Yes, it is a pity that The Minister was not prepared to meet the Council and discuss the Council's response to the Show Cause Notice — the large file of information rebutting accusations since September re the Council as it was during that period. It is shameful that The Department and the Minister did not listen to the people who presented them with evidence of activities of the Council and some of the Officer hierarchy in the long period before the Department decided to monitor meetings.
The former South Perth Mayor was not mayor all these years; he had a range of other jobs listed as 'former' on http://www.integral.org.au/people/james-best Eleven (11) is a lot of 'former' positions for a relatively young man to have had. It remains to be seen how he fits in and how his work here turns out.
It will take a bit for York to feel that anyone, no matter how glowing his references or awards might be, can make amends for what has been done to York as a whole by this decision of the Minister. I for one still feel sad and wary, no matter how smiling the face.
Yes I agree, I thought we could trust Keeble and he turned out to be one of Ray Hoopers mates! Nice as pie until he had his contract made permanent, then he turned into a totally different person. The smiling face of Mr. Best does nothing for me. Way too many Formers - no time frames given and no achievements listed. You can be on heaps of committees, boards etc. and do bugger all! Why did he leave South Perth?
One thing we can say, Mr Best is not encumbered by false modesty.
At the end of his term of office as mayor of South Perth, as is customary, he had his portrait painted. It is a fine portrait, skilfully executed and artfully posed, though from a certain angle it makes him look like a slightly less saturnine version of Barnaby Joyce.
Mr Best, commending the portrait, told reporter Aleisha Orr (WA Today, 22 August 2012): "I wanted it to be modern, dynamic and vibrant to reflect my term in office".
Ah, the sublime egotism of early middle age! Reminds me of the great Roman orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero: 'O fortunatam natam in me consule Romam! (O lucky Rome, born when I was consul!).
Sorry Anonymous 11th January - That is not correct. ALL 6 Councillors voted to appoint Mr. Keeble. Any one of those Councillors could have asked for time to do research on Mr. Keeble, but they didn't! So please do not just blame one person for the mistake that was made.
Much of the blurb about James Best has been lifted almost word-for-word from http:/www.integral.org.au/people/james-best
I'm alarmed by the prolifieration of flaccid abstractions like 'strategic facilitation and ideation', 'cohesive and resilient organisations', 'ideation and visioning', 'community engagement and social impact assessment', 'strategic organisational communication' - I'll stop there, I'm feeling dizzy.
For many years until the advent of Matthew Reid, York residents endured a shire administration that did its best to bludgeon them into submission. Is it now the Minister's intention to have them smothered in bullshit?
I think Mr Best and Mr Jolly may have been colts in the same stable. They have the same winning smile and apparent disregard for clarity of thought and expression.
Cr Reid is reported as saying that the Minister ignored the three volumes of the Shire's response to his Show Cause Notice. I doubt that the Minister took the slightest interest in them. He knew what he was going to do before he caused the notice to be issued. He had promises to keep.
By the way, I hope I haven't written anything inappropriate.
With the time frame of the Show Cause notice and the Minister handing down the final decision, there is no way the Minister would have read the files sent to him by Matthew Reid. Don't try and tell us the Minister and his Public Servant advisor Mr. Jolly read the files during the Christmas break. I agree the Show Cause notice was simply part of the 'due process' they had to follow to make sure it 'appeared' they were doing things fairly. This whole things was a stitch up. We might live in the bush but we are not stupid.
Wasn't James Best at a December council meeting with DLG? I thought he was there Dec 15, therefore the ministers decision was made then so why read Matthews rebuttal.
James, the linguistic profanities, if I may so label those jargonous phrases you extracted from the text, would make me sick at the idea of attending any of the training run by this smiling personage with cult-aura emanating from his visage. It is making me sick already.
Basic education in sociology, philosophy, understanding of the concept of "spirit of the law" versus "letter of the law", and some simple cognitive-behavioural therapy (although tougher behaviour-modification — cattle prods were not unknown in this context, and the police do resort to tasers at times — might appeal to persons in favour of revenge) along with training in and monitoring of data-keeping, and positive reinforcement for making all data available to the public might be a tad less 'new age'.
More directly, some indoctrination in basics of moral and social responsibility, ethical communication, ethical use of tax-payers' money, honesty expressed in such a way as to not be offensive, and engaging with other citizens as having the same rights (to respect, to provide services and earn a living, to have a home and to live in peace and support their families) as themselves could perhaps be more relevant, n'est-ce pas? Also, self-awareness and caring about the impacts of what they do on other people and doing all they can to avoid negative impacts. (Here I am trying to use minimal jargon.)
Goodness this analysis and philosophising is getting tedious. But some of us have to be the fools to think of it. You are welcome to come up with a more useful educational menu if you wish.
According to the website biography of James Best, he is ‘passionate about cohesive and resilient organizations and working to ensure the future is as good as stakeholders imagine’.
Most of us bumbling York clodhoppers, as ‘stakeholders’ in our community, had imagined a very good future for the shire under a council led by Matthew Reid. We gave him overwhelming support in 2013 with the highest number of votes ever recorded for a candidate in a York council election.
How does the ‘passionate’ Mr Best propose to ensure that our future, for the next 6 months anyway, is as good as the one we had imagined?
That word ‘passionate’ worries me. As Dr Robert Solomon writes in this month’s Quadrant, it is ‘the most degraded’ of the words ‘used so often as to be jargon or travelling in that direction’. It’s only since about 2000 that people have started to boast of how passionate they are about this, that or the other thing – name almost anything you fancy, and somebody will pop up to tell you how passionate they are about it.
The word ‘passion’, from a Latin word meaning ‘suffering’, has been used for centuries to refer to the mocking, scourging and crucifixion of Christ; hence the ‘passion play’, enacted during Holy Week, and more recently a well-known movie directed by Mel Gibson.
According to Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, the word’s ‘extended sense of a strong emotion or desire’ dates from before 1250, but it’s not until 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, that it first appears as signifying ‘a strong sexual love or emotion’.
In the Middle Ages, its adjective, ‘passionate’, meant ‘angry’ or simply ‘highly emotional’, a sense it has retained. However, ‘passionate’ later acquired and has also retained the sense of ‘having intense sexual desire’, which is why you will never hear a New Zealand farmer claiming to be passionate about sheep.
Nowadays, ‘passionate’ is increasingly being used as a substitute for ‘enthusiastic’ (which derives from a Greek word meaning ‘inspired by a god’). But it hasn’t entirely lost its connotations of anger and strong sexual feeling. Whenever I encounter the word in its contemporary usage, I can’t help wondering if it signifies that somebody is going to get beaten up or well and truly screwed.
Me thinks that Mr Best has his hands full with him being Simpson's handpicked man to keep the lid on the past and then being required by law to be open and accountable and acting in the best (no pun) interests of the residents.
The DLG and the Minister are desperate to avoid scrutiny over the history of local government in York in recent years - despite their claims of monitoring etc. It is quite clear that they failed in that regard.
But the key questions are why and who? There is far more to this saga than meets the eye.
One would think that Mr Best would be making it a priority to speak with those people mentioned in the Fitzgerald report. Unless of course he just thinks they are the "troublemakers." If he is all he claims to be, I would think he would go out of his way to meet with these people and make his own judgments of them. Otherwise we can only assume he is handpicked to make it all go away. Ball is in your court Mr Best. I warn you not to wet their foot and try to tell them it's raining, as they've heard it all before.
Yes, it is a pity that The Minister was not prepared to meet the Council and discuss the Council's response to the Show Cause Notice — the large file of information rebutting accusations since September re the Council as it was during that period. It is shameful that The Department and the Minister did not listen to the people who presented them with evidence of activities of the Council and some of the Officer hierarchy in the long period before the Department decided to monitor meetings.
ReplyDeleteThe former South Perth Mayor was not mayor all these years; he had a range of other jobs listed as 'former' on http://www.integral.org.au/people/james-best
Eleven (11) is a lot of 'former' positions for a relatively young man to have had. It remains to be seen how he fits in and how his work here turns out.
It will take a bit for York to feel that anyone, no matter how glowing his references or awards might be, can make amends for what has been done to York as a whole by this decision of the Minister.
I for one still feel sad and wary, no matter how smiling the face.
Yes I agree, I thought we could trust Keeble and he turned out to be one of Ray Hoopers mates! Nice as pie until he had his contract made permanent, then he turned into a totally different person.
DeleteThe smiling face of Mr. Best does nothing for me. Way too many Formers - no time frames given and no achievements listed.
You can be on heaps of committees, boards etc. and do bugger all!
Why did he leave South Perth?
One thing we can say, Mr Best is not encumbered by false modesty.
DeleteAt the end of his term of office as mayor of South Perth, as is customary, he had his portrait painted. It is a fine portrait, skilfully executed and artfully posed, though from a certain angle it makes him look like a slightly less saturnine version of Barnaby Joyce.
Mr Best, commending the portrait, told reporter Aleisha Orr (WA Today, 22 August 2012): "I wanted it to be modern, dynamic and vibrant to reflect my term in office".
Ah, the sublime egotism of early middle age! Reminds me of the great Roman orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero: 'O fortunatam natam in me consule Romam! (O lucky Rome, born when I was consul!).
May I remind you that your Shire President, Cr Reid was the person who employed Mr Keeble!!
DeleteSorry Anonymous 11th January - That is not correct. ALL 6 Councillors voted to appoint Mr. Keeble. Any one of those Councillors could have asked for time to do research on Mr. Keeble, but they didn't!
DeleteSo please do not just blame one person for the mistake that was made.
Anon 11th Jan. was written by someone outside of York - the person refers to 'your Shire president' .
DeleteI wonder who that could be.
Much of the blurb about James Best has been lifted almost word-for-word from http:/www.integral.org.au/people/james-best
ReplyDeleteI'm alarmed by the prolifieration of flaccid abstractions like 'strategic facilitation and ideation', 'cohesive and resilient organisations', 'ideation and visioning', 'community engagement and social impact assessment', 'strategic organisational communication' - I'll stop there, I'm feeling dizzy.
For many years until the advent of Matthew Reid, York residents endured a shire administration that did its best to bludgeon them into submission. Is it now the Minister's intention to have them smothered in bullshit?
I think Mr Best and Mr Jolly may have been colts in the same stable. They have the same winning smile and apparent disregard for clarity of thought and expression.
Cr Reid is reported as saying that the Minister ignored the three volumes of the Shire's response to his Show Cause Notice. I doubt that the Minister took the slightest interest in them. He knew what he was going to do before he caused the notice to be issued. He had promises to keep.
By the way, I hope I haven't written anything inappropriate.
With the time frame of the Show Cause notice and the Minister handing down the final decision, there is no way the Minister would have read the files sent to him by Matthew Reid.
DeleteDon't try and tell us the Minister and his Public Servant advisor Mr. Jolly read the files during the Christmas break.
I agree the Show Cause notice was simply part of the 'due process' they had to follow to make sure it 'appeared' they were doing things fairly.
This whole things was a stitch up. We might live in the bush but we are not stupid.
Wasn't James Best at a December council meeting with DLG? I thought he was there Dec 15, therefore the ministers decision was made then so why read Matthews rebuttal.
DeleteJames, the linguistic profanities, if I may so label those jargonous phrases you extracted from the text, would make me sick at the idea of attending any of the training run by this smiling personage with cult-aura emanating from his visage. It is making me sick already.
ReplyDeleteBasic education in sociology, philosophy, understanding of the concept of "spirit of the law" versus "letter of the law", and some simple cognitive-behavioural therapy (although tougher behaviour-modification — cattle prods were not unknown in this context, and the police do resort to tasers at times — might appeal to persons in favour of revenge) along with training in and monitoring of data-keeping, and positive reinforcement for making all data available to the public might be a tad less 'new age'.
More directly, some indoctrination in basics of moral and social responsibility, ethical communication, ethical use of tax-payers' money, honesty expressed in such a way as to not be offensive, and engaging with other citizens as having the same rights (to respect, to provide services and earn a living, to have a home and to live in peace and support their families) as themselves could perhaps be more relevant, n'est-ce pas? Also, self-awareness and caring about the impacts of what they do on other people and doing all they can to avoid negative impacts. (Here I am trying to use minimal jargon.)
Goodness this analysis and philosophising is getting tedious. But some of us have to be the fools to think of it. You are welcome to come up with a more useful educational menu if you wish.
So what exactly are you saying?
ReplyDeleteAccording to the website biography of James Best, he is ‘passionate about cohesive and resilient organizations and working to ensure the future is as good as stakeholders imagine’.
ReplyDeleteMost of us bumbling York clodhoppers, as ‘stakeholders’ in our community, had imagined a very good future for the shire under a council led by Matthew Reid. We gave him overwhelming support in 2013 with the highest number of votes ever recorded for a candidate in a York council election.
How does the ‘passionate’ Mr Best propose to ensure that our future, for the next 6 months anyway, is as good as the one we had imagined?
That word ‘passionate’ worries me. As Dr Robert Solomon writes in this month’s Quadrant, it is ‘the most degraded’ of the words ‘used so often as to be jargon or travelling in that direction’. It’s only since about 2000 that people have started to boast of how passionate they are about this, that or the other thing – name almost anything you fancy, and somebody will pop up to tell you how passionate they are about it.
The word ‘passion’, from a Latin word meaning ‘suffering’, has been used for centuries to refer to the mocking, scourging and crucifixion of Christ; hence the ‘passion play’, enacted during Holy Week, and more recently a well-known movie directed by Mel Gibson.
According to Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, the word’s ‘extended sense of a strong emotion or desire’ dates from before 1250, but it’s not until 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, that it first appears as signifying ‘a strong sexual love or emotion’.
In the Middle Ages, its adjective, ‘passionate’, meant ‘angry’ or simply ‘highly emotional’, a sense it has retained. However, ‘passionate’ later acquired and has also retained the sense of ‘having intense sexual desire’, which is why you will never hear a New Zealand farmer claiming to be passionate about sheep.
Nowadays, ‘passionate’ is increasingly being used as a substitute for ‘enthusiastic’ (which derives from a Greek word meaning ‘inspired by a god’). But it hasn’t entirely lost its connotations of anger and strong sexual feeling. Whenever I encounter the word in its contemporary usage, I can’t help wondering if it signifies that somebody is going to get beaten up or well and truly screwed.
Maybe both beaten up and screwed.
DeleteMe thinks that Mr Best has his hands full with him being Simpson's handpicked man to keep the lid on the past and then being required by law to be open and accountable and acting in the best (no pun) interests of the residents.
ReplyDeleteThe DLG and the Minister are desperate to avoid scrutiny over the history of local government in York in recent years - despite their claims of monitoring etc. It is quite clear that they failed in that regard.
But the key questions are why and who? There is far more to this saga than meets the eye.
One would think that Mr Best would be making it a priority to speak with those people mentioned in the Fitzgerald report. Unless of course he just thinks they are the "troublemakers." If he is all he claims to be, I would think he would go out of his way to meet with these people and make his own judgments of them. Otherwise we can only assume he is handpicked to make it all go away. Ball is in your court Mr Best.
ReplyDeleteI warn you not to wet their foot and try to tell them it's raining, as they've heard it all before.