Why bother, asks former Glen Eira mayor

Date October 23, 2012

Melissa Fyfe

HELEN Whiteside considers herself a normal sort of person. She’s political, no doubt – a paid-up Liberal Party member. But her time as Glen Eira mayor left her so disillusioned she wonders why an average community member would bother running for council.

With council elections winding up this week, Mrs Whiteside is calling on residents to scrutinise candidates carefully. As for the troubled Glen Eira councillors – some of whom were sacked in 2005 and are standing for re-election – they all deserve to be thrown out, she says.

Glen Eira – which covers suburbs such as Caulfield, Bentleigh and Elsternwick – consistently outperforms other councils on community satisfaction.

But in the past four years the council has faced the Ombudsman’s scrutiny over 10 separate issues, one Ombudsman’s report revealing Councillor Frank Penhalluriack’s alleged bullying behaviour and failure to declare conflicts of interest, and a critical assessment from the local government watchdog, the third since 1998.

Mrs Whiteside, a popular mayor, resigned in 2010. The council suppressed her letter of resignation. She told The Age she resigned because she felt some councillors were not declaring conflicts of interest and were set against chief executive Andrew Newton, wasting at least $30,000 on extra legal advice during the renegotiation of his contract.

Now that every sitting councillor except one is standing for re-election, the former mayor says residents should think carefully. ”Integrity is fundamental to being a councillor,” she says. ”Transparency, accountability and being objective. I believe councillors should make decisions for the long-term best interests of the entire community.

And her former colleagues? ”I don’t think they should be re-elected,” she says.

Mrs Whiteside said she was particularly disturbed about the 2010 decision to relinquish public open space to the Chabad House synagogue extension at 441-496 Inkerman Street, St Kilda East. She alleged Cr Michael Lipshutz had a conflict of interest because of an association with the synagogue’s benefactor, Jewish community leader Joseph Gutnick.

Mr Lipshutz said Mrs Whiteside’s revival of this matter was ”anti-Semitism of the worst kind. She is saying that because I am Jewish I am not fair-minded … I have no association with (Mr Gutnick) whatsoever,” he said. (Greens Cr Neil Pilling also voted to hand over the park.)

Mr Lipshutz said Mrs Whiteside was a ”failed councillor and a hopeless mayor who divided the council”.

Since the last election in 2008, councillors have had several brushes with the state’s integrity agencies and the court system. This year chief executive Mr Newton filed a bullying claim against Cr Penhalluriack. The hardware store owner refused anti-bullying training and is fighting councillor misconduct allegations at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

In a 2010 investigation, Chief Municipal Inspector David Wolf found insufficient evidence to prosecute any councillor, but uncovered councillor behaviour ”at odds” with the council’s objectives and ”underlying issues with regard to transparency and accountability”.

When drafting the chief executive’s contract in 2010, councillors inserted a clause requesting he notify them of any inquiries from the state’s integrity agencies. Mr Wolf found the illegal clause existed in an early draft, but no one owned up to putting it there. ”Despite all the talks and presentations the councillors get on governance, it is still not getting through,” a council source told The Age.

The Glen Eira city council elections are this Saturday.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/why-bother-asks-former-glen-eira-mayor-20121022-281jw.html#ixzz2A28kbFJ2

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First frisbees, now fitness

23 Oct 12 @  12:01am by Donna Carton

KILLJOY bureaucrats who pulled the plug on a weekly frisbee game have now told a teen fitness group they can’t play tag in the local park.

Not-for-profit group Humans Vs Zombies was told their tag games were “unsuitable” for Virginia Park Bentleigh.

They had requested permission to take about 30 kids there for a game in which “humans” chase “zombies” with foam dart blasters. o

Humans Vs Zombies Victoria secretary Anthony Osborne said the group’s objective was to get young people “outside, exercising and interacting socially, rather than home behind a computer.”

“We are looking to partner with councils’ youth services and park management as well as grant and funding bodies,” Mr Osborne said.

“We are also looking for parks.”

Some councils have been positive but Glen Eira and Manningham have refused.

Glen Eira council is still reeling from the negative publicity it received after a group of young frisbee players said they were told they needed a permit to play in Caulfield Park.

Councillors have now vowed to review the local law concerning park permits and clarify the definition of “organised sport.”

Council public relations chief Paul Burke told the Leader the council hadn’t recieved Humans vs Zombies’ request – nor any applications “from Clingons, Romulans, Daleks or Goths.”

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Council is where the sun should shine

2012PRINT EDITION: 23 Oct 2012

Mathew Dunckley

I love a good local council story.

There is something about the grand council chamber which suspends usual standards and leads to pitched battles over potholes.

The gravity of municipal level matters has a certain charm. A personal favourite was the Melbourne municipality that banned cricket teams from hitting sixes. Another Melbourne council threatened to use DNA tracing on dog poo on the beach to find offenders. The publicity seems to have been a deterrent. But the whiff of small-time CSI speaks volumes about local concerns.

Then there are the numerous dust-ups and petty personal political intrigues that have always filled local papers. Perhaps this is why people regard councils as sometimes annoying, sometimes amusing, and, often, irrelevant.

They shouldn’t be regarded this way. In the post-Kennett amalgamation era, Victorian councils are serious entities managing large amounts of public money. In total the 79 councils manage $55 billion worth of assets and spend close to $5 billion a year. They are worthy of scrutiny.

Right now, Victoria is enjoying its four-yearly council campaign carnival, complete with the sight of John Elliott running in the Melbourne lord mayoralty race.

All up more than 2000 hopefuls have put their hats in the ring to contest seats on Victorian councils.

Reporting on councils often falls to local papers.

As a young (or should that be younger) journalist at Leader Newspapers, I had the pleasure of covering Glen Eira Council in Melbourne’s south-east.

Every suburban journalist covers council, but not everyone gets Glen Eira. Councillors were at each others throats (sometimes literally), the chief executive was at war with the councillors, and there was a myriad more misdeeds and mischief.

The council was managing an annual budget of about $100 million a year, but after months of chaos, it was investigated and sacked.

Chalk one up to the local paper, eh? But it was not that simple. As part of the investigation I was required to front municipal inspectors, swear an oath and answer questions. The penalties for refusing to appear, to swear the oath or to answer the questions were thousands of dollars in fines or prison. There is nothing small-time about those powers. The inspectors wanted me to identify sources. I refused, citing my code of ethics. After some scoffing remarks about journalistic ethics, the inspectors made it clear they did not accept my reasons and recommended to the minister that further action be considered against me.

I happened upon that minister at a Christmas party later that year. I offered to do dishes or mow lawns to stay out of the clink. She indicated she did not think putting journalists in prison was a good idea. Lucky me.

Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu’s so-called shield laws should have fixed this problem.

Such laws, taking shape around the country, give journalists a legal right to refuse to divulge their sources. But Baillieu’s pledge went only as far as court cases and he has refused to go any further.

That means Victoria has carved out protection for journalists when dealing with a number of public institutions including council inspectors. Victoria argues it is following other states’ example, but I can’t understand why you would craft shield laws and consciously leave out local government.

Councillors and council workers who leak to journalists almost always commit a breach of the Local Government Act. They risk career-ending prosecutions, fines and even jail for talking to journalists. They warrant protection. Yet, somehow, the right of journalists to protect sources when covering local government is ranked as less important than those covering other levels of government, or crime.

Local government decisions  directly affect everyday lives. And as every corruption commission in the country (Victoria’s is not yet established) will tell you, councils are fertile ground for misdeeds.

Inhibiting the ability of local press to cover councils is poor policy.

Baillieu’s attempt to improve the system looks almost as worthy of ridicule as the genetic profiling of dog turds, and equally unable to be polished.

Source: http://afr.com/p/opinion/council_is_where_the_sun_should_vtYMZ9f1triCf9riXuj6KL