True to form, the MRC continues with its money making ventures to the detriment of local residents – ably supported by council, by government, and by the pen pushers in the department. The latest outrages are:
- Another rock concert in early December
- This in combination with the month long circus
- Another appeal by the MRC to VCAT over council’s refusal on the 30 plus radio towers
- The department’s (and government’s) collusion in more compliance with MRC wishes
- The failure to publish agenda items and minutes for the last Trustee meeting – despite the Auditor General’s report
- The failure of council reps to utter a single word about what is going on
- More than a year down the track since the Auditor General’s report and no visible signs of improvement in governance, access to the course, and the MRC giving a damn about the local community
- Years down the track and not a whisper about the removal of training and the removal of fences as per original ‘agreement’.
- And now we have Chanukah in the park with the prospect of fireworks. So much for the argument that ‘noise’ and horses don’t mix, therefore we have to keep the fences up to avoid horses bolting.
Thankfully divine providence may have intervened in blowing down the ramshackle fences along Queen’s Avenue – those very fences that were supposed to be removed ages ago and with council sharing the cost! See photos below.
Of far greater significance is this response to a complaint to the Minister in relation to the department’s removing all previous conditions it imposed on the granting of a permit for the outdoor cinema – namely – (a) trustee approval (b) land used to be under lease agreements and (c) current lease agreement in place. At the subsequent VCAT hearing which was appealed by a resident, the MRC magically pulled a new and undated letter from the department out of its bag of tricks. This new letter simply removed all of the earlier imposed conditions, making the granting of the permit a certainty. How convenient! How timely and how disgusting!
A complaint was then sent off to Minister Neville asking:
- Why earlier conditions had been removed
- Why an official letter was undated
- Whether this was granted with ministerial approval
- What was government doing in relation to the Auditor General’s report which was now over a year old
The full response is published here plus the pdf version –
Readers might also like to envisage what their land could look like once the decrepit, never maintained fences are permanently removed.
Glen Eira Debates 
December 2, 2015 at 2:03 PM
Typical that people have to find out a fraction of what is going on not from the trustees themselves and not from council but from the consequences of a complaint. Lousy governance from all concerned.
December 2, 2015 at 3:27 PM
The letter from DELWP is dreadful. Nothing tangible, full of vague promises about the future. Plus there are errors. DELWP didn’t give its approval for an outdoor cinema—it gave approval for a “gourmet cinema” meaning it is well aware that MRC plans include the provision of meals. By DELWP’s own definition this makes it a Cinema Based Entertainment Facility, which is prohibited in land zoned PPRZ. The fact that it is located in a racecourse precinct futher reinforces this. Perhaps the MRC will argue the precinct doesn’t provide “sporting, amusement, entertainment, leisure or retail facilities”? I note also that Council incompetently and irrelevant claims that the proposal is not for a “Cinema Based Entertainment Complex”, demonstrating they haven’t read their own Scheme.
But it all comes back to the governance regime which remains weak. The A-G report criticized not just the Trustees but also the Department. Now we discover the plan agreed to between the Department and Trustees is that neither is to be subject to public scrutiny, and all reporting is to remain discretionary at the choice of the Trustees. The MRC continues to retain all income from the commercial activities on the land, with or without lease, to spend on themselves. No revenue stream is to be provided to maintain and improve the “public park” and “public reserve” aspects. The public is to be alienated from its own land for the indefinite future.
December 2, 2015 at 5:36 PM
This is farce of the highest order. The Trustees are supposed to be working on “governance rules” and the DELWP has supposedly already drafted a “framework”. Maybe someone should tell the Minister that nobody is listening. If they won’t publish agendas and won’t publish minutes then there is no governance at all. Then if our reps in Lipshutz Hyams and Esakoff continue their silent vigil we might as well not have any reps at all. The Auditor General should be very impressed with this latest sequence of events and particularly the oversight by the bureaucrats and the lack of will by this government. In the meantime more and more of tax payer money is being funneled into racing.
December 2, 2015 at 5:52 PM
Thank you once again Glen Eira Blog for keeping us updated on the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Trustees and the new government that appear as impotent as the previous with regard to Good Governance in managing Crown Land . The disgraceful attitude to avoiding making decisions on this valuable but complex piece of public land is without precedent. From the lack good modern management principles by the Trustees of the Crown Land (15 Trustees in total!) a range of well known business people who know how to manage other organizations transparently Especially the Chairman of the Trustees.
The Department of Environment etc… appear to be a rubber stamp and have not mandated it be changed Committee of Management (as recommended by the Auditor General last year) as with all other Crown Lands in Victoria and I quote from the introduction to the Guidlines written by the Victorian Government:
” Committees of management make a significant contribution
to Victorian communities through their management of
Crown land reserves. Reserves including community halls,
sporting grounds, bushland, coastal areas, rail trails as well
as parks and gardens provide recreational, social, cultural,
environmental, economic, educational and health benefits to
Victorians”
I impolore the Government to review the CRRT as recommended by the Auditor General
December 2, 2015 at 6:11 PM
The Trustee’s ain’t going to put the MRC off side, as they have an interest in some of their Jewish community moving into the rental units when they are built.
December 2, 2015 at 8:26 PM
Blame Labor for allowing the Council’s liberal Councllors to continue to continue as trustees.
December 2, 2015 at 9:39 PM
We’ve been told that councillor trustees do not represent residents. If that is the case then there is no point in them remaining as trustees. They should resign immediately. The games that these three have played since being appointed by the Libs is nothing short of scandalous when it comes to declaring conflicts of interest. A far cry from the not too distant past when Whiteside did not see it as her duty to the trust to refrain from answering public questions and putting this on the record. What we’ve got now is secret meetings with “representatives” of the trust (probably the mrc reps) and utter resounding silence. Governance is going backwards at an almighty rate. Meetings are not meetings but email exchanges as admitted by Sword and you can bet that no paper trail is kept of these communications. A superb way to run a multi billion dollar piece of land and industry. Well done Guy, well done Andrews, and well done Newton for selling out on residents completely.
December 2, 2015 at 11:51 PM
I guess the trustees get a free drink or two at the bar, so they’re happy little campers, no doubt
December 3, 2015 at 12:19 AM
One thing I can see from the small amount of blown down fence that the view is really beautiful. Apart from a little of the racing fencing it is a natural view of the green grass and the horizon in the distance. Natural scenes like this are very rare these days. Pull it all down now!
December 3, 2015 at 8:33 AM
they have put lots of fence posts up on the outside of the fence to hold it up. It looks uglier than ever
December 3, 2015 at 10:33 AM
As far as I know the Trustees represent the Landlord, The State of Victoria. The 3 Councillors are obviously there to represent the State but also to ensure our Constituents interests are taken into account. The CEO and Council staff only act when directed by Council. That is the 9 Councillors.
December 3, 2015 at 4:11 PM
Sorry Anon, you got it wrong. The Caulfield Racecourse and Recreation Reserve Trust is the landlord, their individual names appear on the Title. The Trust is set up as a restrictive trust, the Trustees are the official overs and are no obligation to report to any one for financial or managerial decisions. There are 15 Trustees – 6 represent the racing interests, 6 are appointed by State Government to represent the people of Victoria and 3 are representatives of the Local Authority to represent the local community.
Trouble is the 3 Councillors (Hyams, Esakoff and Lipshutz; all of who voted in C60/Caulfield Village) have adopted the attitude that they are appointed as individuals not as Councillors and therefore have no obligation to report to or provide any info what so ever to the local community or to Council. Also Council (i.e. the 6 non Councillor Trustees and Administration) has also adopted the attitude that they have no authority to provide direction to Council Trustees.
How Council reconciles this stance with the fact that Councillor Trustees are only elgible for appointment to the Trust because they are elected Councillors (and their tenure as Trustees is limited to their current term as Councillors) is beyond me.
But it is at least consistent with their interpretation of what representation means.
December 3, 2015 at 1:42 PM
No I have a letter from our councilo to say that the “three wise men” HYAMS, ESAKOFF AND LIPSHUTZ have the right as individuals to ride off to the CRRT MEETINGS WITHOUT ANY INSTRUCTIONS AND TO RIDE OUT AND LOOSE ALL DETAILS OF THE MEETING’S ACTIVITIES IN THE DUST EN ROUTE TO THE CITY HALL. as they are not expecte4d to give any details whatsoever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
December 3, 2015 at 4:44 PM
MODERATORS : comment deleted
December 3, 2015 at 4:57 PM
Part of the problem is that there is nothing to guide Trustees in the way they exercise their powers and carry out their duties. There isn’t a clear statement of what the Trustees should be striving to achieve. CRRT has rejected that the government’s Committee of Management Guidelines applies to them, so unless the government disabuses them of that idea, the situation will continue in perpetuity.
When grilled some years ago by a Legislative Council committee, many Trustees admitted they didn’t even know the purposes of the Crown Grant included “public park” and “public reserve”. They had just assumed the primacy of horseracing over all else. BTW the Crown Grant doesn’t even mention horses.
December 3, 2015 at 5:35 PM
This recent discussion and the collapsed fence made me revisit one of the more notorious decisions made by our Council at the urging of its CEO [2 Nov 2011]: the ridiculous pedestrian barriers installed on the west side of Queens Av. When Andrew Newton does retire, I hope Council suitably marks the occasion by presenting them to him. Rereading the officer report reminds me yet again how badly we are governed. At least the Minutes make clear that the decision was NOT unanimous, although Crs Lipshutz and Hyams ultimately prevailed. There went another $15K to deny the public access to its own land and defer indefinitely improving the public realm.
December 3, 2015 at 7:28 PM
Is anyone keeping tally on how many bloody events this mob is holding and if they are counted as major or minor events? I’m so glad that Newton Hyams Lipshutz Pilling and Esakoff got residents such a fabuluous deal and that the mrc are sticking to it 100 per cent. Makes me proud of our represesntatives and how good they are.