We’re conducting some online research and need your help. We specifically want to know the following:
•How do you rate the outcomes of your formal interactions (ie. submissions, public questions) with council?
•Were your questions/submissions adequately responded to? Were they acted upon?
•Were the responses relevant, accurate, and enlightening?
Below are a list of names. These are people who have had direct interaction with council via public questions and submissions. If you know anyone on the list please alert them to this research. Yours and their feedback is important. We can be contacted via gedebates@gmail.com
Glen Eira Debates 
November 13, 2010 at 11:37 PM
We received the following email which we copy here:
“About two weeks ago I sent an email to all three Tucker Ward councillors. Two councillors responded within days, promising to follow up on my concerns. Cr. Magee has not responded.
I realise that councillors must receive many emails and phone calls from residents and that they are incredibly busy. Still, I think that simply out of courtesy, emails and requests for assistance should be answered. A simple statement saying thank you for your email isn’t that much to ask for.
Since my issue was about the lack of communication between council and residents Cr. Magee’s silence only confirms that there is cause for concern.”
November 15, 2010 at 11:48 PM
every time l write a letter to councillors and or council officers I do not receive an answer but rather a statement of what usually happens without attention to the question at hand!
November 16, 2010 at 2:27 PM
The responses I receive to my public questions are pathetic, disgraceful and, either unprofessional or incompetent, take your pick.
They will always (99% of the time) dodge the real question at hand and just answer some little off shoot you might make reference too, and then claim this is an appropriate answer so when you ask the same question again they with counter claim, “We have already answered your question” when in actual fact they have answered nothing but a mere appendage of the main question.
I have asked questions that are specifically designed so they can only be answered with a Yes or No, do you reckon I get that? You guessed it just typical political waffle that avoids the point at hand.
I have asked a dozen times to Cr Tang “Are you mates with the Frisbee group”, I know the answer because he gave it to me at a meeting with him on the 14th April, but I want everyone else to hear the answer so they can see for themselves what is really going on. The official response in the Council minutes are:
“S.T (Steven Tang) – Knows members of this group.”
Yet when I ask this he responds with I can’t remember the question, you don’t have to remember the question because I have just asked it again for the 10th time, so then just answer it honestly like you have heard it for the first time!
I have asked Cr Lipshutz if his son plays in the Frisbee group (that’s the groups that does not require a permit to play every week whilst our group does, this is not verbal, I have it in writing from the Council) The answer is “It is has nothing to do with Council business” and the question is “vague and imprecise” Can you believe this answer, vague and imprecise, what is vague and imprecise about the question apart from the fact it will expose some very very very questionable behaviour from Councillors. The most annoying part about it is none of the other Councillors pipe up and say “C’mon mate answer the question, it’s as simple as can be” They all know the answer but they all refuse to say anything WHY?
Not related to Council business hey? Interesting……….
The quicker they answer my questions with the truth, the quicker I stop asking them.
You can’t claim someone is asking repeated questions when you have not even answer the first question!
They have now tried to “gag me” with this new vexatious rule they are about to bring in where they you wont even see my questions now. How convenient, something might get exposed so we’ll just chuck the question in the “never to be seen again bin”
Good system, that will solve the problem.
November 17, 2010 at 11:14 PM
I have asked 2 public questions so far, although I’ve been tempted to ask many more, as there is much about Council’s performance that needs explanation.
The first question was around public participation in reviewing the MSS (Clause 21 of GEPS), because at the time Council was reviewing it without seeking public submissions. The response outlined the overall process, in which only if Council sought to change the MSS would the public have an opportunity to make a submission, to the Panel convened to consider Council’s proposed changes.
I was concerned at the time because GEPS had been used to justify several controversial decisions, and I was particularly annoyed at many of the matters it contained related to the Urban Villages policy. While the corruption involved in the changes to suburb boundaries in 1999 is a matter of history (Carnegie wasn’t big enough to meet the Government’s definition of a major activity centre, so the boundaries were expanded), the consequences of the Urban Villages policy are with us every day.
The second question was around car parking standards, covering pedestrian sightlines and gradients, for accessways to basement carparks of the multi-storey medium density developments that council officers have been assiduously promoting. Council identified (correctly) that GEPS contains many decision criteria, but failed to note that only AS/NZS 2890.1:2004 addresses pedestrian safety. Essentially Glen Eira has no standards for access to basement car parking of multi-unit developments, and our council has rejected almost in its entirety the contents of the Australian Standard, which is specified in Clause 52.06. It is left to council officers to decide each application “on the individual merits of a proposal”. Council did gratuitously add “Under no circumstances are variations to standards allowed if they compromise safety”.
This question was prompted by recent developments in Rosstown Road. One completed development has only a 60cm x 50cm sightline, which falls well short of the Standard’s 2.5m x 2.5m, and also fails to provide a slope of 1:20 for the first 6m from the property boundary. The sightlines don’t match the drawings submitted in support of their application either. A recent application had slightly more onerous conditions placed up on it by Council. The applicant complained because the conditions would affect profitability, so Council consented to removing a constraint on the gradient of the accessway. The applicant’s revised drawings continued to show *no* sightline on the western side of the driveway where a 1.8m brick wall obscures the proposed view of drivers and pedestrians. Council’s decision was made without establishing what the increase in risk of such a compromised design was. Pedestrians in the future will have to negotiate many of these blind spots as they walk around Carnegie Major Activity Centre.