After being sent packing by VCAT to redo their allegations against Cr Penhalluriack, Council’s lawyers (Maddocks) have come up with the following gem in their long list of complaints. We quote:
“it is alleged that the Respondent acted unreasonably towards the Applicant’s Director Assets and Facilities by criticising him at the Council meeting on 14 December 2010, by: referring to a project in respect of stormwater harvesting in Boyd Park, Murrumbeena as a ‘ridiculous project’ and a ‘waste of money”.
We’ve double checked what occurred at this meeting and in our post of the 15th December 2010 we reported:
Item 9.8 Boyd park water (Pilling).
Penhalluriack spoke against the motion stating residents believe ‘they (council) are hopeless, but I’ve been defending council. But this one is the most ridiculous waste of money I’ve ever come across…This is $1.1 million dollars. Yes the government is giving half. So what? It is still money that can be spent’ elsewhere than this ‘extravagant, extroadinary waste of money’. He estimated that the final cost of the water would be 15.17 cents per litre. ‘Why should we be spending 16 cents per litre on this water….? “This is a nonsense….this is one of the worst money wasting schemes I’ve ever come across..’ No-one in their right mind would want to install this tank underground and pay 16 cents per litre. Magee agreed with Penhalluriack – it was still spending $500,000 council dollars. That’s money ‘that we could spend in our municipality servicing our ratepayers…’
Tang then stated that Penhalluriack ‘has gone further than he needed to’; that he didn’t have to talk about ‘the quality of the proposal’ and include ‘gratuitous references’ about it!!! ‘I think it is a good proposal’.
Lobo also saw it as a ‘big waste of money’ and wanted a ‘cost benefit analysis before we consider it further’. Forge also called for a more ‘accurate cost benefit analysis’ and the need to defer decision until more analysis was completed”.
COMMENT
Councillors have a legal and fiduciary responsibility to ensure that public funds are spent in the most efficient and responsible manner. Councillors also have the right to demand complete and full information prior to their decision making. Debates are part of the political process. What occurred on December 14th 2010 is exactly what should happen – 4 councillors questioning the lack of detail in an officer’s report. Yet, only Penhalluriack is accused of ‘acting inappropriately’ and ‘criticising’ Peter Waite. If this is representative of the quality and substance of Council’s allegations then a full inquiry is necessary to determine how and why tens of thousands of dollars have been spent in an orchestrated witch hunt against Penhalluriack. As for Waite’s ‘embarrassment’ we leave this up to readers to determine.
Glen Eira Debates 
March 27, 2012 at 10:33 AM
Penhalluriack’s greatest sin is that he is is not prepared to accept the reports that come before council on face value unless they have undergone proper analysis. This is how it should be and how every single councillor should be acting. They are ultimately responsible for ‘best value’ in how our funds are used. Swallowing hook line and sinker the often incompetent and skewed nature of officers reports is in my mind the sign of collusion or sheer stupidity.
More to the point is the actual allegation itself. It is woefully inadequate, especially when seen in context, as the post has illustrated. Criticism is premissable when warranted. Officers should not be sacred cows with no obligations to be accountable to councillors and the community. We are not supposed to be living in a dictatorship, but I fear that in Glen Eira this is the reality. It’s nothing short of criminal waste of funds that some councillors have allowed matters to proceed to this extent. I hold them equally responsible for allowing the poor governance that has plagued Glen Eira for years and years to continue unabated.
March 27, 2012 at 11:14 AM
Thank you Glen Eira for showing us the disgusting language and bully boy tactics used by Frank, designed to deliberately embarrass Officers.He needs to immediately resign to save himself the humiliation of the Ombudsman report and the VCAT court decision. What a coward for attacking Officers who have no immediate right of reply..Evans the problem you cannot seem to understand is that this action is being taken by the Councillors, not the Officers.
March 27, 2012 at 11:29 PM
Noelly, as a member of the council sacked for its incompetence, your views aren’t worth a bag of beans.
Penhalluriack is a flawed character, something anyone who has followed his pursuits knows. However, from what I’ve read in this matter his main motivation is to get access to information our suspect administration wants to keep out of reach. It says so much about our weak and incompetent administration that they don’t have the capacity to resolve this matter in house.
March 27, 2012 at 11:28 AM
There are at least two aspects to this: there’s the immediate issue about Cr Penhalluriack’s comments on a proposal, being used to bulk up a case for VCAT that might otherwise be looking a touch thin; and there’s the storm water harvesting proposal itself and his dodgy analysis.
Based on the literal text of the reported complaint, its doomed. Cr Penalluriack gave his reasons for criticizing the proposal, and in doing so acted “reasonably”. His criticism was of the proposal, not the Director of Assets and Facilities. In his criticism he used the standard rhetorical device of hyperbole. I wouldn’t have chosen to use it myself, especially since his analysis was badly flawed. One could point to many examples in State Parliament of the use of hyperbole, much stronger, and deliberately denigrating of individuals. The Councillor’s Code of Conduct only requires councillors to “exercise reasonable care and diligence” (such as reading and familiarising themselves with papers for consideration at
council Meetings and Assemblies). Its hard to see how this specific allegation is a breach of the Councillor’s Code of Conduct. As I say, the intention was probably to pad out a document.
His analysis of the storm water harvesting proposal was badly flawed. The report clearly states an expected saving of 7000000 litres of potable water *per annum*. In dividing $1.1M by 7M litres, he came to the ridiculous conclusion that the cost per litre would be 15.17 cents per litre. He doesn’t explain why he thinks the facility would last only one year.
There were other benefits listed in the report too. The report states that the facility would ease flooding in the area of the reserve, an area that is subject to a Special Building Overlay because of flooding. Those of us who suffered from flooding in Feb 2011 are likely to attach considerable weight to this. And I don’t attach the same weight to the cost per litre as Cr Penhalluriack does. Water is at times a scarce resource in Australia. Unlike many other resources, its price doesn’t reflect its scarcity–that’s way too political. In times of drought we ration it, and trees suffer. Many simply don’t survive. Having a supply of water for trees in times of drought increases their chance of survival, and trees are something many of us in the community highly value.
March 27, 2012 at 7:15 PM
I’m not sure that your argument is entirely correct Reprobate. Friends of mine were in the Brisbane floods and the findings of the report handed down recently proved their suspicions correct. The report found that the Wivenhoe Dam raised water levels and contributed to the damage that was done. I don’t then see how putting in an underground tank is going to stop flooding, especially if the tank is full. What needs doing is ensuring that drains are cleaned, enlarged, and replaced. According to council’s report the half million that they are going to spend is coming out of the drains budget, so that actually means that instead of spending the 3 million plus a year on fixing bad drains, they’ll only be spending 2.5 million. After the Feb 5th floods here and another series of torrential downpours that should be a priority – fixing and replacing the existing drains – not syphoning off funds from that budget to put in an underground tank.
March 28, 2012 at 7:51 AM
Do you mean the arguments contained in the report in support of the storm water harvesting facility? Yes, the management issues surrounding Wivenhoe Dam are relevant, albeit on a much smaller scale. A balance does have to be struck between storage of water for trees and spare capacity to mitigate flooding. The report concerning Wivenhoe revealed that the managers screwed up. I would still argue that having a mitigation strategy is better than having no strategy, and harvesting storm water brings other benefits.
One aspect of Wivenhoe that doesn’t get much coverage is the extent to which decisions of officers and engineers can be affected by political pressure, whether real or perceived. There’s something obscene about crucifying people for making decisions under pressure, with imperfect information and the lack of hindsight, after somebody else has spent years and millions of dollars, with all the resources of the State and the benefit of hindsight, to determine that different decisions should have been made.
March 27, 2012 at 11:51 AM
I can’t believe that all this money is being spent on something so petty. Big deal that 4 councillors aren’t happy with a report. So what? Maybe Penhalluriack is wrong. So what? He’s entitled to say what he thinks as Hyams himself is reported as saying from last council meeting. He’s quoted on the blog as having said that councillors are free to express their opinions! That’s what’s been done here. Penhalluriack thinks it’s a lousy scheme and he’s said so. Big, big deal. Christ we’ve got some sensitive little mandarins in this place looking for any excuse. If they were consistent they’d also be charging Lobo with criticising officers. He’s used the same words as Penhalluriack. For god’s sake, when is this mal administration going to get the chop and save us millions.
March 27, 2012 at 11:58 AM
Well said Reprobate. The only matter you failed to fully question is why Frank, given access to Officers prior to the Council meeting, made a stupid ,infantile analysis based on his failure to comprehend the situation, and possibly his failure to read the Report.His anualising the cost of a litre of water is the type of error you would expect of a 4th grader.I havn’t even mentioned flood mitigation. His language was unneccessery and I would say a deliberate attack on the Officer mentioned.In my opinion the example shows the Cr as an aggressive individual and we will all await for the Judges decision.
March 27, 2012 at 2:53 PM
Cripes, talk about jumping to conclusions and false assumptions. How the hell do you know what Frank read beforehand or what went on in councillor assemblies. Maybe he argued for all he’s worth and continued the debate in chambers. He does have an engineering background I think so he should know something about such projects and as a business man maybe he’s also got some good ideas on how to overcome flooding that’s more effective than what was put up by the officers. You’re also pretty good at shifting the focus. As reprobate said he’s arguing about the report not the officer and other councillors supported him. Unless you’re a mind reader to boot then you can’t say it was ‘deliberate attack’. Aggressive – rubbish. Ever listented to the insults hurled by Lipshutz or Hyams at members of the gallery and other councillors. That’s agression but the mayor of course never pulled them into line.
March 27, 2012 at 5:28 PM
Totally astounding to read this sh*t is going on in Glen Eira and to compare it to Manningham and how they are responding to Cr. Mayne (reportedly a notorious bully). Instead of hauling Mayne’s backside to court (at ratepayers expense) they not only recognise his right to speak his mind but they are also backing up that right.
The above context does not indicate bullying to me but rather a Cr. exercising his right to question a report and comment on that report.
As for the reported $65K in legal fees this has cost ratepayers – rubbish!!!. Council spent over $9K on legal representation at the 2 hour planning panel review of the infamous Esakoff Heritage issue. This bullying issue has been going on for much longer, involved more lawyers (3 at one hearing alone) and more high profile lawyers. If you add a 1 before the 65 you might be getting closer to the mark but will still fall short.
This is not value for ratepayer money and quite frankly (since I expect Cr’s and the Admin to be able to discuss and resolve their differences without resorting to VCAT and legal eagles) I resent my money being spent this way.
March 27, 2012 at 6:30 PM
The money’s been spent because Newton refused mediation. That should have been the first port of call and the Mayor should have insisted on it. Esakoff didn’t so there again she’s played the docile submissive councillor carrying out Newton’s orders.
March 27, 2012 at 10:54 PM
Rubbish. The money is being spent because Frank failed to accept the solicitors report.But guess what. He will have to accept the Courts decision.