We’ve received the following media release.
A myriad of questions result from this:
- If in 2008 legal advice found that May Street was indeed a ‘road at law’, and that council officers were informed and certainly aware of this finding, then where is corporate memory? The Woolies vcat decision goes back years and certain officers such as Torres et al were certainly working for council in 2008 and also up until recently. Surely it is part of their responsibility to have been aware of such documents – or was a blind eye turned on this ‘evidence’ because it would have made things far more difficult for Woolies?
- Why has no mention been made of this 2008 decision? Why weren’t councillors informed? What does this say about council’s required record keeping and its required role in informing councillors of all relevant information prior to their decision making?
- Council claims to have received its own ‘legal advice’. How does this supposed ‘legal advice’ refute the 2008 advice and STET’S own comprehensive legal advice? Council has done nothing in the intervening period to change the status of the 2008 decision – ie. no zone changes, no attempt to remove the ‘road’ status, etc. Until everything is out in the open so that the community can gauge for itself, then the perception the council has indeed failed in its ‘due diligence’ remains.
- This is more than a simple failure to locate, assess and acknowledge the ramifications of a previous finding. It raises very real questions about the integrity of this administration and how far it will go to facilitate major development.
Glen Eira Debates 
October 13, 2023 at 4:04 PM
My guess would be that council put all this into the too hard basket. Better to pretend we know nothing and let the development go ahead instead of taking on Woolworths. Too bad about giving up 5 million or worrying about surrounding residents.
October 13, 2023 at 9:54 PM
Didn’t Deborah Glass OBE, Ombudsman in her report title “Councils and complaints: Glen Eira City Council’s approach to contractor work April 2023” Say in her very polite way, say Glen Eira bureaucrats were incapable of running a honest review.
I would be kicking this one upstairs to the Ombudsman’s Office as well. Everyone who has ever had hands on experience with Glen Eira bureaucrats knows they are serial terminological inexactitudes exponents. The only people who do not know this, seem to be themselves. My feeling is they cannot be reformed.
As for the councillors time has shown there is little hope there. The old lags in the chamber, through their own naivety have been drawn into the same Machiavellian web that has made them no better than the original preparators.
October 16, 2023 at 9:00 AM
Their recording keeping isn’t good. We see this loss of corporate memory a lot. It just easier to make up the answers to questions, hoping you will go away. Rather than do the work to find out the actual reality of the situation. This is essentially power abuse by officers who place the misguided need to protect the corporate edifice over the greater need for honesty and truth.