Hidden away in the agenda for next Council Meeting we find this small paragraph:

“Recently as advised to Councillors, the contractor applied for adjudication pursuant to the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2001 (Vic) for a sum of $4.2M. Progress with these claims will be disclosed as it occurs”.

Reading between the lines this can only mean one thing – Hansen and Yuncken aren’t taking the withholding of over $4 million in ‘liquidated damages’ lying down. Chances are that not only will they sue for this money but also ask for compensation, interest and god knows what else. The final sum could be millions above the $4M. Then we have to add on legal fees (and these have surely already been accumulating).

Other news on GESAC is that there are still ‘problems’ that need fixing! We also note that in this financial report no mention is made of the GESAC consulting suites and the loss of income. Are we to assume that after months of months of bringing in no income these suites have finally been let, or is it simply that council forgot to mention this item in its report?

PS – In addition to the matters referred to above there are also some other very, very strange goings on according to the Records of Assembly.

  • One item from the 7th August is utterly bewildering and we can only speculate as to its import and reason(s) for being brought up. It reads – “Agenda Item 9.3 – VCAT Watch July 2012 decisions. Amended recommendations to include incorporation into the Code of Conduct”. Checking back to these minutes the VCAT decisions were highly contentious in that one rejected council’s proposal for a 4 storey dwelling and made the order for this to be a 5 storey development. The argument was that this was more in keeping with the obvious intent of council’s planning scheme and policy. So we are left scratching our heads as to why a VCAT decision should suddenly be seen as appropriate, or even relevant for a ‘Code of Conduct’. More importantly is this paving the way for more restrictions to be placed on councillors?
  • From the same Record of Assembly there is: “Cr Forge – Caulfield Racecourse. Said she was of the view that the number of fences appears to have increased with the park development in the racecourse centre” AND there is this one as well: “Cr Penhalluriack – programming a meeting of the Caulfield Racecourse Advisory Committee and informed the groups that he had invited one local MP and would invite the MRC. Following discussion it was agreed to defer a meeting of the Advisory Committee until after the next meeting of the Racecourse Trustees.” Wonderful! When was the last time this Advisory Committee met? It’s a relief to know that councillors are so busy doing council work that they can’t even get together in over a year and have to wait on the outcomes of a secret, behind closed doors Trustee meeting before they can even discuss a single thing! These last two items should really fill residents with confidence as to how the entire Racecourse issue is being handled, supervised, and reported upon. In other words – disgracefully!