Tuesday night’s agenda contains several interesting items. We have reports from the Pools Steering Committee and the Sport and Recreation Advisory Committee. In typical Glen Eira fashion both of these so called ‘minutes’ have assumed the mantle of ‘Records of Assembly’ – meaning that one line sentences are legally the official ‘minutes’ of these meetings. For example, all we get from the Pool Steering Committee is:
“Matters considered
(i) Previous Minutes
Security over Shutdown Period
(ii) GESAC Project Update Report”
The recreation committee is a little more forthcoming with information but it still remains on the very, very scant side – ie.
“Public Questions – ground allocations
Discussion regarding public questions in relation to ground allocations and authorised and unauthorised usage. Discussions covered;
• enforcement of the Local Law,
• fencing/taping off the ovals to keep unauthorised groups off and protect the grounds,
• perceptions of conflict of interest,
• usefulness of the Local Law,
• Local Laws in other municipalities,
• distribution of the Frisbee Report,
• guidance provided to Officers in relation to the Frisbee report,
• outcomes of the Municipal Investigation in relation to matters concerning the Frisbee group, and
• whether the Local Laws needed to be changed.
Action: Officers continue to monitor the situation and the matter be considered at a future date”.
Then of course, there are the planning applications. As per usual, those which are likely to be the most contentious have the least number of notifications, yet the highest number of objections. Council obviously works on the principle of inverse relationships! Here is a table which we’ve drawn up from the various items to illustrate our point.
| 121-123 Murrumbeena Rd | 3 storey (32 units) | 18 properties notified (28 notices) | 51 objections |
| 51 Hill St | Double storey (8 units) | 12 properties notified (22 notices) | 20 objections |
| 16 Malane St | Double storey (8 units) | 9 properties notified (13 notices) | 60 objections |
There’s also a VCAT appeal where officers recommend acceptance of amended plans. The number of notifications is not listed, but there are 88 objections.
Finally a couple of interesting items from the in camera section – (1) again legal advice pertaining to the payment of ‘legal fees’, we presume, for councillors fronting the municipal inspector with their lawyers, and (2) under ‘personnel’ an item about contracts. Given that the only contract that council has control over is the CEO’s, then speculation should be rife about what’s going on here!
Glen Eira Debates 
January 28, 2011 at 4:19 PM
For christ’s sake, any reasonable person would expect that when 32 units are about to be plopped down in the middle of a busy road that this would get at least 4 times the number of notifications that 8 units in a normal residential street would. The game this mob plays is despicable. send out plenty of notices when you reckon there won’t be too many objections, and when you fear that there might be, try to cover up the whole damn lot. Then they can claim how wonderful they are and that only 2% of residents object. Watch out councillors! The dramatic rise in the number of objections everywhere is terrific. People have had a gut full of your useless planning decisions. revolution is really about to start – just in time for the next election!
January 28, 2011 at 5:06 PM
Fed Up, the latest appeals to VCAT blow the 2% figure out the window – at least for this month. Of the 26 decisions and new appeals, 10 of these involved ‘objectors’. That makes it more like 38% of applications that residents will fight. we’ll keep watch on these figures and also watch how accurately this council will report the outcomes.
January 28, 2011 at 6:20 PM
VCAT results for the past couple of months show that at least half of the appeals involved local residents. People can look up their website for themselves.
Agree with Fed Up – 2% is a total fiction and it’s only going to get worse.
January 29, 2011 at 12:45 PM
Month after month after month the public has been witness to the absolute nonsense regarding the frisbee affair and Lipshutz. Finally it’s being discussed in an advisory meeting – where not all councillors are present mind you! Here we have a pot pourri of all the issues: local law inefficiencies, conflict of interest, municipal inspectors, clear definitions of authorised and unauthorised and so on. The real tragedy of this is that it’s taken 9 months for anything resembling common sense to appear. The other part of the tragedy is that it is again being done behind closed doors, in an ‘advisory committee’ rather than local laws, or preferably in open council, etc.
Councillors – all it would take is a couple of people with balls to actually move and second a motion so that this whole farce is sorted out. Then at least the public would know exactly what is, or is not happening, and we wouldn’t have the ridiculous spectacle of public questions that are continually side stepped and not answered. This way of doing things is not governance – it’s simply ducking for cover.
January 29, 2011 at 8:53 PM
Frisbee Report??????
I have looked on the Glen Eira website and I cant find a report, I would be interested to read this one, where can it be viewed?
January 30, 2011 at 11:42 AM
I think you can get it under FoI, but if this Council was really transparent they would have the report up on the website.