From today’s Caulfield Leader. Stories by Jenny Ling –
GLEN Eira Council has ranked lower than its fellow city councils in the latest Local Government Victoria survey. The 2011 community satisfaction survey asked 28,000 residents across 77 councils to rate their council’s performance. The data showed that though Glen Eira rated higher or similar to all Victorian councils in overall performance, advocacy, community engagement and customer contact, it didn’t fare so well compared with its fellow metropolitan councils.
Glen Eira achieved a score of 69 per cent for overall performance. The average for metropolitan councils — Baysid e ,Yarra, Stonnington, Kingston, Melbourne, Monash, Port Phillip, Moreland, Boorondara, Darebin, Hobsons Bay, Maroondah, Moonee Valley, Banyule, Whitehorse and Glen Eira – was 85 per cent. For advocacy, which covers the representation of the community’s interests, Glen Eira rated 64 per cent compared with the Melbourne average of 77 per cent. Glen Eira rated 62 per cent for community engagement compared to t he metropolitan councils’ 71 per cent average, while local customer contact was 77 per cent compared with 80 per cent.
Glen Eira Residents Association president Don Dunstan said there needed to be more transparency and open governance in Glen Eira. ‘‘The core problem is the way council meetings are run,’’ Mr Dunstan said. Glen Eira Mayor Margaret Esakoff said ‘‘given the survey was taken at the same time as severe flooding (February) and the bin downsizing, it is a good outcome for Glen Eira’’.
Victorian Local Government Minister Jeanette Powell urged councils to analyse the ratings to see where improvements were needed.
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Libs on back foot
THE Liberal Party has backflipped on the contentious $1 billion Caulfield Village development faster than a Bart Cummings champion. Planning Minister Matthew Guy and Caulfield MP David Southwick applauded the project which will attract 2000 residents and create 35,000sq m of office and retail space on 5ha around the racecourse when they announced its approval on Tuesday.
In October, Mr Southwick said it would cause traffic congestion, anti-social behaviour and parking problems, and pledged to stop the ‘‘ monstrosity’’ that would ‘‘ destroy Caulfield’s amenities and identity’’ with a postcard petition to households in the electorate. Mr Guy, then Opposition planning spokesman, echoed Mr Southwick’s pledge. Mr Southwick said there were several concerns which he ‘‘made very clear’’. ‘‘It was important for me to be on the front foot and be involved in negotiations with Glen Eira (council) and residents,’’ he said. ‘‘The main issue I had was open space . . . being able to get a win for the city.’’
Glen Eira Council approved the plans with height restrictions in April, capping buildings in the Smith St precinct at 20 storeys. Mayor Margaret Esakoff said Caulfield Village would provide the community with a range of housing options close to transport and facilities. ‘‘The wider community will also be able to enjoy the improved open space and recreational areas in the centre of the racecourse,’’ she said.
Glen Eira Residents’ Association president Don Dunstan said there was no provision for carparking and no amenities being provided for the thousands of people who will live there. ‘‘And this is the right thing for a suburb? I don’t think so,’’ he said.
COMMENT: This is now the second time that The Leader has taken a pot shot at Southwick. Whilst his backflip is undeniable, and the criticism is justified, good balanced reporting might also have commented on the role played by this council and its ‘gang of four’. We suggest that if all the facts are being presented then Lipshutz, Esakoff, Hyams and Pilling should also come in for their equal share of criticism!
Glen Eira Debates 
July 5, 2011 at 11:11 AM
Hells bells. If this is a “good outcome” then sure would hate to see a rotten one. Esakoff can kid herself all she likes and she can spruik the Burke propaganda all she likes but no one will believe it. Floods were there for sure, but seems like she’s forgotten all about the C60, Packer park, tons and tons of developments like 14 stories in Glen Huntly road and all the other rotten decisions she’s been part of. Mustn’t forget the childcare stuff either and the continual rate rises. This council has totally forgotten its people. It’s priorities are to help developers and others with vested interests.
July 5, 2011 at 11:41 AM
Margaret Esakoff said ‘‘given the survey was taken at the same time as severe flooding (February) and the bin downsizing, it is a good outcome for Glen Eira’’. Esakoff’s complicity and I might add intelligence really worries me with the above statement. Here we were, the poor unsuspecting public, being led to believe that bin down sizing was the saviour of Glen Eira. Everyone thought it was a fabulous idea since it would save the environment, cost people less and so on. Now all of a sudden it’s become the bogey man that has caused the popularity rating of council to hit rock bottom. Come on Esakoff, you can’t have it both ways. Either it’s supported, or it’s not. This just shows us once again the appalling spin that comes out of this administration (because I don’t for one moment believe that Esakoff wrote these words) and the consistent attempts to camouflage all forms of failure and neglect.
The stats are on the board. People are realising exactly what’s going on and they are far from happy. The sooner councillors wake up then maybe, just maybe, there might be some changes. This had better be quick smart too, because Esakoff, Hyams, Lipshutz, Tang and Pilling have only got 18 months to smarten up and start acting like they give a damn about their constituents. For me, they’ve done their dash already and nothing on earth can save them.
July 5, 2011 at 1:05 PM
The Leader’s story was incorrect. They inadvertently compared the indexed mean figures for Glen Eira with the combined figures for excellent, good and adequate for the other councils in Glen Eira’s group. Where Glen Eira scored 69 in the indexed mean figure, the average of our group was 68. Where the other councils in the group scored 85 in the combined numbers of those who rated them excellent, good or adequate, the figure for Glen Eira was 86. I will leave it to your readers to determine whether a satisfaction rating of 86% is a good outcome, as the Mayor said. We were also equal to or better than the average for each other criteria. The survey is available on the Glen Eira website. The Leader has now printed a more correct version of the article on its website. You should replace the version you have with the newer version too.
Where the newer version states, “The State Government provided a percentage score for the inner-metropolitan councils, with the inner-metropolitan group ranking 85 per cent for overall performance, 77 per cent for advocacy, 71 per cent for community engagement and 80 per cent for customer contact, ” the comparative figures for Glen Eira were respectively 86, 80, 71 and 84.
Just on a couple of the above anonymous comments, Council didn’t allow a 14 storey development on Glen Huntly Road. We knocked it down to 7. Council has expanded the open space in Packer Park by buying and demolishing houses and returning the bowling green to parkland. The bin down-sizing has been popular, but it did increase wait times at our call centre, which is what the Mayor was referring to.
July 5, 2011 at 2:30 PM
Hi Jamie,
What you are saying is fair and reasonable and I think most people would agree with you.
However I consider it a bit rich and hypocritical coming from you because quite simply you are not practicing what you are preaching. You printed a smart alec, rude and incorrect answer to a public question of mine from the last council meeting.
You have recently sent an apology trying to explain why you were incorrect.
Well I don’t see you taking your own advice by putting up the correct version or answer on the Council minutes.
Do you think this is a fair point or comment?
July 6, 2011 at 11:42 AM
I agree with you Nick that most people would think what I have said is fair and reasonable, but, as you can see from the comments below, those on this blog are not “most people”, and I note that you’re the only one who doesn’t feel the need to hide behind a pseudonym or an anonymous. However, given the tone and content of many of your communications and public questions, I’m surprised you would accuse anyone of being smart alec, rude or incorrect.
Your public question was taken on notice and the answer to it will be included in subsequent minutes.
July 7, 2011 at 9:38 AM
Hi Jamie,
I’m happy to cop that about smart alec, I have no problem with that at all. But I have just had a gutful of your gang’s constant crap of giving me meaningless answers and just fobbing me off. You and I both know how you collude and try to work out the best way to answer the question. How about you just answer the question openly and transparently with no collusion, they way its suppose to be done.
I can tell you one thing though I’ve learnt from the best, and I only ever treat people the way they treat me, and over the last few years your gang has treated me and my group like a piece of S**T.
But I will not accept the part about being incorrect, the facts and evidence are stacked against you on this one, you all know it inside too but you will never admit you got this one wrong.
I have not met or spoken with one person who agrees with you, how about trying something simple and basic like going to your own Sports and Recreation department and ask them this simple question.
“Is Nick wrong on this Frisbee issue”
Why you ignore you own Sports and Recreation department’s advice and how your gang can argue against a black and white law is just beyond me.
You know when some of your fellow Councillors are saying that you have stuffed up, then you know you have stuffed up!
July 5, 2011 at 2:12 PM
Looks like Sir Galahad has come to the rescue of his fair maiden once again. You are right in one thing Cr. Hyams – you knocked down a 14 storey application to 10 storeys and VCAT not seeing much difference approved the original 14. As for the figures they do tell a different story to the one you insist on perpetrating. How about comparing figures from last year to this and using simple indexed means. What these figures show, without a shadow of a doubt, is that we, the public, have been far from satisfied in so many vital areas. Here they are:
Advocacy in 2010 was 67 – in 2011 down to 64
Engagement in decision making in 2010 63 – in 2011 down to 62
Overall performance in key areas in 2010 was 70 and in 2011 down to 68
Traffic management & parking in 2010 was 62 and in 2011 down to 58
Town planning in 2010 was 60. It’s now down to 56.
Great results! As for being a mind reader in what Esakoff meant to say, well I’ll leave that one alone. Surely she should be able to say what she means. The question really should be, does she mean what she says?
MODERATORS: Sorry Anon, we need to correct something here. A ten storey application came into council. They approved 8 storeys and VCAT decided on the 10 storeys. VCAT did however state that they could not really see the difference between 8 and 10 storeys, although Cr. Hyams stated that he could at a subsequent council meeting. The 14 storey application was reduced to 7 by council (with Newton declaring a conflict of interest we seem to remember). It will be fascinating to follow the VCAT decision if developers appealed and given the precedent of the 10 storeys.
July 5, 2011 at 2:33 PM
I’ve just had a look at the online version of the Leader and can only contemplate what pressure has been used to now have an article that could have only been written by the public relations branch of Glen Eira council. Once again the integrity of this newspaper must be questioned and its willingness to continually cow tow to those who obviously pay the bills is really beyond the pale.
July 5, 2011 at 3:58 PM
The adage that there are lies, damn lies and then statistics is pretty much to the forefront of this issue. Figures can be twisted and manipulated to show that black is white and white is black. The ones that I prefer to focus on come from page 5 of the survey. Looking at these percentages it’s eye opening if we consider that only a minority of those questioned saw this council performing in the good or excellent range, especially in those areas of traffic management, planning, community engagement. These results aren’t new, but Council needs to acknowledge that they are getting worse and worse.
From page 10 onwards there’s a further indication as to how poorly Glen Eira is going. The comparison across years indicates that the “needs improvement’ category is rising all the time. Surely this should again tell councillors that they are very definitely on the nose of residents and that they are not perceived to be doing anything to improve the lot of their constituents.
I’m not interested in individual statistics, but I am interested in trends and these trends are clear. Hyams can waffle on as much as he likes – he can’t ignore what’s happening under his watch though.
July 5, 2011 at 4:06 PM
Well done to Jenny Ling of The Caulfield Leader for doing your homework and confronting David Southwick with his own words and backflips with regard to his position on the Melbourne Racing Club housing development outside the Caulfield Racecourse. He has turned into a Politician i.e. working for himself and his position in the Liberal Party.
July 5, 2011 at 4:59 PM
First prize in back flips goes to The Leader. The headline says it all.
Glen Eira Council rapt with rank
Council
5 Jul 11 @ 07:00am by Jenny Ling
The latest Community Satisfaction Survey showed Glen Eira Council rated higher or similar to all Victorian councils.
GLEN Eira Council is happy with its ranking in the latest Local Government Victoria survey.
The 2011 community satisfaction survey asked 28,000 residents across 77 councils to rate their council’s performance.
The data showed that Glen Eira rated higher or similar to all Victorian councils in overall performance, advocacy, community engagement and customer contact.
Glen Eira achieved an indexed mean score of 69 for overall performance.
The mean for inner-metropolitan councils – Bayside, Yarra, Stonnington, Kingston, Melbourne, Monash, Port Phillip, Moreland, Boorondara, Darebin, Hobsons Bay, Maroondah, Moonee Valley, Banyule, Whitehorse and Glen Eira – was 68.
For advocacy, which covers the representation of the community’s interests, Glen Eira rated a 64, on par with the inner-metropolitan council rank of 64.
Glen Eira rated 62 for community engagement which was again the same as the inner-metropolitan councils’ 62, while local customer contact was higher at 77, compared with a score of 73 for the neighbouring councils.
But Glen Eira Residents’ Association president Don Dunstan said there still needed to be more transparency and open governance in Glen Eira.
“The core problem is the way council meetings are run,’’ Mr Dunstan said.
Glen Eira Mayor Margaret Esakoff said “given the survey was taken at the same time as severe flooding (February) and the bin downsizing, it is a good outcome for Glen Eira’‘.
“Relative to other councils, Glen Eira rated significantly better in eight (up from five last year) criteria and similar in the other five criteria,’’ Cr Esakoff said.
“Importantly, overall performance was higher, as was customer contact …
“Community satisfaction is important for council and we will continue to strive for even better results in the future.’‘
Many of the survey questions asked respondents to rate their council’s performance on a five-point scale from `Excellent’ to `Needs a lot of Improvement’.
The indexed mean was calculated by taking the mean value for all respondents on the five point scale and multiplying by 20 to convert the mean to an index of up to 100.
The State Government provided a percentage score for the inner-metropolitan councils, with the inner-metropolitan group ranking 85 per cent for overall performance (Glen Eira 86 per cent), 77 per cent for advocacy (Glen Eira 80 per cent), 71 per cent for community engagement (Glen Eira 71 per cent) and 80 per cent for customer contact (Glen Eira 84 per cent).
Participating councils receive individual, confidential results from the government and it’s up to the councils whether or not they make the results public.
Victorian Local Government Minister Jeanette Powell urged councils to analyse the community’s rating of their perfomance to see where improvements were needed.
July 5, 2011 at 9:39 PM
We don’t need rocket scientists to tell us where “improvements” could be made. They’re obvious – consultation, planning scheme, budget priorities and traffic.
July 5, 2011 at 10:07 PM
Looks to me that Jenny Ling failed the first test of any reporter. Get the facts right. Whoever reports on this blog seems to give an excellent account of council meetings. You should be writing material for the Leader. Having a reprint published is unforgivable. I think her principals would have noted her error. Reporting is a competitive business.
July 5, 2011 at 10:19 PM
Maybe, just maybe, Ling didn’t “fail” but the editors might have got a blunt phone call from you know who so that the “interpretation” would be a hell of a lot more “friendly”. Question is will they go whole hog and put in some kind of “correction” in next week’s hard copy?
July 5, 2011 at 10:10 PM
Council has decided to target a subset of the community to bear the full brunt of rapid and weakly regulated development to appease the Government. Survey results will be distorted according to the proportion of people surveyed who have been impacted by Council and State Government planning decisions. *Every* one of those impacted that I have spoken to are really pissed off. Its not development per se, its the complete failure to protect their amenity and to take seriously their concerns. Those of use who have taken the trouble to read the Planning Scheme can identify repeated Council failures to apply their own policies and standards.
We need a new kind of survey, one that disposes the old 0-10 style of ranking, and introduces instead a formalism based on the use of linguistic variables and hedges to characterise the underlying fuzzy sets of community opinion. Instead of a “2”, it could be “pretty f—ing awful”. That might still not be enough for my neighbour, who keeps telling me how corrupt they are. I don’t dare ask why he thinks that, but the largess involved in new concrete crossovers for every property in Miller St Carnegie seems to figure.
While David Southwick deserves flack for his backflip re C60 and the Public Reserve marooned behind the MRC’s fortifications (note they are two separate issues), he’ll need to learn to buy as much advertising as Andrew Newton does if he wants Caulfield Leader to go soft.
July 5, 2011 at 10:30 PM
Reprobate, as always your ideas have great merit. We could have surveys sent out with rate notices so that every household is contacted and the kinds of questions asked (and results fully published) could be something along these lines perhaps:
1. How often in the last two years have you complained about a service/action/non action to council? Did they (a) respond to your complaint; (b) fix your complaint; (c) ignore you completely?
2. List the five most recent examples of what you consider to be: (a) waste of money ; (b) porkies told by councillors and officers; (c) lousy workmanship on road repairs, footpaths, and so on
3. Do you believe a word that comes out of any councillor’s or officers mouth(s) – Yes or No
The potential questions that could be asked are endless. That would really tell the true story of this council and its plummeting reputation.
July 6, 2011 at 1:05 PM
Dear Cr. Hyams,
you will note that the online rehashed version by the Leader has been put up by one of our readers. It is available for all to see and consider. We also welcome your admission that there is always room for improvement. This appears to have become the stock response to all policy decisions and service performance. We are sure that the community is definitely eager to witness such improvements. Perhaps next year’s Community Satisfaction Survey will vouch for such improvement? Then again, perhaps not?
July 6, 2011 at 8:53 PM
From the online Leader –
Elli writes:
Posted on 6 Jul 11 at 03:40pm
Mr Southwick promises one thing and does another. Heather Abrahamson was passionately committed in her opposition to this use of public land and the poor planning (a park that lacks parking and an underground tunnel providing access to walkers if they felt like walking underground for a kilometre.) Would that she had been elected!
Markus writes:
Posted on 6 Jul 11 at 12:48pm
News of this approval is a shocking revelation to the Caulfield Community. Congestion, a lack of parking and overcrowded trains are already the norm. This will make it akin to a 3rd world country. Public land has been taken away for commercial gain, with no gain to the public. Flooding at the underpasses will be more frequent and the lovely trees that line Smith Street will all be feld. And with the sub division also approved for the land along Kambrook Road, another building bonanza will soon line this area as well. All of the impacts will be ongoing and irreversible. You really have to question where these politicans are taking this country in the years ahead.
Kirk writes:
Posted on 5 Jul 11 at 12:38pm
Luck council elections are coming next year!
The councillors that approved this are going to get voted out by everyone I know.
Mike writes:
Posted on 5 Jul 11 at 08:41am
What an absolute discrace. I voted for the Liberals in the hope they would rescue us from this monster. Now they have completely abandoned us. As for a “cap” of 20 stories, what a joke. This suburb is about to be destroyed for nothing more than developers greed. Shame on the Council and Government.