Another example of councillors doing nothing is evidenced by their resolution on the car sharing item from last Council meeting. Please note that the issue itself is not our focus. What is our focus is the process that this council adopts in the attempt to get anything done. Here’s the recommendation and the ensuing resolution
That Council:
i) Notes the report.
ii) Notes that car share systems could be used within new developments in the future.
Crs Sounness/Lipshutz
That the recommendation in the report be adopted with the addition of the following:
(iii) That a further report be provided on how car sharing policies operate in other Victorian Councils (eg Cities of Melbourne, Stonnington and Port Phillip), and the effectiveness of these policies in improving public and private sustainable transport options.
The MOTION was put and CARRIED unanimously.
So, here we go again. Another report, another time lag, another example of inefficiency, added cost, and temerity. The inefficiency relates to both councillors and officers. The supposed objective of this first report was to outline the “benefits/impact’ of car sharing. What we ended up with in the Akehurst version was waffle, generalities, and the predicted recommendation to look to the ‘future’. The only other council mentioned, as we’ve already noted was Melbourne City Council. Surely any report attempting to fulfill the terms of ‘benefits/impact’ would provide a far more extensive analysis than simply looking at one council? Why didn’t Akehurst include commentary/analyses from these other councils to begin with? How about some real statistics? Our take is that when you’re trying to push a particular line you never give too much away – especially if the ‘findings’ of the analysis are all ‘positive’ and your position is one of ‘do nothing’.
Councillors should not escape unscathed either. So they’ll get another report which will undoubtedly say that although there are some positives in these councils’ plans it will cost too much; nothing is budgeted for and hence Glen Eira needs to delay until funds are available. The hidden issue of course is what this might mean for the entire parking allocation system in the municipality. When development after development is allowed to get away with waiving car parking spaces and nearby streets are permitted as surrogates, then to create car share spaces could be a major problem. Instead of looking at the entire system, we have another tinkering with the periphery and thus not even coming close to addressing the real issues.
The ‘report’ will come in at some stage and given past history councillors will meekly accept whatever recommendation is put before them. End of story!
Glen Eira Debates 
December 28, 2012 at 3:19 PM
Its very disappointing that councillors don’t look like ever taking the initiative unless it is one of their own as with the heritage debacle. Officers have been allowed to get away with sub standard reports for years. They are rarely if ever questioned and rarely if ever are the reports sent back to be redone. No one is willing to question anything or to demand that recommendations are supported by well worked through facts and figures. When so much of the budget goes to staffing then its about time that the work is up to scratch.
December 28, 2012 at 6:52 PM
I was an objector, together with others, to a planning application several months back. We pointed out error after error to the planner that said okay to the plans. No apology received. If we hadn’t picked up on these things then we would have been steam rolled completely. Not good enough.
December 28, 2012 at 7:14 PM
Council doesn’t see its job as to resolve errors in an application for planning permit, relying on the implicit onus on an applicant to avoid “material mis-statement or concealment of fact”. Jeff Akehurst has gone so far as to say if he refused all applications that had errors, he’d have no planning applications, but he had trouble explaining what the downside was.
December 28, 2012 at 8:06 PM
What happens then if you end up at vcat and council is in cahoots with the developer and the plans are in error. I don’t see why it should be up to residents who have little or no knowledge of the law and less of planning law to expose these errors.