NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 8 James Plumridge

Incorporating Negativity Times, The Line-in-the-Sand Review, The Persona Non Grata Gazette and The Freedom from Information Record

You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God, the Aussie journalist…

Readers, I have discovered to my amazement that there may be important people in York who take this blog seriously. 

Let me explain.

A week or so back, I heard a rumour that the Shire has employed a journalist to help it counter the blog’s baleful influence over the minds of of its thousands of readers around the globe.

The rumour started up at Commissioner Best’s Strength of Community meeting on 22 April.  I’m told it was the Commissioner himself who set it going.   The journalist’s job will be, in the Commissioner’s words, ‘to report on all the wonderful things that are happening in York’. 

That’s good news.  The blog needs competition to keep it fit and trim and on its toes.

Before long, the rumour changed.   It now suggested that the Shire had entered into a clandestine arrangement with the proprietor of a local newspaper. According to this arrangement, the paper would become a twice-monthly bugle for the Shire in exchange for extra paid advertising.

In its latest version, however, the rumour has taken a sinister turn.  It suggests that whatever they may write on the Shire’s behalf, the Shire’s media hirelings have received instructions to deny us bloggers and other dissidents a right of reply.

Of course, we could and would reply in the blog.  But that wouldn’t have the same force as a response published in the same prestigious journal as the statement that has prompted the response.

With the Blogmaster’s blessing, I have more than once invited opposing voices to take advantage of the hospitality of these pages.  It’s always been my hope that Commissioner Best in particular would use the blog to contest in vigorous debate our views on Shire-based topics of the day. 

That invitation remains open.  I think it should be reciprocated.

Especially considering that we ‘passionate extremists’, along with other ratepayers, would be paying for the Shire’s bold venture into advertorial journalism.

If the rumour is true, and the venture does go ahead with dissent excluded, I suggest the newspaper in question should change its name to Pravda. There’s nothing like irony to give your propaganda a touch of class.

The Misfortunes of Ms B—the saga rolls on

 A fortnight ago, in Notes from Underground 7, I recounted the distressing tale of Ms B, who was promised a refund of interest charges and legal costs by a resolution of the Shire Council before it was suspended, only to see Acting CEO Simpson try to snatch her prize away by recommending that the Commissioner revoke the resolution.

To recapitulate, in October 2014 the Shire voted by resolution 111014 to refund to Ms B interest charges and legal costs totalling $3014.44 and a further $800 for legal costs.  This decision broadly accorded with recommendations made by the rates officer and then Acting CEO Michael Keeble.

The Shire paid the $800 to Ms B, but not the balance of $3014.44.

Enter Acting CEO Graeme Simpson, who in the briefing papers for the April Council meeting sought ‘the Commissioner’s approval…to revoke Council Resolution 111014’.  It‘s my understanding that only Council can revoke a Council resolution.  

The Commissioner is currently the Council.  Mr. Simpson’s recommendation should therefore have read ‘That the Commissioner resolve to revoke Council Resolution 111014’ or something like that.  I don’t believe the Acting CEO himself has the power to revoke the resolution, with or without the Commissioner’s approval. 

Leaving that aside, we have a clear issue of principle.  The York Shire Council promised to refund a sum of money to Ms B.  It hasn’t done so.  The Council that made that decision was an elected body. 

Commissioner Best, with all his talents and virtues, is not an elected official.  The Minister, acting on very dubious advice from his department, imposed him on us.  I do not say that as a reflection on Commissioner Best.

I’m beginning to realise that before taking up his role in York Mr. Best received mischievously inaccurate briefings from the Minister’s advisers.  One day, inshallah, the full story will be told.

As a matter of tact, decency and commonsense the Commissioner should give effect to resolution 111014 and refund the money outstanding to Ms B.  Otherwise, he should defer the matter for consideration by the next elected Council.  He should ignore Acting CEO Simpson’s recommendation altogether.

Since I wrote my previous article, further information has come to light that reinforces that advice.  Here’s a summary.

Ms B’s financial difficulties had resulted in a mortgagee sale of her property.  One issue complicating her situation vis-à-vis the Shire was whether or not the mortgagee, a well-known bank, had an interest in funds the Shire might repay her. 

On 23 October 2014, Acting CEO Michael Keeble wrote to the mortgagee’s solicitors asking if the mortgagee had an interest in funds amounting to $3014.44 that had been charged against the rates account for Ms B’s former property.  Notice that he does not say the amount in question related to rates, merely that it had been charged to the rates account.

In their reply dated 30 December 2014, the mortgagee’s solicitors confirmed their client had no such interest.

On 22 January 2015, Acting CEO Simpson wrote to Ms B to tell her the mortgagee had confirmed that ‘it does not have an interest in the issue of funds being paid to you’.  He added that he was now ‘seeking a ruling on the legality of the Council decision’ from the Department of Local Government.

On 5 February 2014, the Acting CEO wrote again to Ms B saying that he had ‘exhausted the research’ into her request for a refund of moneys in relation to her former property.  He alleged that money Ms B owed to the Shire was ‘equal to the outstanding debt that remained with the land’.

He also described the Council’s resolution to refund money to Ms B as ‘non-compliant’.  He does not say how it was non-compliant i.e. with what provision of any act or regulation.  He should have provided chapter and verse, so that Ms B could check for herself if his statement was true.

It turned out the Acting CEO was jumping the gun.  On 6 February 2015, Minister Simpson wrote to Ms B confirming the legality of the proposed refund.  He said his Department, in response to a letter dated 21 January from the Shire,

…had advised the Shire that it would be reasonable for the refund to be apportioned in proportion to the amount of interest and legal costs that you and the bank paid respectively.  However, if the [bank] confirms in writing that the full refund should be paid to you, then the Shire should refund the monies [sic] to you.  I note from the information that you provided, the [bank] has advised the Shire that the monies can be distributed to you and it is assumed that the Shire will now action this accordingly.

The Minister goes on to say that he and his department can’t direct the Shire, so Ms B had better continue talking to the Acting CEO.

We may wonder why the matter didn’t end there, with a payment being made to Ms B as authorised by the former Council and approved by the Minister.  We may also wonder why the Shire continues to devote so much time and energy to obstructing Ms B’s attempts to obtain what the legitimate Council had promised her.  

It’s now three months since the Minister said it was OK for the money to be paid. The Shire’s efforts to date to avoid paying Ms B must have cost at least as much as the money owed.

The answer may lie not with CEO Simpson but with one or more of his ‘exemplary employees’.  It has to be said that Ms B is an outspoken, sometimes combative individual. I’m told she has a talent for upsetting officialdom.  It is possible she has alienated somebody who dislikes her intensely and is in a position to pull the Acting CEO’s strings.  By all accounts, that is not an unlikely scenario and would not be a first for the Shire of York.