One outstanding feature of tonight’s Council Meeting was that Esakoff has been stocking up on her ‘assertiveness’ pills – or being fed them by certain individuals! Whenever Penhalluriack attempted to speak he was pulled up with ‘points of order’, or silenced by the Chair. He did however respond in length to one public question which we will comment upon in the days to come.
Other lowlights revealed in responses to the public questions were:
- Heritage Panel report is claimed to have cost (only) $3000 and the lawyer for the day approx. $9000
- Lawyers for the GESAC basketball fiasco have now cost over $5,000
- Council submission to the Ministerial Planning Review will only be sent to the person who asked the public question of why this wasn’t freely available, given that residents had paid for this work!
- One question was again deemed to be ‘harassment’ and excluded
- Only Penhalluriack responded individually to a question on whether councillors agreed with having their emails intercepted, logged, viewed, by anonymous officers
- Questions on the GESAC carpark and relocation of playground. Please note the financial report where we are now told that the RELOCATION OF PLAYGROUND WILL COST $391,000. This must be the most expensive playground in the world!
- Esakoff succeeded in including an item of Urgent Business for the in camera discussion – without noting the reasons under the Local Government Act for their inclusion as ‘confidential’! Whilst ‘legal’ since the act only states that the minutes must record the reasons, it is again characteristic of the total disregard for the spirit of the law and the public by this council.
Other features of tonight included the total contradictory arguments presented by councillors from one item to the next. We will provide further details of these ‘debates’ in the coming days. Finally, we again note that the minutes of the Special Committee meeting have not made an appearance, nor have the requisite delegations, terms of reference, etc.
Glen Eira Debates 
October 12, 2011 at 9:42 AM
Re the recent heritage outrageous fiasco costs. In response to a previous public question, the cost of the additional 4 heritage advisors reports was given as less than $800. Now we have a Planning Panel cost of $3000 and cost of legal representation at that planning panel of $9000. Knowing the way architects and the state government charge the reported costs seem suspect, however, accepting the reported costs on face value ratepayers should be asking themselves if this was $13000 (no admin costs included) of their money well spent.
Particularly as Council justified their position of disregarding the heritage advice and argued that
1) more intensive use could be made of the site if the heritage overlay was removed
2) Glen Eira has two buildings in this style, therefore, one can be sacrificed
3) that some of heritage characteristics had been removed. Even though Council minutes included a heritage advisor’s comment that while some characteristics had been removed, the most significant heritage aspect was the building.
All of Council’s arguments were lampooned by the Planning Panel Report.
October 12, 2011 at 9:45 AM
Planning is one of the hottest issues in GE and the State Government Planning Review was a widely publicised opportunity for concerned parties to make submissions on overhauling the planning process in Victoria. While one may be highly suspicious of expected outcomes, nevertheless, it was a rare opportunity to raise issues – if you don’t speak up, you can’t complain about not being heard.
Given that GE Council continually blames the threat of VCAT action for forcing them to approve applications they would prefer not to approve or that VCAT overturns Council’s decisions, Council’s answer to queries on making a submission was silence. The only notice GE residents had that a review submission had been made of their behalf was an article appearing in a local paper.
The GE submission was
. prepared by Administrative Officers, without community input.
. not presented to open Council or a Special Committee for discussion and formal approval prior to lodging, yet it was lodged under Council’s name (and therefore lodged under the ratepayers name and paid for by the ratepayers)
. the submission, lodged at the end of August, 2011, has yet to be made available to residents.
Other Councils have not acted in this way – they asked for community input, presented their submission to Council prior to lodging the submission and have made their submission available to residents. Yet this Council has not formally approved the submission and is only making the submission available to one resident after the event. The public question asked “when the submission would be available to residents” (plural) and the response was “a copy will be mailed to you” – is this response adequate?
This may be legal (although presumably sailing extremely close to the mark), however, residents should be asking themselves if these actions are in line with their expectations of good, open, transparent and consultative governance.
October 12, 2011 at 7:37 PM
The refusal to make public this submission is totally unbelievable. It can’t be treated as a confidential item and neither does it fall into legal advice. The only thing I can think of is that like the municipal inspector’s report it must be very embarrassing. Or, this council simply doesn’t want word to get out as to what it’s thinking. Whichever is the truth it’s an appalling state of affairs when something that ratepayers fund and something that impacts on every single resident is withheld and without any attempt to explain why. The more I learn about this council the more I am dismayed at what happens in the name of good government and the hopeless bunch of councillors that pretend to act in our name. My sincere hope is that when elections roll around in exactly one year’s time that we will have people of high calibre, and high integrity who will refuse point blank to be part of such secrecy and disrespect.
October 12, 2011 at 5:26 PM
if tyrrany is the abuse of power then tyrany has come to glen eira in the guise of the gang and newton