YULETIDE IN YORK

The Festive Season is almost upon us when families gather together in unity and harmony. In many ways the community of York is a family and needs to stand united as it faces up to 2017.

In 2016 much unfavourable comment was made about Ray Hooper, Pat Hooper, Tony Boyle, Mark Duperouzel, Tyhscha Cochrane, Gail Maziuk, Jacky Jurmann, Graeme Simpson, Tony Simpson, Brad Jolly, Jennifer Matthews and James Best. Mia Davies, the Local Member, was noted as being in constant, agoraphobic absentia when most needed by the community regarding a rubbish dump.

The complete list of the destructive or inept is too long to mention. Most of them have gone and maybe it is time to stop mentioning them. What they have done to York is well known by those who want to know and those who are their friends will always be non-believers.

There is little good reason to help turn current community pariahs into future martyrs. That is unless a new scandal erupts with subpoenas issued for some more naming and shaming over document tampering.

Occasionally there will be incredulous reflection on other past Shire Council buffoonery instigated by some of those mentioned above. They include such lasting legacies of incompetent property portfolio management as the extension of a lease agreement until 2037 that could only proceed with Ministerial approval that was never sought- or having no lease agreements at all- including the York Golf Club. Most will have financial and legal ramifications.

So the murky fiscal swamp this group has created may take much time and money to drain. York is going to have to survive and attempt to thrive in a morass for a few years to come.

We now have what many thought was the full list of potentially positive game-changers, Paul Martin, Suzie Haslehurst, Paul Crewe and Esmerelda Harmer. Three have strong backgrounds in the local government industry, although this certainly does not automatically guarantee success in re-creating a rural utopia.

Yet given their past reputations it has become more and more difficult to understand why additional senior staff support is required by them. In addition, in the Shire of York Policy Manual under G 4.5, Asset Management, it nominated the Shire’s Works Manager as its ultimate authority/ asset management officer responsible under the Local Government Act, 1995, Section 56.1, Local Government (Administration) Regulations and under the DLGC’s Integrated Planning and Reporting Advisory Standard for York community assets.

This official document was dated January 28, 2016, and was not due to be reviewed until after the Local Government Elections on the third Saturday in October, 2017, by York’s incoming Council.

So just 10 months ago the Works & Services Manager, Allan Rourke, was the ultimate authority overseeing asset management for a further 11 months. What has changed, especially in areas where it could be considered to be asset management recovery, strategy and planning over-kill? Therefore the question had to be asked-why?

The Shire Administration’s informative response is that it ‘does not understand what assets it has’, ‘what condition they are in’ and how much they will ‘cost to maintain’, meaning it is unable to accurately determine any assets’ ‘long term financial sustainability’. It is an extremely serious admission with the possibility that York, as long suspected, has a large, drastic financial risk- Asset Register. (Given this, there can be no viable asset management strategy and planning scheme ready for implementation.)

Its remedy is to employ an Asset Management Officer under a three-year contract to join the team that is already in place, call it a sensible use of the Shire’s limited resources and deny this is empire building.  It is assumed that the ‘team’ mentioned as already in place is Paul Martin, Suzie Haslehurst and Paul Crewe, although this is yet to be confirmed.

The Shire will award a three-year contract as it envisages it will take that length of time just to develop detailed asset management plans, tending to suggest these years will be tough years needing four, maybe more, experts to get any sort of result.

Those who still believe that the asset management team was to be the three amigo’s, sans the officer position, but including the Works Manager, would like to know exactly when, where, how,  why, by whom and by whose ultimate authority was the decision made to create this additional position?

Mr. Martin openly admits that it was his recommendation to Council that, rather than engaging
consultants, an Asset Management Officer should be employed to do this work. He also claims that Council endorsed the asset management organizational review and the ‘officer’ recommendation.

This is the same Council that approved, Allan Rourke, as the asset management officer, being part of his other duties, at the beginning of this year. And it is the same CEO to whom it was suggested that undergraduates, studying an appropriate syllabus at local Universities, could be used to review such matters as part of an education/local government cooperative program.

Mr. Martin says that all decisions can be viewed on the Shire’s website and it is assumed that the curriculum vitae, demanded by the Shire from Asset Management Officer Applicants, are also easily located on this site. That is assuming the files are available for viewing?

Others would like to know where they can readily access the Shire’s current Strategic Community and Corporate Business Plans so they can now peruse the content in greater depth.  (An online search is greeted by ‘this file cannot be found’.)

Obviously York’s future asset ascertaining officer must have a national industry recognized qualification, the minimum being a Graduate Certificate in Asset Management or a Graduate Diploma in Asset Management with at least five-year’s experience in a similar role prior to be chosen for this ‘make-or- break’ appointment. (This should be the community expectation regarding qualifications for the role.)

The Shire claims the officer will focus on ‘capturing’ all of York’s assets, although no-one was aware that one had escaped and is hiding in a backyard at Meckering.

The Shire assures the York community that most local governments have a designated, full time
Asset Management Officer. This can be easily confirmed by contacting other Wheatbelt Shire’s such as Merredin, Dalwallinu, Dowerin, Toodyay, Goomalling, Mukinbudin, Narembeen, Morawa, Pingelly, Tammin, Wagin, Wickepin, Wyalkatchem and Kellerberrin and talk to their Asset Management Officer.

It is highly unlikely that many, even any, of these shires have the financial capacity to employ a stand-alone Asset Management Officer with nothing to do but chase and capture assets because, like York, they have limited resources.

When you read any of the dwindling lists of advertised employment opportunities in WA you will find a universal requirement. Auto technicians, chemist assistants, store persons, concierges, bar staff, wait persons and bottle shop managers all must have strong, excellent, or fantastic communications skills as a number one priority.

Certainly with the Shire of York and many other rural council administrations communication skills is neither a featured priority nor a recognized necessity, particular if it involves regular, transparent communication with the community about what is actually happening within the shire. (Community ignorance is bliss according to far-too-many local government officers.)

Those who are without strong, excellent or fantastic communication skills should not attempt to use a too descriptive term to answer a question- describe employment activities- or diffuse situations- as it can be confusing and is certainly inordinately ridiculous. The impressively expressive unskilled communications term ‘capturing assets’ comes straight from the Local Government ‘Wanka-Pedia website.

Within the Shire of York Administration, Communications appears to be a ‘C’ word- never to be used.

The closest position description, encapsulating external communications within the employment profile for any new management staff is that of, Suzie Haslehurst, being in charge of ‘Information Technology’. This mainly consists of a website, which allegedly delivers clear, concise, important and easily accessible information on a well- constructed, quality, and interesting public platform.

It should also include an efficient electronic data-base, official document storage and retrieval system that the Shire did not have 18-months ago when it was found, through a DLGC investigation, to be non-compliant with sections of the State Records Act, 2000.

Unfortunately the Shire of York’s website is an abomination for such an important, historic town. It reflects poorly on its senior management’s intent to-and involvement in- the provision of quality promotional outcomes and suggests that the current commitment by the shire to communicate with its own community and the rest of the world -is amateurish at best.
 
It should also be considered to be rather offensive and demeaning to its ratepayers.

Amid the dilapidated roads, footpaths, drains, open space and buildings, Information Technology is also classed as an Asset by the DLGC. Maybe it is one of the assets the new Asset Management Officer needs to capture and rapidly strategize and plan to use effectively.

Running down roads hunting for assets to capture is important, albeit a reactive process caused by obviously incalculable, past neglect that will generate no immediate, new, income stream potential.

Communications is a pro-active response that can provide, through renewed awareness, promotion and marketing tools for new and improved local business opportunities.

The WA Tourism Council has called for the winner of the next State Election to guarantee at least $80 million to destination tourism, one of the few investment growth opportunities in this State.

Expenditure on area promotion and festivals related to the annual $ 8 billion WA Tourism Industry by the Shire of York is less than $50,000 in this financial year-or about 0.5 per cent of its projected, overall annual income.

Within the senior ranks of York’s administration not one has a position description that encompasses and recognizes the extremely important assets that communications and tourism are and the positive end result they can provide.

Instead of hanging the dedicated  York Tourist Information Bureau office staff out to dry, trying to  capture a share of a market that is far more complex than finding local physical assets, the Shire of York should engage communications experts to plan, promote, market and sell York to the world in a timely manner. This could take 12-months but certainly not 3-years.

Instead York will get the great white asset hunter to join the elite crew. (By the way the War Memorial Krupp gun is an asset and the proposed Equine Centre at the York Race track was mooted at least 10-years ago but is still a 4-year plan in the making.)

David Taylor