In another mass agenda of 929 pages, we find the following Aiden Mullen recommendation on the Inkerman Road issue. Why it should be Mullen and not Traffic department is another question!
We’ve highlighted two sections because from any reasonable standpoint they represent the continued arse backwards approach taken so often by this council. In other words, first make the decision and then come up with the evidence and/or design that will supposedly ‘endorse’ the predetermined decision. Surely concerns about “parking, safety, accessibility and amenity” come before any decision. Not after. Plus, what guarantee is council willing to provide that any of these concerns CAN BE AMELIORATED by ‘design’? What if they can’t?
There’s a lot in this agenda that will require time to take in. This of course begs the question of how many councillors have or will bother to plough through 929 pages?
There’s also another important change proposed for the planning delegations. From now on, if accepted, officers can have full rein to submit amendments under Section 20(4) of the act, WITHOUT the need for a council resolution! what this means is that more and more power is going to officers, more secrecy, and councillors are reduced to mere useless appendages!
More to come once we’ve analysed this latest council effort.
Glen Eira Debates 
December 12, 2019 at 1:59 PM
Why have councillors at all?
December 12, 2019 at 3:15 PM
Agree. They are superfluous to decision making. What’s needed is individuals with guts to question and then vote in accordance with what the community says it wants. None of these 9 people come close.
December 12, 2019 at 3:29 PM
The Council meeting is 17 December – a week before Christmas and a time of the year when everyone is busy. This does not seem seem to be a fair and reasonable date to make decisions on complex issues. Given that the agenda is 929 pages long, there is obviously a lot of information that needs to be reviewed in a short amount of time. Is the Council trying to avoid scrutiny?
December 20, 2019 at 9:24 AM
@Concerned Resident,
220 people were not too busy.
From Ms McKenzie ‘s memo:
This week @ Council
On Tuesday night we had our last Ordinary Council Meeting for 2019 with the community interest being demonstrated by the numbers who attended. We had approximately 220 people attend the meeting compared to a usual attendance of approximately 20 – so it was a big night ! A selection of the key papers considered at the meeting includes :
· The main item of community interest was item 8.1 – the Safe Cycling Corridor where, after an extended period of passionate debate both for and against, Council resolved to move forward with Inkerman Road being the preferred cycling route. The next part of the process is for a further report to be taken to Council early in 2020 outlining how the detailed design process will proceed and advise of the community and stakeholder engagement process;
December 12, 2019 at 8:49 PM
This is the oldest corporate trick that was outlawed by big business 15 years ago. No more 1000 page reports people don’t need that much dribble; it was always used by staff to hide the fine detail because people don’t have the time to read reports this size. BHP Annual report is not this big!!!! . I asked council years ago to adopt summary reports in the same way BHP/Rio Tinto did as a direct result of public and Regulator pressure. It was obvious companies tried to fool shareholders, it worked for a few years and then there was a revolt in the business community, the phase was born “Are you try to use bullshit to baffle brains. Yet here we are; bureaucrat’s still trying to roll out a scheme that was rejected by real business sector 15 years ago. Come on council/councillors you are not kidding anybody you are just trying to deceive them….Not very professional in this day and age? Keep it up and you my end up like Whittlesea council; i.e. they are on the cusp of installing an Administrator on that council. It has happened before in Glen Eira!
December 19, 2019 at 1:27 PM
I didn’t see a reference to s20(4) in the delegations, possibly because it only applies to requirements concerning amendments that the Minister prepares. The deeper problem is the legal fiction that the Minister has prepared amendments actually authored by council staff. There isn’t a delegable power, duty or function that I can see that authorizes council staff to request the Minister to exercise the s20(4) power. That historically hasn’t stopped them from asking, and hasn’t stopped the Minister and department from doing as asked, with no accountability or transparency.