True to form, agenda items for the upcoming Council Meeting are characterised by nothing more than weasel words and gobbledygook. Many Officers’ Reports are bereft of detail, argument, and logical analyses. We highlight some of these.

GESAC Car Park

Cr. Pilling on his blog site rightly accuses this report as containing the ‘trojan horse’ ruse. That is, propose one option that will cost $1.5 million dollars (multi level car park) and then squeeze in another option that will only cost $450,000 in the hope that this will be passed. There is no information, nor discussion on the following crucial points –

  • How much open space will be lost by either a multi level car park or the extension of the existing car park?
  • How many additional car parking spots are considered necessary and what is the evidence for this? (Note: Option 2 cites an additional 75 spaces but with no justification for this number, or no statement as to whether this would be sufficient).
  • Why wasn’t this considered at the initial planning stage for GESAC?
  • Where will the money come from?

Delegations

In December 2010, delegations were reconsidered. Seven months later, here we go again. The same criticisms we made last time are still evident – namely, the ceding of major power to officers via the delegations to the Planning and Environment Act.

  • The CEO’s powers are to remain intact – since “(n)o changes are required to the delegation from Council to the CEO.”
  • No official ‘call in’ for councillors on individual planning applications
  • Power to grant an application is only if NO objections; the application is “generally in compliance with existing policy or guidelines”
  • A permit with conditions can be granted when the “application has not been referred to the Council or the Delegated Planning Committee (DPC) for determination”
  • Car parking waiver on “an application involving a reduction of more than ten car spaces may only be determined by DCD, MStatP or MTP.”

Again, this is contrary to numerous other councils. In Glen Eira decisions on planning are almost entirely in the hands of officers and the very criteria for referring on to council remain subjective and thus open to interpretation BY OFFICERS ONLY.

AUDIT COMMITTEE CHARTER

There are some very interesting deletions and new inclusions in this latest version of the audit committee charter. For example, “Monitoring and controlling of community and commercial risk” has been removed, as has this sentence: “An annual assessment of the Internal Auditor’s performance”. The latter has been replaced with the far more obtuse version of – “As part of the
audit committee’s annual assessment of performance, determine level of satisfaction with internal audit function”. We ask, what does ‘level of satisfaction’ actually mean? Isn’t it a far more narrow interpretation than overall ‘assessment’? Why has this been done?

Another interesting insertion is: “Consider the adequacy of actions taken to ensure that the material business risks have been dealt with in a timely manner to mitigate exposures to Council”. We can only wonder whether this is a direct result of the mulch heap
affair and the tardiness of the Audit Committee in acting upon the potential health risks?

Of more significance however, is the paragraph setting out the terms of reappointment of the external members – 3 years. Many other councils (ie Port Phillip) have a reappointment schedule of two years. However, we now have the situation where both Gibbs and McLean will be in their positions for 16 or 17 years straight. Again, we questions the probity of this.

The charter continues to maintain that the CEO and Chief financial officer be present at each meeting of the Committee. Is this appropriate given that the external and internal auditor’s job is also to keep a check on the administration? We highlight once again that other councils do not include such strictures in their charter. CEO’s are present only at the ‘invitation’ of the
committee – not as a de facto member sitting in on each full meeting.

It’s also ironic that the charter states that minutes must be presented to the NEXT council meeting. The audit committee minutes are from 10th June 2011. Hence, they should have been included in the agenda items for the LAST COUNCIL MEETING of June 28th 2011. They weren’t of course. But after all, it’s only a charter and not legally binding, so not worth the paper it’s written on!!!!!!

Councillors must question the continual reappointment of Gibbs, McLean and Lipshutz in this role. Questions also need to be asked as to why the Finance Committee has not existed for going on 3 years – especially when this was such a bone of contention in the Whelan Report.

AUDIT COMMITTEE MINUTES

Looks like there has been movement at the station – finally – and the Audit Committee is at last attempting to run a tighter ship! We quote:

“Mr Agnoletto then presented the assurance map which identified Council’s top 10 risks. He stated that only partial assurance was given and a high level approach had been taken.

The Chairman requested that the Council’s top 20 risks be identified and that going forward, a sample of those risks were to be reviewed together with the relevant manager in attendance at the Audit Committee meeting.

Mr McLean also suggested that Council’s short term (acute) risks be identified and listed and the mitigation strategies in place to address these risks.

With regards to GESAC, the Chairman requested a high level assurance map be produced with mitigating controls”.

All very well – after the horse could well and truly have bolted!!!

EMPRESS ROAD APPLICATION

Here is gobbledygook par excellence. We challenge all readers to make head or tail out of this application to remove a condition and introduce a subdivision. Heaps of questions need asking:

  • Has council failed to flog some land because its asking price was too high?
  • Is council now ceding this land for nothing?
  • Who is paying for the subdivision?
  • Has this anything to do with a fairly large school in the vicinity?

Other applications continue the general trend. The more objections registered, then the fewer notifications to residents and owners.

ASSEMBLY OF COUNCILLORS

The minutes of these meetings represent a new Newton tactic. Previously only the subjects of meetings were basically highlighted with very little additional information as to what went on in these assemblies. Now, all of a sudden, we are getting far more expansive ‘minutes’ as well as the NAME OF THE COUNCILLOR associated with that issue. For example; Hyams is directly linked with public questions and the issue of harassment; Magee with pavilions, graffiti and of course the GESAC basketball courts. Since Newton is a total stickler for the letter of the law, we can only speculate as to the motive behind this change. It’s also worthy of noting that the ol’ gang are basically linked with fairly innocuous items such as Xmas trees. According to these minutes, they (apart from Hyams) must be practically mute in these meetings! Hard to believe isn’t it?

COMMENTS:

These agenda items provide the opportunity to really assess the 8 councillors (Penhalluriack is still on leave) and their duty to take charge of this council. Delegations, car parking at GESAC, and many of the officers’ reports should be challenged and questioned and ultimately rejected. We will be watching closely on how the voting goes and more importantly who resorts to weasel words and gobbledygook to justify their voting pattern.