October 19, 2012
October 18, 2012
October 17, 2012
Source: Australian Jewish News, October 12th, 2012
LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT, 1989
Section 55B
Heading to electoral advertisements
The proprietor of a newspaper must cause the word “advertisement” to be printed as a headline in letters not smaller than 10 point to each article or paragraph in the proprietor’s newspaper containing electoral matter, the insertion- (a) of which is, or is to be, paid for; or (b) for which any reward or compensation or promise of reward or compensation is, or is to be, made.
Penalty: In the case of a natural person, 10 penalty units; In the case of a body corporate, 50 penalty units.
Section 56(2)
A person must not-
(a) print, publish or distribute; or
(b) cause, permit or authorise to be printed, published or distributed-
a how-to-vote card which is not a registered how-to-vote card and which contains a representation or purported representation of an endorsement in the prescribed manner.
Penalty: 60 penalty units.
3) In a prosecution of a person for an alleged offence against subsection (1) or (2), it is a defence if the person proves that the person did not know, and could not reasonably be expected to have known, that the card was not a registered how-to-vote card.
October 17, 2012
The following email was sent to all councillors and candidates in response to an email from a resident –
Dear Mr. XXXX
Thank you for your e-mail of today.
You will receive a response soon from our Mayor Cr. Jamie Hyams. As you have endorsed a copy of your e-mail to me as a Councillor, I thought I would give you an interim response.
I am not sure if you are aware that the Council works according to the framework and directives given to us by the State Government in respect to developments. Based on that the birth of a policy takes place.
Also you may have heard, the state government is aiming to have 5 million people in Victoria by the year 2030 .
Therefore, developments have to mushroom within our suburbs as the government does not like to extend the developments outside built up areas due to the cost of exorbitant amount of money to establish new infrastructure.
Unfortunately, we will find it very challenging to have more open spaces even if people are pledging that they would ensure more open space unless of course we have the ability of performing a magic. Same applies to ther (sic)pledges.
As I said in my second paragraph above, your dilemma in the captioned subject mayl (sic) be addressed in due course.
Kind Regards
Oscar Lobo
Councillor
Tucker Ward
PS: Below is what the resident sent to all candidates/councillors! 
October 16, 2012
Censorship, Mistruths, and Spin: The Hallmarks of Glen Eira Council
Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Service Performance[9] Comments
Magee was taken ill just before the start of the council meeting and hence was an ‘apology’. We wish him a speedy recovery.
LIPSHUTZ – moved that the minutes of the Local Laws committee be deferred until next council meeting. Pilling seconded. Reason was the the minutes in the agenda weren’t ‘as full as they should be’ and that they didn’t reflect what occured, so more ‘fulsome’ minutes are required. Did say that the committee has been looking at Local Law 326 (organised sport). Said that there had been plenty of press coverage on the frisbee story and that they’d been told that kids had ‘been fined’. That then became a ‘story not that they were fined but that they would have to get an allocation’. Said he asked officers what happened and they told him that a complaint had been made that about ’30 or 40′ people were playing with ‘football boots’ across cricket pitches. A ranger investigated and found that this wasn’t true – there wasn’t any football boots and nothing about cricket pitches. In the end ‘Yoav Silverstein contacted Council’ to ask about an allocation. ‘He was told that a one off allocation cost $120 or a 6 month allocation cost $300’. Said that this is the same for eveyrone if they wanted a barbecue. Said that the ‘whole purpose’ of allocations was to provide ‘certainty’ and paying ‘means they have priority’ but it ‘doesn’t mean’ that if kids want to play frisbee they need an allocation. Claimed that there had been a ‘total blowup by the press’. Said that the ‘truth is that no-one was warned off…..welcome to play….no fine….. Went on to say that the law should be reviewed and the reason it hasn’t been dealt with as yet is because ‘our corporate counsel has been involved idn other matters’ such as the VCAT ‘which has kept her quite busy’. In the next council the ‘whole local law will be reviewed’ which is ‘far better’ than doing it piecemeal and so ‘do the whole local law as one’. assured everyone that no permit is required if they want to play ‘catchy’, football. ‘but if you are an organised sport’ then you do need a permit. Went on to say that council has ‘reasonable laws reasonably enforced’ and in this instance the law has been ‘enforced reasonably’ and ‘no-one has been fined’.
PENHALLURIACK – said he was pleased that no one was fined. Said that this issue with the local law 326 had been going on for quite a whiile. Said that Mr Varvodic was fined and then the fine withdrawn and they organised a permit. The definition of ‘organised’ has been something that he’s tried to get the Local Law Committee to look at for a long time and clarify because ‘it’s fine for Cr Lipshutz to say reasonable laws reasonably enforced but sometimes the law is not reasonable’ . Said a law is only ‘reasonable’ when it can be understood by the public. this law can’t be easily interpreted. Said he doesn’t know what ‘organised’ means any more than Lipshutz does. Said he was pleased that the ‘ex-chairman (Lipshutz)’ of the Local Laws Committee was ‘now going to be working on it’ because ‘it is long overdue’.
HYAMS – when the Local Laws Committee gets together in the new council he hoped that ‘they would get around to looking at the Alcohol free area’ in Bentleigh as ‘has been agreed they should’.
TANG: said that the meeting discussed the Tree register and there was discussion about how the laws could be enforced and there were ‘sub-issues’ that should be ‘captured in any subsequent minutes’. Admitted that the issue of organised sport has been around from even before he was on council – schleppers football team – but they were more ‘frequent’. Didn’t think this was about one individual but how to interpret what ‘organised sport’ means. Problems not about the law but ‘how you interpret it’.
LIPSHUTZ: Agreed with Tang that it was a ‘definitional problem’ and that the Local Laws Committee ‘would deal with that’. Said that he didn’t believe it was ‘coincidence’ that the issue has come up ‘two weeks’ before the election in order to ’embarrass council’ and that the reports in the media are ‘totally wrong’ and that journalists should have made ‘proper enquiry’ when the ‘allegation is simply not true’.
Public questions
At least 15 questions that we know of were declared invalid on the excuse of the electoral act and hence were not read out, much less answered. This is reprehensible since none of the questions had anything to do with ‘electoral matters’ – in short, it was another instance of avoiding accountability and responding to residents’ concerns. Even those questions which were responded to, failed to answer the question asked, or basically indulged in semantics and dissembling.
Question 1: asked if Council’s submission on the Planned Zoning Reforms would be made public. The answer stated that the ‘submission’ was already available on council’s website. Untrue and incorrect. What is available on council’s website is not the actual submission, but the Akehurst ‘report’ which was tabled at council on the 4th September 2012! The public has not seen what went in to the department! So much for transparency and answering public questions honestly!
Question 3 – asked for the results of the ‘monitoring’ of Frisbee games in Caulfield Park. The response said that there’s a “regular gathering’ in Caulfield Park by people playing ‘what appears to be’ Frisbee!
Question 4 – asked about the traffic management plans for major events at Caulfield Racecourse saying that for the past 3 events this had been substandard – either they notices went out too late, or they were incorrect. Wanted to know what Council had done about this. The response went into the need for traffic management plans to be provided and that in September Council had received from the MRC the plan for the spring racing carnival. It said that residents would be notified ‘at least 2 weeks’ prior to the events. The MRC provided notice after the 2 week deadline so that they ‘didn’t meet’ the requirements and ‘council will be drawing this to the attention of the MRC’. Big deal we say! The second part of the question remains unanswered, and as with the Camping and Caravan show, council has done nothing but a little tap on the wrist!
At this point Penhalluriack rose and said that he notified Hyams about the situation on Saturday morning – and wanted to ask Burke if any officer had gone out to ‘look at the barriers’. Also said that ‘this seems to be a consistent complaint’ from residents living in the area.
Hyams then said that this wasn’t the time to ask officers questions because that should have been done at Item 11.3 of the agenda!
Penhalluriack then said that he hadn’t ‘had the time to formalise my own response’ to the public question and that he was commenting on the answer that had been given. Since he told Hyams about this on Saturday morning he’d ‘like to think that council went out and did something about it’ because the barriers ‘were in the wrong place’ and the ‘wrong times’
Question 5 – asked about the now out of date Road Safety Strategy and why even the old one isn’t on the website and when the latest one will be prepared. The response was that the 2007-2012 strategy ‘was at an end’ and that a new one was ‘being developed’ and that when the new one is adopted it will be up on the website. Terrific! We didn’t know that ‘strategies’ disappear into the ether!
Question 6 asked about ‘advocacy’ for rail separation and whether council would table the documents related to its ‘advocacy’. The response was merely a listing of ‘submissions’ to various departments, and meetings attended by officers and councillors. Residents are obviously not going to get a look at these ‘submissions’, nor reports back from most of these meetings!
BURKE THEN STATED THAT ‘A NUMBER OF QUESTIONS ‘HAVE BEEN RULED OUT OF ORDER BY THE CHAIR AS THEY ARE NOT IN COMPLIANCE WITH COUNCIL’S CARETAKER POLICY’ REGARDING ‘ELECTORAL MATTERS’!!!!! CENSORSHIP REIGNS SUPREME ONCE AGAIN!
PS: we’ve just broken another record – 1,335 hits for the day!
October 16, 2012
A National Laughing Stock!
Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Service Performance[9] Comments
Sporting groups support Caulfield park frisbee teens
16 Oct 12 @ 05:00am by Jessica Bennett
Glen Eira Council told teens they could no longer play Frisbee in Caulfield Park without a permit.
SPORTING groups have pledged support for a group of frisbee-loving teens forced to halt their weekly game in Caulfield Park unless they pay the council $120 for a permit.
They gathered casually most Fridays to play frisbee in the park, until a council officer told them to stop until they had a permit for their “organised” sport.
Simon Talbot, president of Ultimate Victoria – the state’s ultimate frisbee-governing body – said it had unsuccessfully tried in the past to set up a formal arrangement with the council for frisbee players at Caulfield Park.
“We heard about this group (being kicked off) and are more than happy to help them deal with the council,” Mr Talbot said.
Heads of State Frisbee League president Matthew Hill offered the group a free place in their men’s league at Alma Park.
Tal Silverstein, the mother of one of the players, said they communicated who would play via Facebook, but that was the only organisation. “They don’t all go every week, they have no coach, no uniform and no league – how is that organised?”
Glen Eira Council did not return Leader’s requests for comment.
++++++++++++++++++
Letters to the Editor: Land is for public use
Crown land is public land, to be provided for the enjoyment and benefit of Victorians.
There are several types of management arrangements for Crown land, including trusts, local government control, Parks Victoria and so on.
But with each management type, it must be maintained for a range of community uses. Is this the case with the current board of trustees at the Caulfield Racecourse?
What is the harm in opening their meetings to the public? Surely, this is in the spirit of the trust’s responsibilities?
Kate Dempsey, Independent candidate, Camden Ward, Glen Eira
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Caulfield project monstrous
Regarding “Caulfield Racecourse Reserve chairman told to resign” (Leader, October 8), I hope they also ask whoever voted for the Caufield Racecourse development.
This highly controversial 20-storey monster will change the face of once-wonderful Caulfield forever.
Congestion and pollution will be the new norm. I certainly won’t be voting for the councillors who imposed this on an angry community.
Christian Stewart
PS: LATE NEWS ITEM
Footy group demands answers on use of Glen Eira parks
16 Oct 12 @ 01:21pm by Donna Carton
GLEN Eira councillors will be grilled tonight on the issue of unathorised games in local parks.
Following last week’s furore, when teenage frisbee players were told to stop their weekly game unless they paid $120 for a permit, a local soccer-playing group said the issue needed to be clarified.
The Caulfield Park Social Soccer Club says it has been paying for a permit for years, despite being just a weekly group of players and not an official organisation.
Spokesman Nick Varvodic said he would ask 15 questions of councillors at tonight’s meeting.
“Does our informal, once a week, gathering of friends to play a casual sports game in Caulfield Park require a permit?” he has written to Cr Michael Lipshutz.
“We are still confused after six years. So, for clarification and no ambiguity on either side could you please answer with a simple, Yes or No?”
Mr Varvodic said some councillors responded to the news of the frisbee ban with suggestions the local law concerning unathorised games be overhauled.
He said he hoped his “informal group” would be treated the same as the frisbee group in any law change.
Last week East Bentleigh mum Tal Silverstein revealed her 18-year-old son and his friends played frisbee in Caulfield Park most Friday afternoons until “someone from Glen Eira Council made them stop the game.”
“They said it was an organised sport and that they couldn’t play without a permit,” she said.
The council is now in caretaker period because of the October 27 election, and the council’s caretaker policy states: “Public questions at council meetings, which would normally be recorded in the minutes, should avoid ‘electoral matter’ and a question may be ruled out of order on that ground.”
Tonight’s Glen Eira council meeting is at 7.30pm at the Glen Eira Town Hall, Hawthorn Rd, Caulfield.
October 15, 2012
“Talking & Agreeing – This Cannot Be A Council”
Posted by gleneira under Miscellaneous[17] Comments
Source: http://www.facebook.com/VoteNewtonGatoff – ‘Meet the New Candidates, McKinnon Hotel, 14th October, 2012’.
October 15, 2012
Glen Eira Debates has over the past few weeks smashed all previous records for daily, weekly, and monthly hits. Comments have gone through the roof and subscriptions doubled. We thank readers for their support and are encouraged by the ongoing interest in our posts and the general discussion. As always our objectives are to provide a forum for debate, analysis, and to counter the mis-information that far too often issues from the building at the corner of Hawthorn and Glen Eira Roads!
Last week’s highlights included:
- 6,583 hits for the 7 days
- 3 consecutive days of over a 1000 hits per day (highest – 1,278)
- Average hits per day totalled 940
October 14, 2012
Glen Eira Debates 