Glen Eira Debates

A report from the Consultation Committee was tabled, and its recommendations adopted, on November 3^rd, 2010.  

One recommendation read: 

The Committee agreed that the current consultation framework should include the following information to better inform the community about Council consultation processes.

􀂃 The benefits of community engagement;

􀂃 Principles for undertaking community engagement;

􀂃 How Council will communicate and engage with the community; and

􀂃 Tools that Council will use to engage with the community.

Recommendation: Officers to review the ‘Six sets (sic) to community consultation’ paper approved by Council in 2007.

Moved Cr Pilling, Seconded Cr Hyams. Motion Carried.

The above motion inevitably leads to questions:

1. Is the objective of the recommendation merely to ‘better inform’ – that is, will the ‘review’ actually alter/adapt/amend anything that is currently contained in the policy? Or will it merely represent another exercise in ‘spin’?
2. In requesting a ‘review’ by officers, which will presumably then come before council for decision, will the public have an opportunity for comment? Ironically, will the community be ‘consulted’ on this new version of the ‘consultation’ policy? Or will council again rubber stamp a document written, directed, and engineered by officers and the public will be excluded from comment?
3. With what confidence can the community accept that this will be a fair dinkum review of ‘consultation’, when all the directives involve ‘engagement’ as opposed to ‘consultation’. The difference is fundamental to outcomes. Does this therefore represent a lack of knowledge by councillors, or a deliberate manoeuvring – in short a ‘clayton’s review’?
4. Will this review provide what is currently missing – detailed scenarios, criteria, and performance and evaluation measures that clearly and unequivocably establish the VARIETY of consultation methods for each possible project, policy, master plan, etc. In other words, will the community have council’s commitment to utilise a multiplicity of ‘consultation methods’ that are correlated with the perceived impact of any policy? For example: will council commit to a policy that mandates the use of three ‘consultation’ methods when the potential impact of the proposal is likely to affect 20% of the community? Or four methods when the impact will reach 40% of the community? Or will it become mandatory that all methods are used for something as vital as the budget, the council plan, or issues such as the racecourse?
5. Will there be any recommendations that list options to IMPROVE current methodology and method?

 Of course, any consultation policy, methodology, and method is only as good as the underlying philosophies and practices which generate the policy. If there is real commitment to ‘engage and consult’ in order to better inform decision making, then it is likely that anything will work. When however, we have a situation that is designed to merely pay lip service to such principles, then all methods will produce the desired result! Time will tell with this one!

We beg to differ Cr. Tang! When figures for interviews, forums, questionnaires, focus groups are all lumped together as they are in the Annual Report (Page 82), then it is quite misleading to assume that Council’s consultation methods are truly multi-faceted, or that the community repeatedly fails to avail itself of the opportunities provided. By and large, the only way that the community gets a ‘formal’ look in is via formal submissions and public questions.

We’ve therefore taken the trouble to quantify our assertions – to present facts rather than spiel. Our analysis includes all public minutes from December 16, 2008 until November 3^rd, 2010. That is, the current reign of these councillors. We cannot, of course, vouch for the total number of contacts such as phone calls, emails, letters, private meetings that may have occurred. These are never published so that the community actually never gets to know such vital statistics as: how many complaints have been registered? How many compliments have been registered? How many queries have been successfully answered? And the most important, how ‘satisfied’ are residents following their contact with council and councillors? Our figures reveal:

501 separate approaches to council

258 known individuals who either submitted public questions or submissions. We listed the names a few posts back. The ‘unknowns’ include:

8 individuals signing a petition;

14 ‘unknown’ on amendment C75;

2 ‘unknowns’ on Council Plan;

23 ‘unknowns’ on Bicycle Strategy;

1 ‘unknown’ on Early childhood Development Plan;

18 ‘unknown’ on Toilet Strategy;

5 ‘unknown’ on amendment C76;

23 ‘unknown’ on Street Tree Strategy.

Our analysis also revealed a total lack of consistency in process and policy as to the publication of submissions. For example, those submissions falling under Section 223 of the Local Government Act revealed the names of correspondents. Others, that fell outside these parameters were ‘revealed’ only, it seems, when it was politically advantageous, or fairly innocuous. Those issues that could be expected to draw major criticisms were deemed ‘not suitable for publication’! We have the full submissions on the Toilet Strategy, and the environmental strategy (the latter including names), yet the Planning Scheme Review, Bicycle Strategy submissions are totally missing. Why? What is council’s real agenda here? Why do they publish some submissions yet ‘hide’ others and in the case of the Planning Scheme Review, and the Early Childhood Development Policy, offer only a bare skeletal, so-called ‘summary’. If toilets can be given the spotlight, then surely something as fundamental as the Planning Scheme also needs to be put under full scrutiny?

The most important finding however relates to outcomes. We repeat our previous questions. We want to know:

• Of all those individuals and groups who bothered to write, were they ‘satisfied’ with the outcome(s)/responses?
• Were they even answered? Ie. what’s been done about the petition?

This is our ‘hidden agenda’. We request all those people and groups that we’ve previously listed, contact us (gedebates@gmail.com) and let us know exactly how ‘satisfied’ they are with the manner in which their submissions, questions and petitions were responded to and acted upon. Did your viewpoint or suggestions actually change anything? Were your problems attended to, fixed up? Were the answers provided accurate and relevant? Or were you simply fobbed off?

This council, the administration and councillors must now be called to account by YOU, THE PUBLIC. Their failures should be exposed, and where relevant, the ‘successes’ highlighted. But most importantly the community has to judge performance on outcomes and decide whether we want these same individuals to continue being councillors and administrators.

More detailed analysis will appear in the days ahead.

We’re conducting some online research and need your help. We specifically want to know the following:

•How do you rate the outcomes of your formal interactions (ie. submissions, public questions) with council?
•Were your questions/submissions adequately responded to? Were they acted upon?
•Were the responses relevant, accurate, and enlightening?
Below are a list of names. These are people who have had direct interaction with council via public questions and submissions. If you know anyone on the list please alert them to this research. Yours and their feedback is important. We can be contacted via gedebates@gmail.com

Congratulations to councillors for organising last night’s forum. Approximately 35 to 40 people showed up which represents one of the largest turnouts at this kind of event.

The evening began with Jamie Hyams presenting an overview of Council’s achievements, followed by Jim Magee speaking on GESAC and priorities in capital works. Concluding the presentations, Oscar Lobo spoke about the organisational structure of council and the quality of the Annual Report. We understand that the original intention was that each speaker would proceed with their talks and then only at the end would the floor be thrown open to questions. The evening however did not follow this format. Members of the audience started asking questions and making comments almost from the beginning of Hyam’s presentation. This set the scene for a much freer evening where people felt they had the opportunity to speak their mind.

Some of the issues raised were:

• Lack of structure planning and the need for council to provide an overall vision for shopping centres that includes direct consultation with traders, residents, community groups, etc.
• Poor service delivery
• Inappropriate development and council’s need to protect residents
• Waste of public monies in sub-standard road and unnecessary pavement works
• Priority listings of pavilions and need for revisiting of such priorities
• Job descriptions for mayors
• Inadequate car parking at GESAC

There was generally some expectation that councillors ‘do something’ about the above issues. It will be interesting to see what eventuates from this forum. Will councillors first and foremost report back to residents as to their follow up actions? Will councillors introduce motions and amendments at council meetings that seek answers to some of the above? Will anything change?

We received an email from one of our readers requesting that its contents be put up as a post –

A recent post (below) outlined councils intention to raise rents by a considerable and unjustifiable amount.  News to hand indicates that rents have not risen as proposed but have increased a small amount only.  Word has it that many people in the community were rightly disgusted with council’s proposal and community action has resulted in a change of heart.

My questions are:

• Why was this appalling decision to increase rents by such a large percentage undertaken in the first place?
• Why is there only a response from council when the community takes action?
• Why can’t we have council policies in place that respect the financial circumstances of those renting their homes from council?
• Why does a such a lack of trust in council actions result in the community having to scrutinise every decision?

The only good outcome is the decision now to increase rents by a small amount – what would have happened if the community had not got behind this issue?

Our Caring Council – Huge Rent Increases for Council’s Social Housing Residents (an earlier comment in ‘Resident’s Corner’)

Councils lack of support for its residents who are most vulnerable is evidenced in recent notification to its social housing tenants of a rent increase from $270 per fortnight to $390 per fortnight – a huge $60 per week increase in rent. This is fact!

This increase is being charged to those who can least afford it. The tenants of these independent living units have no assets and live on full aged pensions or disability pensions. Where will they find another $60 per week from to pay this? Residents are not happy and complaints have fallen on deaf ears.

Why would Glen Eira council make this decision? What is the benefit?

The decision flies in the face of supporting older people as they age. It flies in the face of State government policy in the just released Ageing in Victoria Plan which acknowledges the huge issue of housing for older people stating “Accessible and affordable housing will be critical as our population ages….. an adequate supply of suitable housing allowing older people to live comfortably and safely within their communities will become more important as Victoria’s population ages.”

What does our council do? It makes housing less affordable and places vulnerable older people and people with disabilities in a more tenuous and stressful position!

This issue cannot be left for the tenants to fight on their own! Council talks about advocacy and support for older residents in its Draft Ageing Strategy and increasing rents by such a huge amount shows that the words in the strategy are meaningless like so many other strategic documents produced by this council.

A year later we have the ‘results’ of a report into the former bowling green at Packer Park and its possible future uses. The final proposal it seems is to ignore the vast majority of people’s views and to create ANOTHER BOWLING, BOCCE, AND PETANQUE set of ‘greens’.

Several facts should be noted here:

• No real ‘consultation’ as to the bowling green’s future use has ever been undertaken. The submissions referred to in the report were in response to ‘the proposal…. to sell the former bowling green to pay for the two houses.’ (“Improving Packer Park”). At no time have residents been asked the simple question ‘what would you like to see happen to the former bowling green?”. Whatever comments were contained in the submissions were thus almost asides, or incidentals – ie. People took it upon themselves to either proffer suggestions or to largely decry the 3 ‘alternatives’ put up by council. 
• Incredibly, we now learn that “As part of the initial site feasibility soil sampling did not identify gross contamination, however fill material at one sample location reported concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), in excess of the level for residential use”. So, all of a sudden the site is no longer suitable for ‘residential use’ without huge investments. When was this actually known?
• The vast majority of suggestions (ie 46%) simply wanted the park extended – ie open, green space!
• No ‘demonstrated need’ (using council’s phrase) has been proven here. Where is the user needs analysis that residents will flock to play petanque – that is, if 5% even know what this is!! 
• The argument about fearing anti-social behaviour because of lack of ‘observational’ sightlines will undoubtedly be improved by the planting of numerous trees enclosing the greens! 

 There are plenty of other spurious ‘arguments’ opposing the creation of open park land, dog parks, kindergartens, etc. Readers should carefully go through the document, keeping in mind that once again the community is the victim of a ‘clayton’s consultation’. We have a top down approach that regularly sees fit to impose an agenda on its residents, rather than a genuine consultative process that begins (and ends) with residents.

The recommendation for the bowling greens is presented below –