No, we’re not talking Christmas cheer, moon landings. It’s more like plucked ducks (forgive the mixed ornithology) limping sadly home, much the worse for wear. But they’ll find that the cupboard is bare and major structural damage is visible even from outer space. We’re referring of course to the latest ‘hold up’ with Duncan McKinnon’s much vaunted $8.8 million upgrade and new pavilion and grandstand. According to Cr Pilling’s blog, all is silent on the western front. No tenders, no nothing. All that’s happened is the laying of more concrete for the extended car park.
You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that Santa’s sack of goodies is empty. GESAC, borrowings, delays, lawyers, lousy planning and of course a ‘liquidity crisis’ simply means that there is no money to go ahead full steam with what Lipshutz, Tang, Hyams regard as sacrosanct – the strategic resource plan and budget. Well, we’ve already seen how pliant the budget is, and how wonky the SRP can be. Now there’s the reality that we’ve probably run out of available moolah – that’s why the delay. For all the talk of prudent and responsible fiscal management, we just have to wonder how Glen Eira can find itself in such a mess. The old maxim of live within your means and the sky’s not the limit when it comes to borrowings, has been proven correct. Again, we give fair warning dear friends – watch out for rate increases that will make 6.5% look like chicken feed. As time goes by, the Auditor General’s latest grading of ‘high risk’ for Glen Eira will resonate so loudly that all the merry chirpings of the faithful flock will be drowned by the cacophony of residents asking ‘how in the hell could this happen’?
Glen Eira Debates 
December 26, 2011 at 11:55 AM
I sure as hell smell a rat in all this. No audit committee annual report and Pearson paying visits and it’s not to say hello you can be sure. Next financial report will be a masterwork of fiction I’ll bet.
December 26, 2011 at 4:49 PM
Watch out for another round of asset-stripping to cover the royal backsides of the soon to become highly embarrassed CEO supporters. Watch-out Carnegie pool. The disposal of this little gem was always part of the greater plan.
December 26, 2011 at 5:47 PM
We’ve received the following email from someone who would like to be called ‘anon Carnegie’ –
Public Space for Private Gain
I have recently been wondering why metal tables and seats were removed by council near the pedestrian lights in Koornang Road. Sawn off at the base they just disappeared overnight with nothing replacing them. Then suddenly the reality appears. Our public seating, available 24 hours per day has been removed to make way for private seating, owned by Grill’d, the new addition to the ‘culinary delights’ of Carnegie. How can this happen, why has a public space had seating removed to make way for private seating available only to customers of a major chain fast food conglomerate? This really troubles me and I would like some answers from councillors to explain how this can and has happened.
December 26, 2011 at 10:27 PM
Pretty simple reason. For Canregie shops to survive any trader that needs help will get it. Once a few empty shops appear it can be the start of the end. Carnegie has withstood the competition from Chadstone to date. It is a grime reality. Carnegie could end up like Glenhuntly. The cafe would be paying the Council rent and you will find that public seating will appear ina another place. You should write to your Councillors why writee to a blog. You don’t have to like it.
December 26, 2011 at 10:14 PM
There is no explanation needed, the public has been so silent and so complaint on almost every issue other than the next-door (Nimby issues) that they have ruled themselves out of existence, in the eyes of the CEO and most councillors.
My suggesting is do the dirty work yourself, find out the reasons or lies that you are told, and then act to solve the problems you find, then blog your experience.
I for one would like to hear.
December 26, 2011 at 10:51 PM
Glen Eira spends nearly $40m per annum on Capital Works. If , and I say if ,Council finds itself financially strapped then it would be financially prudent to delay new Capital Works.This action is basic 101 Financial Management and would not require the sale of any assets nor additional borrowings.
December 27, 2011 at 8:47 AM
A mere one off charge of $50 per resident will propel Glen Eira into financial stability. Thats just a few lattes. Won’t happen until after the election though.
December 27, 2011 at 9:23 AM
If they were financially prudent as you say, then we wouldn’t have got to this situation in the first place. Poor planning and management right from the start. Forget about selling off assets – there’s nothing left to sell apart from the Carnegie pool.
December 27, 2011 at 1:41 PM
No there lots more than the Carnegie pool to strip. There park, starting with the small ones, there are building that can be sold and rented back. These economic rationalists will leave you standing there in your underpants.
December 27, 2011 at 8:32 PM
Pilling’s post makes it pretty obvious that councillors get to know nothing about what’s going on. It’s the basketball disaster all over again. They have to formally ask and even then it sounds like it’s a battle to get any real information out of Newton. He controls everything and that means power. Councillors are just redundant little pests. Good luck Neil in trying to change all this.
December 27, 2011 at 8:48 PM
Neil Pilling would have everyone on this site believe that he supports the residents. Beware, he voted for c60 and will vote with the gang once the election is over. Notice how his website has only been updated 12 months out from the election.
December 27, 2011 at 10:59 PM
The strange thing with cr Pilling voting for C60 was that it was actually against Green Policy and undid most of the hard work from Barber down. Voting for the MRC against the residents may have just been a lapse in judgement but it has raised concerns over whether Pilling has what it takes to be at the senior levels of the party.
December 28, 2011 at 12:11 PM
Anom , my blog/website has been going since mid 2009 with 123 postings written and posted during that time- hardly a recent activity.
December 27, 2011 at 10:28 PM
Shoot the messenger and let the gang go free, I smell the liberal party all over this blog.
December 27, 2011 at 10:48 PM
You would have to be kidding. The next 10 months will be pretty interesting. Hyams will have to move away from the gang.
December 27, 2011 at 10:59 PM
why would he move away? As mayor he will enforce all their and Newton’s agendas. He will continue to rule Penhalluriack and Magee and now Pilling out of order whenever things get a little too close to the bone and come up with some cock and bull reason as to why he’s doing it.
December 28, 2011 at 12:28 AM
Readers don’t also forget that Councillor Neil along with Councillor Hyams voted in favour of the seven lot sub-division near the racecourse allowing residents access across MRC owned land into the smelly horse trodden tunnel ( over 1,200 horse movements a day)… what about other horse actions?. Most of this land was public roadways and “sold” to MRC for a cheap price now there are no cars around Caulfield. Thanks a million. They also voted in favour of the so called racourse solution giving the people of the world about 14% or less of the total area of the Racecourse Reserve which was granted as an area for public recreation and a park and a racecourse as well. And now even better for the gang one of their members still has the extra vote in case of the locked house. And of course both these councillors voted to give away the Crown triangle for the twenty storey building for us to view at the station. Oh by the way the C60 residential number is now up to 1,400 and the retail 17,000 square metres. It,s growing faster then mushrooms!!!!!! Oh but mushrooms will not grow as there is to be no grass patch left anywhere.
December 28, 2011 at 8:40 AM
Hyams will not be moving anywhere, he feels quite comfortable right were he is.
I would describe him as a professional politician across the board. A bit here and bit there with all his hats he wears. I think he see himself as a guardian.
He will support the CEO 100% because that is a easy thing for his to do, and also gives him the best return for his time, professionally.
December 28, 2011 at 9:17 AM
Unlike the others councillors, this blog shields from any real scrutiny, Cr. Pilling is up front as a Green Councillors, and that’s why some are singling him out.
Unlike the other pseudo independents councillors, all running as your average upright resident, BALONEY, if the rest of our councillors told the residents the truth about who and what they are, they would be swept from office at any election, or would get-up in the first place.
Lets see some truth on this blog site, because, its just becoming fabric of latex pulled this way or that way to cover the truth about who is who in Glen Eira council politics.
Cr. Pilling up-front and honest, and that make it easy to single him out and give him the chop.
Some bloggers on this site pretend they want honesty and integrity from their councillors, HUMBUG you do, you are very happy to continue along the path of smoke and mirrors, and shoot anyone that that tries to blow away the smoke.
Residents like Cr. Pilling refreshing stance on environment and social issues, something that has been totally lacking in Glen Eira for decades and decades.
Cr. Pilling is a Greens councillor elected by residents who understood that 100%. There is no smoke and mirrors with Pilling.
December 28, 2011 at 10:08 AM
Pilling is a Greens Councillor who doesn’t support Greens Policy – you don’t know where he stands. Sue Pennicuik worked hard on fighting C60 despite Brian Discombe from the MRC quoting in the Leader that she and the Greens were irrelevant. All this was washed away with the “agreement” signed by Pilling and the gang on 27 April 2011. Pilling now choses to ignore the issue and act as though he wasn’t involved. Unfortunately there is a ridiculous 20 plus storey development that will constantly remind residents of the betrayal.
December 28, 2011 at 8:29 PM
When it came to deciding the fate of the members land at the racecourse, the Green where irrelevant because of their numbers. And I suppose they still are. I would suggest you direct or gaze to the Labor and Liberals that have had the real power for over one hundred years. They are the ones with the power over the racecourse issues, not one lone Greens Councillor in office for the first time ever.
December 28, 2011 at 10:05 PM
Problem is he’s not lived up to his catch cry of being open, accountable and transparent. And he’s become beholden to the administration something he declared would not happen.
Many of us held out great hopes for him and in the early days he looked like delivering. Sad to see he’s just become one of the followers who will be remembered as part of a secrecy obsessed failed council that inflicted enormous debt on the nearly 140,000 residents.
December 28, 2011 at 11:27 PM
Don’t forget C60 i a nutshell is now a 20 storey office building, 17,000 square metres of retail and 1,400 residences and oh! 2,ooo spaces for car parking in total. NOW THAT’s EXCELLENT PLANNING!!!!
December 28, 2011 at 11:36 PM
The fact that Cr Pilling was even allowed to vote or sit in the chamber when matters concerning the C60 and racecourse reserve seems to be a direct contravention of the rulings applied to other councillors. His party rep Ms Sue Pennecue, held views, was he allowed to stay in the house because he was going to vote a certain way to favour the MRC only or what was the situation?????
December 29, 2011 at 1:06 PM
Its quite interesting reading the comments here – I raise legitimate community issues primarily recently on the basketball allocation at Gesac and the delay in building the Duncan Mckinnon pavillion- the comments here then morph into a personal attack on a range of issues and the Greens in general.
I’m up for constructive criticism (thats why I read this blog)but you would have to wonder at the fairness and balance of some of the anonymous contributors on this site.
December 29, 2011 at 5:45 PM
Councillor, had you fully delivered on your “open, accountable and transparent” promise there would be little criticism.
The fact is we have a council that has inflicted us with major debt; a costly major project that no municipal council should have been the major player in; a council obsessed with secrecy; and councillors well and truly manipulated by the administration.
On the general matter of institutionalised secrecy, James Pulitzer put it well:
“There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.”
Be a leader, not a compliant follower. You’re our only hope as most of us have given up on Lipshutz, Tang, Esakoff,and Hyams.
December 29, 2011 at 8:15 PM
Thank you for reading and contributing to this site. At over 200,000 hits it is extremely popular by a growing number of residents. As a member of the Greens, I appreciate having a member on the Council. However as a resident my concern remains on access to the Caulfield racecourse. We (the party) had undertaken significant work in trying to provide some balance between the community and the MRC. C60 was weighted entirely to the MRC. Yes, you achieved something with the agreement but like the Duncan MacKinnon plans it looks like going nowhere…in fact the administration has shown their contempt for this agreement by placing fencing blocking everyone from walking along the areas that the agreement was trying to open up (see earlier posts on this issue). So residents are now in a position where not only has the C60 been approved but the community has even less access than before. (‘the community has been blocked from even walking along Queens Avenue). Can you see the irony where both Sue Pennicuik and Greg Barber have done significant work on increasing access but this is diminished by a Greens Councillor?
December 29, 2011 at 9:42 PM
With respect viewfromahill I haven’t had any Greens members (or MLCs for that matter) ever contact me regarding any disappointment in my performance or the position taken on both the racecourse agreement or the C60 rezoning – You are welcome to be the first! I can be contacted anytime on 0418 310 631