Editorial: We have right to a review  

RATEPAYERS across Melbourne have a view about how much their council chief executive is paid. It is one of those perennial topics that takes on a particular pungency when rates go up. Now, one council has decided to approach the State Government to review CEOs’ salaries. 

The decision by Hobsons Bay Council sets up a debate about what constitutes a fair deal for those nonelected officials who run our councils. It seems contrary at best that Melbourne City Council’s CEO package of between $360,000 and $379,999 is more than either the prime minister or premier’s wage.

The average council CEO’s salary package is about $307,000, up almost $40,000 in four years. 

These are big packages that are designed to ensure councils attract the best people for the job. While most ratepayers understand the sentiment, they would quite rightly argue that capping a salary at even $250,000 is not likely to downgrade the position much at all. At a time when thousands of households are struggling, it is entirely appropriate that CEO salaries be reviewed. 

But to make no attempt to review the generous packages looks like a lost opportunity to help increase council accountability and transparency at the corporate level. 

Letter to the Editor: Wash excuses down drain  

GLEN Eira Council should better represent the needs of our community. The areas of Ormond and McKinnon flooded by storm water on February 4 are known flood areas. Our council should have been more proactive in preventing an inundations of this scale (‘‘Storm devastation’’, Leader, February 8).

If the contention is that Melbourne Water did not upgrade the drainage, why did Glen Eira not advocate more strongly for this to be done? Why did Glen Eira not put the drains in itself? Enough of the cost-shifting excuse. 

Why was the drain over which the Frankston railway line runs not adequately maintained? If this is not directly a Glen Eira responsibility why was it not advocating for this to be done by the responsible authority? Ironically, three days later, council contractors were blowing grass clippings into the drains just to clog them up again!

People’s lives and livelihoods have been severely impacted by this extreme event the scale of which could have been prevented with a more proactive council.

We need a council that is less obsessed with cost shifting and more interested in representing the needs of the community that it is supposed to represent.  Further, our council needs to remember that Glen Eira’s boundary extends south of North Road.