Several residents have contacted us with queries about Council’s renting of 840 Dandenong Road, Caulfield East. This was ‘vacated’ by Stellar in mid 2019. Real Estate websites state that the rental space was approximately 1200 square metres and that Stellar were paying rental of between $320 and $340 per square metre.
A check of council minutes reveals that in July 2019, as part of the in camera section of the council meeting, this item came up for deliberation. No result/outcome was listed in the ensuing minutes. Hence, we have to ask:
- Why is council renting this property?
- What is the rental being paid?
- How long is the lease?
- Did council spend extra on outfitting this property? If so, how much?
If any concerned resident were to peruse the monthly financial reports it is impossible to discern where this money is coming from, nor how much. In terms of ‘income’ versus ‘expenditure’ we find that there is a category labelled ‘other expenses’. The budget claimed that this figure would be $3.5 million. The actuals now state that this figure has blown out to $5.168 million. Thus how much of this blowout is the result of the new lease? We can only guess at the amount that council is paying but given the above figures it would not surprise us if this lease was in the vicinity of $400,000 at least per annum, and possibly much higher!
It is also worth stating that the word ‘lease’ does not appear anywhere in the financial report. Thus, we are left in the dark (again) as to how this council is spending ratepayers’ money and the purpose for such expenditure.
Here’s a screen dump of the site:
Glen Eira Debates 
March 2, 2020 at 5:05 PM
The Ombudsman report “Investigation into the transparency of local government decision making”, for which Glen Eira was one of the 12 focus Councils, helps to explain the poor governance in our municipality. It is very common for GECC to fail to record in its Minutes resolutions made in closed meetings or to provide a summary of the relevant reports considered in the decision making process. To me that’s a breach of the Local Government Act but the State Government apparently disagrees.
March 2, 2020 at 5:33 PM
All this in camera business (secret bureaucrat business) has to raise doubt on who is profiting out of these types of agreement, or whatever you would like to call this. I remember ICAC in NSW said that “secrecy is usually used as a screen to cover criminal behavior.”
My understanding is that our councillor are of a very low grade and it’s far easier for them to sit back and vote yes to almost everything that comes before them as being correct and above board, and to be honest how would they know either way.
But, I would think it would be in their interest to try to get some democratic processes back into Glen Eira operational procedures. So far they have flatly refuse, even take the simplest baby steps in this direction.
This current council and the one before it has lets so much of what was considered as good practise side backwards into the abyss of unaccountability.
This contempt for the normal, now masquerades as good management, and has ultimately lead to large sways of democracy and transparency disappearing behind what looks like low quality accounting practices for what reason/s, I could only speculate on.
In this above case you really have to ask the questions who has benefitted, and by how much, and why?
March 2, 2020 at 6:49 PM
For council meetings of 2018, 2019 and the 2 for 2020, there were 68 items included in the in camera section for the meetings. Of these 68 items, only 38 were subsequently reported upon in the minutes. That is a percentage rate of barely over one half (55.88%). Thus nearly half of council decisions are made public. Hardly a ringing endorsement of transparency and accountability!!!!!!
March 2, 2020 at 10:15 PM
Truly, these stats are a real worry, and was the reporting honest.
Local government seem wide open to being rorted by insiders using and abusing secrecy to hide their working.
March 2, 2020 at 9:48 PM
One thing the officer therein… Which important department sits there? Maybe this department could supervise the lack of space on the only footpath on the street – the north side of Sir John Monash Drive which always accommodates the restaurant industrial bins (sometimes open and smelly) making it quite difficult for these Glen Eira employees to walk to the station or tram stop.