The agenda for Tuesday night’s council meeting is interesting not merely for what it contains, but more so, for what is not included. A few examples:
- No mention in any of the records of assembly of council’s ‘discussion’ on the appointment of Ms Fiona O’Brien to investigate allegations of bullying. Pilling has been quoted as stating that council ‘engaged’ Ms O’Brien to undertake this work. Hence, we wonder when and where this decision was made. Even if ‘confidential’, our reading of the Local Government Act would still require a note that some item of a confidential matter was being discussed. No such notation exists.
- On the 26th April (that is two council meetings ago) there was a request for a report on the potential for an increased open space levy. The report has not yet materialised – meaning that if it does appear for the next council meeting, it will have taken 2 months for a document to be tabled. In our view, not good enough!
- The records of assembly meeting of 24th May include this item – (a) CFO – outcome of loan re-structuring negotiations. No item in the agenda to inform residents of what this will mean in terms of late payments, the new interest rate, or in fact any information whatsoever. We assume that ratepayers will be required to plough through the new Strategic Resource Plan (when it appears) and try and figure out what is really happening! Surely some media release or official statement would not go astray at this point in time?
Glen Eira Debates 
June 3, 2016 at 4:49 PM
The bureaucrats will delay all this stuff till after Oct election, then spring it on the new council, and get their way, all too easy, Hyams Lipshutz Pilling Esacoff, Magee, likely Lobo will be gone, like I said all too easy.
June 3, 2016 at 5:17 PM
http://www.noise11.com/news/melbourne-guitar-show-returns-with-borich-manning-and-the-major-music-brands-for-2016-20160603
June 3, 2016 at 5:20 PM
Thanks for this alert since it appears to contradict the letter from the former Minister which we published a little while back.
June 4, 2016 at 9:49 AM
This is all about stake money. They need offer good prize money to support their so called “industry”. First they need to suck in the owners and syndicates into believing they may get a return on their investment.
Next they need to support the trainers and all the strappers etc. To get the stake money they will milk every cent they can out of the track that they get for a pepper corn rent. They get a bit of sponsorship for the Group one but all the other races that make up card need financing. Their dream would be to amount such wealth that they can support the whole show with return on their wealth. By selling Sandown and added to the cash from developing the carparks they are well on their way to achieving their goals. Thanks to the generosity of the rate payers they are able to prosper. Rather than trying to dismantle their efforts the council would have been better off getting small slice of their efforts and accumulated cash to buy open space elsewhere.
June 4, 2016 at 11:49 AM
FYI – the MRC wins again!
For those with the patience and/or inclination to read the following (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSC/2016/172.html) this represents another example of how incompetent the land swap was and its repercussions. It is a fascinating judgement – complicated and esoteric. Basically it means that the MRC does not have to pay the equivalent of what can be called ‘land tax’ for its 2000+ dwellings.
June 4, 2016 at 12:33 PM
interesting they started putting up new railings a few weeks ago but stopped. I wonder if someone stopped them
June 4, 2016 at 11:22 AM
The trouble with that reasonable idea, would be they wouldn’t spend it on buying more open space. It’s only been a handful of years they admitted there is a lack of open space. Before that Burke spent a lot of time and effort cranking up his PR machine denying and covering up that fact.
Sporting half-wits like Pilling and Magee and the rest of the nincompoops would be cajoled by the bureaucrats into spending any the extra cash on building over our opens space, leaving us with less.
Money corrupts good thinking and planning.
We had written fairly and squarely in our Open Space Strategy that all money raised from the open space levy contributions “would be spent on the purchase of additional open space”, that statement passed though council.
Within months the bureaucrats counter attack with a bulls**t amendment saying that it was illegal to say or do that, and the scardy cat councillor voted the amendment through.
The result is years later and millions of dollars in the open space kitty, not one millimetre of new open space has be acquired.
So what is happening with all this money?
I say bring on the Auditor General investigation into councils like Glen Eira and others, who are blatantly and systematically (MODERATORS: rest of sentence deleted)
June 5, 2016 at 8:35 AM
You are in fact wrong. The council has bought two houses and demolished them to add to open space. One in Packer Park and one in Gardenvale. You diminish your argument by not checking your facts. What they have done is about 10% of what they could have done.
June 5, 2016 at 10:01 AM
Your wrong, both these purchases where years and years ago, the one in Gardenvale, was purchased in the 1990’s, All this happened well before the current open space strategy. The Gardenavale purchase came out of the 1989 open space strategy. We have had three since.
If the clown hall bureaucrats had had their way with Packer Park, the bowling greens there would have been sold for housing, and the end result would have been a deficit in open space there, only the hard work of some residents turned that around. I’m guessing you weren’t one of them.
Nothing diminished here, Unlike some people, do not check facts I know them.
June 5, 2016 at 10:24 AM
We believe that you are incorrect regarding the Gardenvale property. A public acquisition overlay was applied to this land in the early 1990’s and then removed in 2008 only to be reimposed recently. The 2008 amendment to remove the overlay stated in part – “Glen Eira Council acquired three properties adjacent to the subject property and closed
off Elster Avenue to create Gardenvale Park in 1993. The subject site was initially intended to be incorporated into the park at some stage in the future and the Public Acquisition Overlay was placed over the property. However the land at 53 Magnolia Road is no longer required for the development of the park and the public acquisition overlay should be removed.”
Packer Park properties were as you state bought only after huge community opposition to the sale. The bowling green was also originally slated for residential development. Council paid over $2m for both houses – at that time an incredible price!
June 5, 2016 at 12:41 PM
53 Magnolia Rd had the house demolished and the land now forms part of Gardenvale Park. I doubt that the land was donated by the previous owners. You discourse stops short of how it all ended. In fact the council bought the land and added to the open space. You are either spinning or just short on facts.
June 5, 2016 at 1:19 PM
Council did buy the land last year and was up for ‘compensation’ as well. The price has never been disclosed. OUr previous comment was in regards to the laying, removal, and then reimposition of the public acquisition overlay and our argument rests – if council had bought the property years ago, then they would have undoubtedly paid a far cheaper price than they have now.
June 5, 2016 at 10:31 AM
Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy- do you remember (MODERATORS: rest of sentence deleted. We ask the commentator that if they have evidence to substantiate their claim, please forward this on to us.)
June 5, 2016 at 11:50 AM
Dodgy fella, my nose is sniffing the wind and I’m smelling a outsider here,
Nothing pointing to the pocketing the open space levy. Just the diversions of that money for other purposes.
Collecting money as a open space levy, and then sidelining it to other purposes is misrepresenting that levy as we found “Oils ain’t Oils” and levies ain’t taxes.
Corporations are so happy to treat us as consumers, but they hate consumer law. In other words the real world is closing in on corporate business ethics and practices. Consumer law will be the best fit to control corporate abuses, semantic misrepresentation will be seen as a being just as bad as false labeling on a can of soup.
And Paul Burke’s small army of rewriters better wake up to this situation.
The GE bureaucrats desperate amendment to the 2015 open space strategy on the levy contributions, were a ass covering event if I’ve ever seen one.
How far the AG will looks back is the key, so GE is hoping as much water flows under the bridge as possible. In the meantime I bet they do not spend a cent of that open space kitty until the all clear siren has sounded.
June 5, 2016 at 9:31 AM
Magee & the MRC poop poop tent
Missed the above posting and thought that another input was needed as people discussed him last Saturday and we had whole hearted laughter- Magee this one day and Magee that other day.
Magee and his puppet show was just a show. He pitched his tent no doubt but no people other than his friends were invited to photograph him. Magee was in the tent for few hours and went home at nights. Foxes come only to meet other fox seeking media attention.