As we wrote in our last post, we believe that it is incumbent on current councillors to owe their primary allegiance to their constituents and not to any state or federal political party. It was very clear last night on the multi-level car park issue, that most councillors chose the latter. The community, and their wishes, was not the prime concern. Rather political point scoring definitely was.
Consistency has never been a hallmark of some councillors. Last night was no exception. On the Woolworths application, here is part of what occurred.
Cr Parasol in seconding the motion to refuse the Woolworths application said – ‘being on council you have to listen to the residents’…..I feel we need to support their claims’. Athanasopoulos in his response stated: ‘there will be some form of development and ….and just saying the community don’t want it and therefore you as a councillor have to vote that way, I don’t really appreciate that type of interaction’. …it’s not just for me to do a poll survey around an area and then land on a decision’. He needs ‘all information’ and a ‘prudent councillor would do that’ before he decides. He wants good ‘interaction’ ‘rather than dictating to me what I should do as a councillor’.
When the multi-car park item came up, Athanasopolous moved a complex motion that included ‘consultation’ on whether the community wanted to accept the grants, and the locations of the newly proposed builds. What’s important is that he also said that the consultation would provide council with a MANDATE!!!!! In other words, if the community says ‘yeah’ or ‘nay’ then this is the basis upon which he, as a councillor would vote. In our view, this totally contradicts what he stated in the Woolworths item! Isn’t this proposal nothing more than a ‘poll survey’ which was dismissed several items earlier? And if we consider the definition of ‘mandate’ then this also implies voting in accordance with community views. Furthermore, readers would do well to remember Athanasopolous’ comment in September 2020 when he stated that councillors should not appear to be ‘in the pockets of residents’. Taking all this into account, we have to wonder whether any consultation result would deter certain councillors from voting on issues that they have already made up their minds about!
What last night so sadly showed was that ideology is the greatest criterion in many councillor’s decision making. Residents, and purported ‘genuine consultation’ is nothing more than a tick the box exercise to legitimise predetermined decision making. Indeed a very, very, concerning night for residents.
Glen Eira Debates 
August 12, 2021 at 10:34 AM
Speechless.
August 12, 2021 at 12:51 PM
Spend the 20 mill on buying more parks. Parks and trees not a concrete jungle.
August 12, 2021 at 1:16 PM
Doubt the money could be used for this, but good idea nevertheless. Stacks in the newspaper report that demands answers. If council didn’t go looking for money then why was it offered? These car parks were already on council’s mind as far back as early 2017. So like everything nearly 5 years on we are still back at square one.
August 12, 2021 at 3:00 PM
They rort, we rort, surly the Libs would respect this type of Laissez-faire capitalism they so cherish. If we say, (MODERATORS: rest of sentence deleted)
No embarrassing questions asked next time.
August 12, 2021 at 4:27 PM
Abe Lincoln reportedly said, No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
August 13, 2021 at 9:56 AM
Firstly the money was not requested nor was any feasibility study provided as to the efficacy of commuter car parks reducing congestion. Secondly there is no proposal to build commuter car parks in our structure plans but for shoppers car parks. Thirdly council tried to have the money redirected to more effective congestion busting programs like public transport safe bike corridors etc but the Feds said rejected that. Finally Council wants to know whether the community would prefer to use the money and if so on what. Finally like the Woolworth decision this was unanimous with conservatives voting with progressives on the motion. This was not “ideological” it was open and transparent governance. I would urge those interested to review the debate on line and make up their own minds. And can we please start looking for positive things Council is achieving instead of all this negativity. And please no more anonymous posts. People need to own what they say.
August 14, 2021 at 10:34 AM
All good comments David, keep up the great work.
August 13, 2021 at 2:28 PM
I accept that there has not been any feasibility study on the efficacy of the car parks to reduce congestion. That has been assumed all along. I do not accept that the structure plans were exclusively designed for the benefit of “shoppers”. The phrasing was that car parking was to meet the needs of the community. I don’t remember any differentiation between commuters, shoppers and traders.
August 18, 2021 at 11:12 AM
Indeed D.Evans. Meeting the community needs which are well documented and evidence based. More 2 hour shopping and “empathetic” parking is what we know. Again there is no evidence that commuter car parks reduce congestion in middle suburbs like ours. An additional 350 unlimited time car parks near a station is equivalent to one train full. How is that going to help congestion?
August 18, 2021 at 7:59 AM
I don’t agree with David Zyngier that the decisions re commuter car parking weren’t “ideological”, but maybe he would accept they were political instead. Nor were the decisions made openly and with transparency. The test for whether something is open and transparent is if the public has access to the same information as a decision-maker. Negotiations held in private without public Minutes or are conducted via private emails are examples of ways in which decision-making are not open and transparent. FOI legislation provide a long list of exemptions that Councils, Ministers and Departments use to reject or heavily redact requests. When Council makes decisions under delegation, it can be very difficult to find out who made the decision and why, despite what Local Government Act says. Even when decisions are made in Council Meetings, and you listen to their speeches, you’re unlikely to learn much about what the key decision criteria are or how the available information has been assessed against those criteria. As for “please start looking for positive things Council is achieving”, I’d rather people focus on the areas where Council should be aiming to make continuous improvement eg governance and communication.
August 18, 2021 at 11:16 AM
Dear Carnegie Resident (why are you anonymous?) as you can see from the motion that was unanimously passed by both conservatives and progressives on Council the call is for transparent resident consultation on cleaner defined questions. Should we take the money? If so should we use it to build commuter car parks or other more evidence based congestion busting projects?
August 18, 2021 at 7:01 PM
I certainly support the no new car parking option, and especially multi deck ones. It’s high time we started planning for alternatives in light of our declared climate emergency. The amount of space devoted to carparking and cars in Glen Eira is astronomical.
We need sustainable living planning here in Glen Eira, not knee jerk pork-barreling from a bunch of Sydney politicians who could give a stuff about anything other than their own self-interest.
Cr. David Z. may not have all the correct answers, he is a local person and I think he is pointing us in the right direction.