Glen Eira Debates

We wish all our readers a wonderful and safe festive season and a healthy 2012. It’s been a busy year. Much has happened as outlined in our ‘review’, but much still remains to be achieved. Our objectives are to continue to grow; to highlight all the issues that impact on residents and to provide the necessary conduit for opinion, debate, and consensus. In short, we aim to provide a voice for residents – something so obviously lacking in this muncipality.

As always, we’re grateful for all contributions and for the countless email messages of holiday cheer and well wishes. Unless something of major importance surfaces, we will return refreshed, eager, and invigorated in the new year. Last but not least we again extend our thanks to councillors (and administrators) for providing us with so much copy for our regular posts! We could not be doing this without you.

We’ve smashed another record! Our weekly hits tallied 5,071 – making it an average of over 720 hits per day. Obviously our posts are reaching an increasingly growing audience who are interested in local affairs and what is happening in this Council.

We reiterate out commitment to providing readers with an outlet for their views and opinions and in the process ensuring that this council is made accountable for all its decisions and actions.

With still one hour to go, three more records have been broken on Glen Eira Debates – our monthly, weekly and search engine referrals. 615 searches found us via Google in the past 3 days. The site was visited 4, 641 in the space of one week and the tally for monthly hits currently stands at 18,838.  This literally obliterates our past records and makes it well over 600 hits per day, every day, for the past couple of months.

We thank our readers once more, and ask that you keep spreading the word. Tell people about us – what we do, and why we do it and how residents can voice their views freely and openly on all council matters.

We anticipate well over 160,000 hits for the year, but intend to triple this by the time council elections are due. We need your support, your views, and your comments in order to make this site the one that residents will turn to in order to get the real news as to what is happening in the community.

Possibly today, but for certain tomorrow morning, we will have registered 100,000 hits for 2011 – and this includes a very slow holiday period of January and early February.  For our entire 2010 existence we recorded just over 41,000. Hence, we are continuing our growth and reaching more residents. We again thank readers for their interest and comments and ask that you simply continue spreading the word.

Once again all our previous records have been absolutely obliterated. Our monthly record now stands at 15,903 (and this is with one less day than the previous month). Our weekly record has also gone through the  roof, as well as our daily figures – 1023 hits in a 24 hour period.  We also welcome another 14 new subscribers to  the site. We are incredibly chuffed with these results and thank all our  readers.

Since we’ve been online for 1 year and 2 days, we thought it was time for a ‘retrospective’ – to pinpoint the issues that appear to have  generated the most discussion, greatest concern or interest for  residents. Without a doubt, GOVERNANCE, in all its guises, was the top issue. We’ve had another Municipal Inspector’s investigation (whitewash?) which queried  various practices of councillors; there was a focus (again) on Newton and his shortened reappointment; as well as various conflict of interest matters. Then  there was the resignation of Whiteside and her allegations of poor governance  on the part of certain councillors. None of this has really been resolved as  far as we’re concerned. Good governance, transparency, accountability, and  openness are still in short supply at Glen Eira.

Planning, whether this be individual applications, or Planning Scheme reviews, are also strong contenders for ‘issue of the year’. It is however extremely gratifying to find that council meetings are no longer empty echo chambers, but now often filled with placard waving objectors who  have taken the trouble to organise themselves and to fight what they believe to  be poor planning policy and even worse decisions. In this way, decision makers are held accountable. But we believe much more needs to be done, and this leads  onto the third and probably most important issue that faces the community –  consultation, or the lack thereof.

For the past decade, any semblance of genuine community consultation has been eroded and stripped away via tiny ‘adjustments’ to the  Local Law Meeting Procedures and policies which go through the pretext of  consultation, but which, we suspect, have the outcomes preordained. Real engagement, consultation and ultimately empowerment of residents is non  existent. Whatever spin administrators and certain councillors insist on trotting  out, nothing can hide the reality that residents’ views are largely ignored, or  worse, not even sought.

So everything seems to boil down to a corporate culture that is aided and abetted by processes that only pay lip service to the tenets of open and transparent government. The success of this site is clear evidence that many, and an ever growing growing number of residents generally agree with us and welcome a forum that enables them to express their views.

A sincere ‘thank you’ for all your well wishes and support.

We’ve been online and busy for one year now. Just to celebrate a little more, last week saw us break our daily hit record. We scored 721 hits in a 24 hour period. Many thanks again to all our readers. Keep spreading the word. Change is just around the corner…..

We have today reached the magical 100,000 hits. Regardless of the naysayers such as Cr. Hyams (and others) we regard this as a fantastic achievement. Our first post went online on June 28th, 2010, thus in less than a year – and with a quiet Xmas and New Year period – we’ve managed to far outstrip all our expectations.

But we are admittedly quite greedy. We want more readers, more comments, more opinions and more news of what is happening out in your local streets and neighbourhoods. The simple truth is that Glen Eira Debates is fulfilling a function and our continued growth is evidence that whilst not everyone may agree with everything we say, the opportunity to say it, is what is important. Sp once again we ask that you spread the word. Let’s share information, share ideas, and together work towards a much more democratic and open Glen Eira Council.

Once again we’ve broken all records – hits, subscriptions, daily averages, and comments. We thank our readers for their interest and their involvement. But we want more! It’s obvious that Glen Eira is in desperate need of an avenue for discussion, information exchange, commentary and debate. If this wasn’t the case, then we’d be long gone.

Recent events such as the creation of the East Bentleigh Community blogsite illustrates the need for a strong online community presence. In just on a week, this new group has already had over 400 hits, organised a petition, and attracted comments. By linking to each others’ sites, by exchanging views, and information, we double our exposure, attract new readers, and focus in on those issues which concern locals. In time, we envisage that all suburbs, and all variety of groups will share in this municipality wide network. Instead of being ignored and ultimately dismissed, ratepayers will have their own forums to voice their views. So please, keep spreading the word of our existence. Let us know what you think and why. Share with us your latest news, events, successes and frustrations. And as always, we will endeavour to ‘keep the bastards honest’!!!

Our stats for the past 3 months are:

March  12,031 hits

April    14,066 hits

May    15,291 hits

Current Subscriptions: 63

We’re introducing a new feature – ‘Ask the Mayor’ – which will be accessible via our pages in the Header of the site. The Mayor is the spokesperson for Council. She/he is the one who signs off on correspondence and public statements. In putting her/his name to documents, (regardless of actual ‘authorship’), the Mayor is in effect assuming responsibility on behalf of Council. We believe that such responsibility needs to be accountable, and far more public. It also needs to be easily accessible so that residents may fully scrutinise the quality of the responses in terms of veracity, and relevance to actual questions asked.

Last Tuesday night there were 46 public questions, 40 of which were taken on notice. These will eventually appear in minutes. But over time, they will be lost in a welter of other public questions, correspondence, and so on. Our intention is to maintain an up-to-date repository of all public questions according to dates as well as categories – that is, we will classify each question into one of our categories (ie ge governance). The answer to each question will also be included. Again, as with ‘Bouquets & Brickbats’, this will become a permanent and ‘living’ archive.

Other forms of correspondence with councillors are also welcomed – as are Council’s responses. We believe that ratepayers should know the issues that concern the community via the correspondence with councillors. None of this information is forthcoming in Glen Eira – in stark contrast to other councils. For example, in Stonnington, each set of minutes includes individual councillor reports on the correspondence they have received throughout the previous weeks. These range from petitions, to complaints about drains, traffic, planning, etc. In Glen Eira, there is no such transparency. We are attempting to remedy this – but rely on the assistance of readers. If you have received a response from any councillor, department and would like to forward us a copy of your exchange, then we will publish it. Anonymity will be maintained if requested.

Let us know what you think of this idea. As always, your suggestions for improvement are welcomed.