The minutes from Tuesday’s council meeting are now available and once again we have to despair at the inaccuracy of what these minutes contain in relation to the Elsternwick Structure Plan. All we can conclude is that these minutes represent nothing more than incompetency or a deliberate attempt to distort what will become the historical record – and thus save council from both embarrassment and the admission that proper governance was not followed.

With the Penniciuk declaration of a conflict of interest the minutes state: It is recorded that Cr Pennicuik declared a Conflict of Interest and vacated the Chamber at the commencement of item 8.2 at 8:50pm

Penniciuk DID NOT leave the chamber at the ‘commencement’ of the item. She left following Cade’s reading out of the proposed amendment.

Whilst we might haggle over what ‘commencement’ means, council’s governance rules contain no ambiguity . Below are the relevant pages from the governance document.

Please note in the above how they interpret WHEN such a declaration is to be made. Secondly we assume that the item was also discussed at the pre-council records of assembly. We can only assume that no declaration was made then and certainly not at the start of the ensuing council meeting. If there is in fact a genuine ‘conflict of interest’ (which we doubt) then council is in contravention of its own governance requirements! What irks us the most is that unless corrected, these minutes provide the illusion that everything was carried out properly and in accordance with the rules. It wasn’t and thus an accurate set of minutes is vital to preserve the historical record for the future.