamation. Apparently WA was
once the only state in which defendants could get themselves off the legal hook
by proving on the balance of probabilities that what they had said or written
was true. I believe that is now the case throughout Australia.
Another defence is to show that what you said
that gave offence, even if it turned out to be wrong, was the expression of an
honest opinion, inferred from stated facts, on a matter of public interest.
I await with trepidation the fall of the
executioner’s axe. Meanwhile, I promise I
shall ask the blogmaster to post in these pages any lawyers’ letters or court
documents I have the misfortune to receive.
And if I am to be sued, which great heaven forfend,
I remind the Dark Side that there exists a process called discovery of
documents that is a lot quicker and in the long run more comprehensive than
what can be done via FOI. No crafty
redactions allowed, unless there are national security issues at stake, which
as I always say seems highly unlikely in matters pertaining to the Shire of
York.
The law,
in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under
bridges, beg in the streets, and steal bread.
ANATOLE FRANCE
When you
got nuthin’, you got nuthin’ to lose.
BOB DYLAN
Saturday, 14 March 2015
A TRAINING WRECK AND IT'S JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG.........
Why does it come as no surprise that a recent newspaper article reports
Minister Tony Simpson saying (for him) the CCC report into local
government procurement was a 'wake-up call'.
The report called for greater external
intervention into council finances to combat 'systematic weaknesses' open to
abuse by employees, suppliers and contractors. Simpson also stated that he
backed the Commission's recent recommendation in Parliament which urged the
extension of the Auditor General's role to cover WA's 140 councils. The
specific weaknesses identified in the CCC Report had left Council's vulnerable
to fraud, corruption and misconduct.
Of course we all know of York's significant
past weaknesses (failings) but I'm not sure what is more worrying, that the CCC
(who have been established for over 10 years) have only just identified and
reported on this endemic problem or that Tony Simpson admits to being asleep
for the duration!
I'm now even more depressed than I was
before, is it no wonder James Best admits to putting out fires with blood! For
a brief moment I was starting to think I might invite him to dinner to share a
Prozac Soufflé and a nice Chianti.
So what on earth is Colin Barnett doing about one of his identified
weaknesses - Tony Simpson, a serial offender inflicted with narcolepsy and
terminal idiotitis? As if it wasn't already bad enough having to admit the
failure of the Regional Transition Group amalgamation process (which by the way
was extremely costly for all ratepayers, contrary to what we were told of the
source of funding); every time Barnett opens the door another skeleton falls
out and it certainly isn't dancing. Simmo should have received a good kick up
the backside for his continual cock-ups but somehow, I doubt he was sent away
with much more than a flea in his ear.
As this has turned out to be one very sordid mess with the potential for
big fall out, it is likely there has been a great deal more arse covering than
kicking to prevent damage to some already very tarnished reputations. Colin Barnett
will now have to be seen to openly back (defend) Tony Simpson regardless of
whether or not he condones his past or current actions. The Premier has
suffered from too many failures in recent years with many associates previously
classed as honest stalwarts having now fallen by the wayside with some more
local minions even incarcerated. So, one more whiff (or even seat sniff) of
trouble from the remainder could see him ridiculed yet again.
In the Show
Cause Notice issued to the York Council in November 2014, Minister Simpson
stated:
I hereby give
the Shire notice of my intention to make an order under section 8.15C(2) of the
Act:(a) to suspend Council; and
(b) to
require all members of Council to undertake governance training in the
responsibilities and functions of a council under the Act, such training to
focus on the statutory compliance duties of local government and to be at a
place, for a duration, and of a standard and kind determined by the
Department's Director General.
How dare
Director General, Ms Jennifer Matthews conveniently forget her own faults and
those of her Department and pass judgement on our compliance and procedures specifically at this time. This is hypocrisy at its worst or is it just cognitive dissonance?
Personally I would rather be known in life as an honest
sinner than a lying hypocrite.
I doubt any amount of training from the
dysfunctional Department of Local Government could be of benefit to York but, here
we are in the middle of March and the suspended Councillor's still await news
of the proposed dates so, why the delay?
Be under no misconception, this is probably part of
a master plan by Minister Simpson, Ms Matthews and her shoddy 'Department'. I'm
not so sure they have (or ever had) any intention to provide training to our
currently suspended Councillors or any intent to put them back in situ.
With the latest despicable actions from a maverick Councillor,
I foresee a flurry of attempts from the 'powers that be' to further discredit
and demean the remaining three (I hasten to add, well respected) Councillors. Needless to say they will have an eye on the
prize, that being to bump off Shire President Matthew Reid.
I do hope my thoughts are misspent but I will be
watching in anticipation and I suspect will many of you.
Just as I
think it can't get any worse I find another dastardly document, which further
confirms that Tony Simpson is a bigger plonker than I originally assumed.
During the discussions
of 2013, Minister Simpson identified needs for well-trained council members which was a desire shared by
WALGA. Shamefully, both parties were reviewing
this desire in relation to financial incentives and not for the purpose of
providing simple good governance to the communities.
While
there has been opportunity to come down hard on Minister Simpson I can't help
but give mention to the original instigator of our woes - Frilly Castrilli, I
sure would like to shake him firmly by the throat.
So even
though it all comes back to money, at least I now know this time the delays
can't be blamed on the lack of funding!
WESTERN
AUSTRALIA SALARIES AND
ALLOWANCES ACT 1975
DETERMINATION OF THE SALARIES AND ALLOWANCES TRIBUNAL
ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTED COUNCIL MEMBERS Pursuant to Sections 7(B)
June
2014 - Training for elected council membersAs part of the Tribunal’s 2013 inquiry, the Minister for Local Government requested that consideration be given to the possibility of providing incentives for elected council members who participate in training programs in an effort to increase the capacity of local governments to successfully deliver services to the community.
29. Advice received from the DLGC is that
$1.52m of funding ($260,000 in 2013-14) has been received as part of the
Royalties for Region program to enable the delivery of training to elected
council members of non-metropolitan local governments. The proposed training project will support country local governments to
improve governance and decision-making and upon completion, provide a pathway
into the Elected Member stream of the Diploma of Local Government provided by
WALGA. The skill set for local government elected council members is set out in
the LGA04 Local Government Training Package of the Australian Qualifications
Framework.
30. The DLGC has informed the Tribunal that training will be offered in the
first instance via two pilot programs to a limited number of elected council
members in central regional locations by 30 June 2014.
31. Given that this determination will be issued prior to the DLGC
completing its evaluation of the pilot programs, the Tribunal considered that
it was not appropriate to provide incentives or rewards for completion of
training as part of this determination.
32. The Tribunal will monitor the situation with a view to developing a
means of rewarding training as part of the framework of fees, expenses and
allowances in the next determination or sooner if the opportunity arises.
WESTERN
AUSTRALIA SALARIES AND
ALLOWANCES ACT 1975
DETERMINATION
OF THE SALARIES AND ALLOWANCES TRIBUNAL
ON LOCAL
GOVERNMENT ELECTED COUNCIL MEMBERS Pursuant to Sections 7(B)
June 2013 - Training for elected council members68. The Hon Tony Simpson, Minister for Local Government, and his predecessor asked the Tribunal to examine the issue of providing incentives for councils to be trained. The aim was to increase the capacity of council members both collectively and individually to acquit their responsibilities with a high degree of professionalism and acumen. This is an important element of the State Government’s reform initiative to increase the capacity of local governments to undertake their critical role in the governance and delivery of services to the community.
69. The desire for well-trained council members was shared by WALGA and all those in the local government sector with whom the Tribunal consulted during the course of its inquiry. Some observations regarding the need for training and some of the barriers to accessing training have been discussed above.
70. There are currently gaps in the availability, scope and recognition of training packages for council members. The Tribunal considered that at this point it was not possible to provide incentives or rewards for completion of training in the absence of widely accessible and nationally recognised training packages. The Department of Local Government is currently exploring options with training providers for the delivery of council member training within the Australian Qualifications Framework including options for online training.
71. The Tribunal will continue to monitor the situation with a view to developing a means of rewarding training as part of the framework of fees, expenses and allowances in the next determination or sooner if the opportunity arises.
 |
| Simpson & due diligence in the same sentence |
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
MORRIS DANCING WITH THE MOB James Plumridge
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…and the
councillor who feared it
In recent days, I’ve begun to receive from DLGC documents relevant to my FOI application. I’ll have a lot more to say on the subject at a later date and in another forum (the sister blog) but for the present I’d like to share with you a passage from a briefing note for the Minister included in the batch that arrived in the post today. It is dated 22 December 2014 and was prepared by that inscrutable peregrinating oracle, Mr David Morris (see copy document below).
Departmental goblins have redacted most of the
passage, whiting out a name and associated pronouns. The first sentence is the
only one not redacted. I have inserted clarifying material in square brackets
and italics to render the passage easier to follow than it might otherwise be.
Here it is:
It is
noted that remaining councillors of the Shire unanimously voted for the
adoption of the response [i.e. to the
Minister’s Show Cause Notice] at the Special Council Meeting on 11 December
2014. One of those Councillors, [Name Deleted] has provided what [he] describes as a minority report. In this report, [Name Deleted] advises that while [he] voted for the response, [he]
did not and does not agree with it. [Name Deleted]
further states that he did so [i.e. voted
for the response] due to ‘the significant public presence’ and [his] view that they [i.e. members of the public] were ‘in no
mood to hear any opposition stance to the stance that President Reid had taken’.
Here we have a councillor seemingly so
terrified of being torn to pieces by the howling, bloodthirsty mob of
passionate extremists assembled in the Town Hall on that day that he was unable
to vote in accordance with the dictates of his conscience. Tragic, eh?
As it happens, I was at that meeting. I remember being part of an orderly,
good-humoured crowd of people who (with a couple of intellectually and morally
underprivileged exceptions) had come together to give support to President
Reid. I saw nothing even faintly
resembling a raging mob ready to string up anyone refusing to toe the party
line.
The most sinister-looking individual present,
in my opinion, was a tall man in a suit with a clipboard under his arm skulking
near one of the exits. He was pointed
out to me as Mr David Morris from DLGC.
On the whole, I wouldn’t say he seemed to be of a violent disposition,
but every man has his breaking point, I suppose.
Who, I wonder, was the lily-livered dill who
wrote the so-called ‘minority report’? Fellow
citizens, did we really elect this fragile nonentity to represent us on our
shire council? In heaven’s name, what
were we thinking?
Or perhaps Councillor Name Deleted is not the
councillor I have in mind but a rather more substantial and robust personage
not in the least frightened of mob violence but itching to continue white-anting
our popular Shire President Matthew Reid as we know he had been doing all along.
What really annoys me is that, unless I’m
gravely mistaken, Mr Morris was present at that meeting and well able to judge
the peaceful mood of the crowd. Yet he
included in his briefing note Councillor Name Deleted’s deceitful, ridiculous
and cowardly statement, presumably to reinforce his recommendation to the
Minister that the Council should be suspended.
Mr Morris, you’re a very naughty boy. Sorry, no koala stamp for you.
THE MISSING BIT click to enlarge
 |
| Pat the rat talking tactics with Gail Maziuk & David Morris after Show Cause meeting |
Monday, 9 March 2015
THE REIGN OF TERROR HAS ENDED
In a recent post, I let slip a couple of
details that in hindsight could easily have betrayed the identity of a lady I
had mentioned but not named.
To my alarm, the lady in question wrote to the
Blogmaster worried that I might have exposed her to wrath and retribution from
the Shire. She explained that she had previously
suffered torments at the hands of CEO Hooper and other shire employees acting
under his direction.
Her ordeal had culminated in a court case
brought against her by the Shire. She
won her case, but the experience left her shaken and fearful of further
persecution.
In my post, I had not depicted her as doing or
saying anything to which any reasonable person could object. Even so, she was afraid she might have upset
Commissioner Best or CEO Simpson, inciting those gentlemen to take a cruel
revenge.
Was she over-reacting? Well, yes, but only up to a point.
I emailed the lady to reassure her that James
Best and Graeme Simpson are emphatically not cut from the same cloth as Ray
Hooper. However much we might disagree
with or annoy them, they are not going to deploy shire muscle to threaten us
into submission and otherwise make our lives hell.
It turned out that what had revived her
anxieties were my reports of Shire Ranger Gowerd’s visits to the home of Simon
and Heather Saint to take photos of their street windows.
I ‘m sure she wasn’t the only York resident who
on reading those reports experienced a tremor of dismay, a dark presentiment
that the curse of the House of Hooper was about to be laid on us again.
It seems that even though nearly a year has
elapsed since the shire’s nemesis fled from office, his shadow still hovers
over York. His reputation continues to frighten
residents, especially the old, frail and vulnerable who were targeted in the
past.
I have no idea who was the vindictive nincompoop
who ordered Mr Gowerd to visit the Saint’s residence not once but three times to take photos of the same
material plastered in the same order in the same windows. No, that’s not true. I do have some idea, but I’m not entirely sure,
so I’m not saying.
What I will say is that we all know the
sorcerer had his apprentices. He taught them, it seems, to believe that the task
of the Shire administration is to rule councillors and community with an iron
hand, and to cower the ‘naysayers’ and ‘troublemakers’—that is, everyone who
had the brass neck to ask embarrassing questions at council meetings—into impotent
submission.
If our shire is to pull itself out of its
present state of decay and despondency, we will need to change the inherited culture
of the shire administration and shift the balance of power from administration to
council. We must remind the people who
work for us that they are employed and paid to do the bidding of democratically
elected councillors, who in turn are answerable to us, the people who elect
them.
This means we will have to elect a strong,
intelligent and courageous Council willing to exercise its power and authority
independently and fearlessly within the confines of the law.
Can we do it?
Yes, we can—but we should start planning for it now.
Saturday, 7 March 2015
TRUTH OR DARE? James Plumridge
This
blog does not claim to be the suppository of all wisdom (apologies to PM Tony Abbott)
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‘Don’t believe everything you read in the
blog, it isn’t true.’
That’s what James Best was overheard
saying to a visiting police officer in the Shire office a day or so ago.
What does that tell us?
First, obviously, that Mr Best reads the
blog. I suspect he is one of the blog’s
most assiduous readers, as well he might be, because nary a day goes by when he
isn’t the subject of at least one post.
We all love to read about ourselves, even if what we read falls considerably short of commendation. ‘Fame is the spur, that last infirmity of noble minds’, as Milton says.
Secondly, that the blog is having an
impact. He seems worried, or at any rate
nettled by it.
Thirdly, he implies that some things in
the blog are true, though not everything.
That’s my belief too. Everyone
makes mistakes.
If Mr Best can show me that something I
post on the blog isn’t true, I will acknowledge my error and apologise for it. He doesn’t have to use the blog; if he prefers,
he can send an email to james.plumridge@gmail.com.
I dare Mr Best to start the process by pointing
out where, if at all, my recent remarks concerning cronyism in the Shire are
untrue. By the same token, if what I
wrote was true, as I have good reason
to believe, he might tell us how he proposes to deal with the issues I raised.
He might also have a go at explaining why
Simon and Heather Saint have had three visits from a Shire Ranger to take
photos of their front windows. After the
second visit, Mr Best gave Simon an explanation that as I have shown elsewhere
does not survive logical scrutiny. How
would he explain the Ranger’s visits now, especially the third?
Sometimes truthfulness is in the eye of the beholder, Mr Best, but in the instances I have cited it is not the blog that appears to have gone astray.
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