Several comments on the GESAC issue have prompted this response. We freely and proudly admit that we are biased. Our bias is always towards open, accountable and transparent government. These features are sadly lacking in Glen Eira Council and nowhere moreso than in the dealings over the development of GESAC and the sporting allocations for the basketball courts. It is certainly time that this Council ‘comes clean’ in disclosing exactly how ratepayer funds are being spent. It is certainly time that fact replaced spin, and that secrecy was put to bed.

Here are the ‘facts’ and questions –

1. Council continually talks about the $41.2 million CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT. Figures on total costs (including oufittings, higher purchase agreements, road restructuring, electricity substations, and countless other items) have never been fully itemised, nor added up into one single figure and made public in a manner that clearly shows the precise amount that this has cost.
2. How many staff are currently employed by Council? 50 or 250 and how much is this costing?
3. Did council pay any GESAC hired staff throughout the duration of the 5 month delayed opening? How much did this cost?
4. How on earth can council sign itself up to a 15 year fixed loan on 8.04% and which would now cost $4 million to convert to a fixed and variable rate? The argument of course is that council had the ‘best consultants’ – was there no contrary official legal/financial advice proffered?
5. How good are these ‘consultants’ when well over $1 million unbudgeted funds have been spent on car park extensions and relocation of playgrounds?
6. Why has there been no ‘consultation’ with local residents and why oh why were there no traffic studies undertaken prior to the Gardener’s Rd debacle? How safe is this latest encroachment into public space?
7. Why, if it exists, is the sport allocation policy, and its criteria not in the public domain?
8. Why were the Pools Steering Committee Meeting minutes a total joke in terms of actually informing the public as to what was going on?
9. How many GESAC members have not renewed their memberships? How many complaints and/or negative comments has council received regarding entrance prices and general high costs?
10. How much does daily, weekly and monthly maintenance cost – ie insurance, cleaning, chemicals, heating/cooling etc?
11. How detailed and frequent were/are reports back to councillors on operations?
12. Why have councillors not honoured their public statements that an EOI process would be undertaken in 2012 – that is a year following the Warriors allocation?
13. Why have councillors allowed employees to consistently run the show?
14. Why are teams for individual sporting grounds no longer on the website?
15. How many NON-LOCAL teams does Glen Eira house on its sporting fields?
16. How many locals are members of both the Warriors and McKinnon Basketball Association?
17. How much has already been spent on lawyers on the ‘liquidated damages’ issue and is Council facing the prospect of a huge pay-out if they lose the case?

There are probably countless other questions that need to be asked. We do not hold out much hope that this lot of councillors will have the nous, or courage to ask them – especially not in public! Again, this stands in stark contrast to what is happening with the Pool in the Mornington Shire. For those interested we ask them to peruse this Notice of Motion (verboten in Glen Eira!) from one of their councillors. It makes for fascinating reading. See: http://www.mornpen.vic.gov.au/files/Governance_Agendas/131203ca_add_41_NOM127.pdf

At the outset we wish to state clearly and unequivocally that we have no interest in football allocations per se. What does concern us is the lack of transparency in any of the decision making that surrounds sporting ground allocations. The article at the conclusion of this post comes from today’s online version of the Australian Jewish News. It is quite feasible to draw the conclusion that this is ‘pay back’ for the Ajax – Caulfield Bears saga of last year in that Ajax did not get their sought after allocation.

As stated above, we have no problem with this. What is a huge problem is:

• All is left in the hands of Burke and his underlings with no need for accountability, nor transparency
• There is no POLICY that is in the public domain
• There is no published criteria to account for the decision making
• Councillors are out in the cold with no role, no say, no nothing
• Such ‘secret’ and unilateral decision making is fraught with danger and the real potential for nepotism, secret deals, intimidation, and woeful decision making as with GESAC.
• Councillors MUST PUT A STOP TO THIS if their credibility is not to go completely out the window!

By way of contrast, here is part of the Banyule Sporting Allocation policy where the criteria used to decide who gets what is public and easily accessible –

Numerous other councils don’t seem to have any problem whatsoever in publishing their policies. As always, Glen Eira keeps everything under wraps – that’s if it even exists, and if it does, the promises in the Community Plan to publish ALL council policies are not adhered to. Here are some other Councils’ URLs for residents to check out –

http://www.banyule.vic.gov.au/Assets/Files/14457%20Sporting%20Reserves%20Allocation%20Policy%202011-2014.pdf

http://mvcc.vic.gov.au/experience-moonee-valley/sports-grounds/~/media/Files/Experience%20MV%20Documents/Sports%20club%20information/2010_11_Seasonal_Allocation_Policy.ashx

http://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/Sportsground_allocation_policy.pdf

http://whatmattersmanningham.com.au/document/show/63

http://www.moreland.vic.gov.au/mccwr/publications/policies-strategies-plans/policy%20-%20council%20resolved%20-%20allocation%20of%20sporting%20grounds%20and%20pavilions.doc

http://www.boroondara.vic.gov.au/freestyler/files/Draft%20-%20Sportsground%20Allocation%20Procedure.pdf

Governance is at an all time low in this council as we’ve repeatedly stated. This is just another example of why drastic change is required.

AJAX allocation battle resurfaces

IN a major blow for the AJAX Football Club and the local Jewish community, Glen Eira City Council has denied the club from relocating to Princes Park, instead granting access to Old Haileybury’s Thirds and under-19 teams.

AJAX president Ian Fayman expressed his disappointment at the decision, pointing out that even though the club plays in a different municipality to the juniors, it deserves the right to function as one club at the same home ground.

“The argument is that the seniors and juniors are different clubs,” Fayman told The AJN.

“But they have the same jumper, the same sponsors and the same logo, and the community sees them as one club.”

Fayman accepted that the re-allocated club must be from within Glen Eira, but questioned why the opportunity to join the juniors and seniors was overlooked.

“If an allocation has to be from within the Glen Eira municipality, why is it not AJAX?” Fayman asked.

“It’s the most obvious decision that the junior club should have its senior teams at the same home ground to make a strong pathway, which is a policy of AFL Victoria, and so that the local community can follow.”

In response, council spokesman Paul Burke said that the main reason AJAX was overlooked is because it is based in the Port Phillip municipality.

“As the AJAX [senior] Football Club is not a tenant in Glen Eira, council did not contact them in relation to the coming football ­season, just as council did not contact other clubs that are tenanted outside of Glen Eira,” Burke told The AJN.

“[And] to ensure that sports fields can sustain the wear and tear from match play and training, existing tenant clubs are sometimes required to use grounds other than their home grounds for either training or matches.”

The other major disappointment for Fayman and the club is that no public expression of interest was undertaken, which he said the council committed to in a previous letter to an AJAX representative.

“The question is, why a public and very transparent process was not implemented,” Fayman said.

“It cannot be accepted that a decision has been made without a public process.”

He also noted the success of last year’s community day, which attracted around 1500 people,  as an indication of public support.

“The key example is the community day, where the local community wanted AJAX to be there,” Fayman said.

“We have 72 per cent of our members as voters in Glen Eira, and where do Haileybury’s members reside? Yes they are an internal club in Glen Eira, but their school is based in Mentone.”

PS: And here’s the Leader take on the story –

President of the AJAX Senior Football Club,  Ian Fayman with player, Eugene Routman. Picture: Paul Loughnan, Leader

The club says it was trying to unite its junior and senior players in Caulfield but Glen Eira Council has overlooked it in preference for another amateur club’s third team.

The council has given the Saturday tenancy to Old Haileyburians Amateur Football Club.

AJAX Senior Football Club president Ian Fayman wants the council to review its decision, hold a public forum and consider shared tenancy at Princes Park.

“AJAX juniors and seniors have the same logo, the same jumper, the same ethos, the same community base,” he said.

“Speak to anyone in Glen Eira and ask is it one club or two and everyone would say, ‘Of course it’s one club’.”

AJAX juniors have trained and played at Princes Park for two decades, while the seniors train and play outside the municipality, in Albert Park.

The club has long wanted to have its senior in the Caulfield area.

Glen Eira Council does not consider the seniors an “existing” tenant.

AJAX controversially offered another club, the Caulfield Bears, $175,000 last year to leave Princes Park so it could play there. The money was never paid.

The council’s community relations director Paul Burke said the council proritised the needs of Glen Eira clubs first.

“AJAX Senior Football Club is not an existing winter tenant in Glen Eira and has never been a tenant in Glen Eira,” he said.

In a letter to Glen Eira Council, Mr Fayman said the council had reneged on a promise AJAX would be consulted about the new ground allocation.

“The AJAX Junior Football Club, which is the current existing tenant on Sunday of Princes Park, was not given any opportunity to make an application for Saturday ground allocation,” he wrote.

“We believe AJAX FC is the local community football club that represents the local community interests and should have at the very least been given the opportunity to make a formal application to have its senior teams play from the same home ground.”

Mr Burke said the council had not called for “new” tenants.

“Council is not offering a new tenancy.

“We are accommodating the requirements and needs of existing tenants,” Mr Burke said.

AJAX Junior Football Club president Daniel Antman said as long as the council considered the seniors an outside club the dream could never be achieved.

“AJAX is one of the few clubs in the region that has a senior club based outside the region, for reasons beyond our control and desire,” he said.

Old Haileyburians Amateur Football Club did not wish to comment.

COMMENT: ‘New tenants’ is an interesting phrase to say the least! The Old Haileyburians are fielding an entire ‘new’ team – the thirds! The game of semantics is alive and well in Glen Eira! See: http://www.sportingpulse.com/club_info.cgi?client=1-3232-36895-0-0&sID=61506&&news_task=DETAIL&articleID=22252086

The folly of GESAC is about to come back and bite residents really hard. Faced with a $7.1 million bill for employee superannuation, councils have the choice of paying their share off in one lump sum or spreading the repayments out over 10 or 15 years. Glen Eira, because of GESAC, would not have this choice we believe. By borrowing $25 million they are already over committed and no bank in its right mind would lend them any more. The result is that in all probability Glen Eira will be paying off its dues over the extended time period. That means more money down the drain in interest and an inevitable huge rate hike to meet all the bills.

Other councils such as Bayside ($5.1 million) and Nillumbik ($4.78 million) and probably countless others are endeavouring to pay this amount off in one hit. Both will borrow in order to avoid unnecessary expenditure on interest – but they are capable of doing this. For Glen Eira, we would wager that there is not this option. Instead we will be facing years upon years of endless interest repayments.

Serious questions need to be asked about the financial management of this council. Why is there no substantial ‘nest egg’ to cover such unexpected emergencies? Why have all our eggs been placed in the suspect GESAC basket, and now everyone’s got egg on their faces! Why in this cash strapped council that was designated as ‘high risk’ less than a year ago and has only managed to climb up to ‘Low risk” by delaying Duncan McKinnon for over a year, plus other capital works programs, do we have to witness the pathetic squabbling over whether to spend $16,000 for a lolly pop person or other safety measures for our kids? Yet, there’s no problem in finding another $1.5 million for car parking at GESAC.

By our reckoning this council will be facing an interest bill of at least 3 to 4 million dollars per year for the next 15 years.  This figure is based on the Nillumbik calculations and the document which was sent to all councils with their individual calculations. (uploaded here) .We have to wonder whether councillors even got to see this paper? Here’s the important page based on Nillumbik’s share of $4.78 million. When the maths are done for $7.1 million then the interest is astronomical.

What is required is the complete tearing apart of all financial records by a government appointed forensic accountant. More importantly a full blow by blow costing for every single nail that has gone into GESAC. We have absolutely no idea of how our money has been spent, nor how much it costs to keep this place running on a daily basis, nor how many members have not resigned once the novelty has worn off, nor how many staff are being paid for by residents, nor how much subsidy the Warriors are receiving from ratepayers. The questions are multitudinous and the responses non existent. That is councillors’ jobs – to not just ask, but demand and then to ensure that residents know exactly how and why their funds have been spent in this unaccountable and non-transparent fashion!

For starters no amount of spin, bluff and bluster can hide the fact that GESAC has incurred additionals costs that have never been either reported upon, nor directly associated with its construction. We highlight just a few:

• Lawyers for the ‘liquidated damages’. What happens when council is perhaps found liable to pay the difference, plus punitive damages, plus more interest?
• Why isn’t the construction of an electricity substation, plus road works and traffic lights included in the ‘construction costs’? The figure of $41.2 million is thus not only disingenuous, but totally bogus when one considers the money that has been forked out to facilitate the actual ‘construction’.
• What are the insurance costs? why the need for a higher purchase agreement?
• What are the heating, cooling, cleaning, maintenance, etc. costs? How much does this tally per day, per week, per month?

Over to you councillors! Do you have the courage?