The Panel Report on the C87 Amendment is now out (uploaded here). No surprises as to what the recommendations are. But that’s not the end of the story. The story itself would appear to be one of back room manipulation on the part of administrators and councillors. The only plausible excuse that councillors may have is that they are just plain ignorant or stupid, but ultimately compliant with the questionable agendas implemented by this administration. Here is what we know:

  1. Every important draft amendment has been subject to a Council Resolution to forward it on to the Minister for permission to exhibit. Following permission for exhibition, there is the compulsory ‘consultation’ phase, a potential Panel hearing if objections are raised and then the final Council Resolution as to accepting, adapting, or rejecting the Panel report.
  2. With c87 no such formal resolution to seek permission to exhibit from the Minister has ever been passed. The Minister’s approval was however gained in June 2011- we presume under officer delegated powers with no clear, open council resolution supporting it. In other words, residents did not get to see the proposed Amendment until it had already gone off to the Minister – far too late to change anything!
  3. Following the consultation period and the number of objections, both Lipshutz and Hyams encouraged residents who wished to add properties to the list to put in submissions in the hope that the Panel would listen to their objections. Utter nonsense as we stated in previous posts (https://gleneira.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/c87-crocodile-tears/ AND https://gleneira.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/move-over-sir-humphrey/). No panel was ever going to exceed its terms of reference, and those terms were set solely by the officers. Hence, we need to ask how honest were both Lipshutz and Hyams in their encouragement of residents to waste their time in writing submissions that would without a shadow of a doubt be ignored? Or perhaps we should ask whether Lipshutz and Hyams were just plain stupid and didn’t know any better? Or were they simply indulging in some political face-saving in order to take the heat off themselves and their colleagues for once again dropping the ball and not exercising their duty to set policy that involved the community at the outset? Or finally, as the examples keep piling up, supporting the administration to the hilt at the expense of residents?
  4. The proposed amendment NEVER gave councillors and residents the right to have any input at the most crucial stage – that is, which properties might be added, removed, etc. The officers’ report in fact stated clearly that once an amendment was exhibited it could not be changed and if properties were to be included then this would involve ANOTHER amendment! Yet Lipshutz and Hyams persisted in telling residents that they should put in their submissions to the very Panel that would reject them. If they did not know that this was a useless exercise, then they should have known. If they did know, and continued to perpetrate this myth, then they should be hauled before a code of conduct panel for deliberately misleading the public!
  5. The upshot is that the community has been duped; councillors have either been duped, or been fully complicit in perpetrating this deceit. It once again illustrates exactly what goes on in this council and how the normal and expected processes are abused, distorted, and manipulated to produce predetermined outcomes that do not in any shape or form benefit the vast majority of residents. In Glen Eira, residents are personae non gratis. Their views do not count, their objections do not count, and their aspirations do not count. All residents are good for is to continue forking out higher and higher rates to cover up poorly managed projects (ie GESAC) that do nothing except serve the gigantic egos and current power structures.

Come election time we urge all residents to take these issues into account when they cast their votes.