Cr. Neil Pilling will be standing in the State election as a Green Candidate for the Upper House in the Southern Metropolitan Region.

Council minutes of 10^th August record: “Cr Pilling has previously sought Leave of Absence for the period 23 July to 22 August. He is a candidate for the seat of Goldstein in the Federal Election”.

This is now the second time within 4 months that Cr. Pilling will be taking leave from his Council duties in order to concentrate on ‘electioneering’. Whilst Cr. Pilling is perfectly entitled to seek a political career, we can only ask: With two months leave in such a short period of time, how well is/has Cr. Pilling represented his Glen Eira constituents? Should the community have been made aware of Cr. Pilling’s political ambitions prior to his election in November, 2008?

Glen Eira Council has published a new Media Release entitled “Issues for the City and the State Election”. Highlighted are such issues as: level crossings, inadequate State funding for childcare/kindergartens and proposed pruning of street trees near power lines. Significantly, the word PLANNING, appears only once – almost as a throwaway in the penultimate paragraph. The Caufield Racecourse also only garners a mention here.

We highlight this to readers since this ‘call to arms’ stands in stark contrast to the VLGA vision of the significant issues facing the electorate. Their emphases is almost exclusively on planning and the need to recognise the role of the community in determining planning outcomes. Why are the respective ‘visions’ so vastly different? What does this say about Glen Eira’s approach to planning and community consultation? But of course, Glen Eira has now removed itself from the VLGA after only one short year! We’ve uploaded the VLGA document here

We ask the question ‘what is the role of a newspaper’, especially a local newspaper? Is it to inform; to engender interest in local issues; to publicise events, or is its role to pander to those interests that may be high on the list of chief advertisers? A simple headline is capable of altering perspective, shifting the emphases, turning neglect into a virtue, making black appear white, and hopeful aspiration the  equivalent of planned and consistent action.

We ask these questions as a result of today’s article in the Caulfield Leader concerning the Elsternwick Childcare saga. Emblazoned across the page there is the headline: “Childcare Reprieve’”. Then we have ‘Council does U-Turn on policy and calls on government help to keep centre open’. Most people would probably see the words ‘reprieve’, U-turn’ and think problem solved! Childcare will go on. Council has caved in to pressure! Nothing could be further from the truth. With possibly unconscious irony, we report that the definition of ‘reprieve’ is:  “a formal temporary suspension of the execution of a sentence esp. of death as an act of clemency”!!  The use of the term ‘u-turn’ is also highly suspect. Let’s face it – council budgetry policy has  never changed. Finance to buy, find alternate accommodation, renovate other buildings has never been an option. The rhetoric has always been ‘it’s not our responsibility – it’s up to State and federal governments”. In an earlier post we used the headline – Councillors perfect the art of doing nothing’. We still stand by this viewpoint. It’s just a pity that the Leader failed to also highlight these facts.

The full Leader article reads:

PARENTS lobbying to stop the closure of Elsternwick Children’s Centre are hopeful State Government intervention will save it. After six months of maintaining that another childcare centre was unnecessary, Glen Eira Council is reconsidering allowing the door to close on the Kooyong Rd building, owned by Alfred Health.

At last Tuesday’s council meeting, the councillors voted to seek help from the government to ‘‘use all means available’’ to ensure the land continues to be used for child care. Alfred Health has not ruled out selling the site or extending the lease, but it seems unlikely.

Nursing and site co-ordination director Janet Weir-Phyland said Caulfield Hospital was working with the health department on ‘‘service planning requirements’’. ‘‘Our planning now also needs to accommodate a new ward f or acquired brain injury patients,’’ Ms Weir-Phyland said.

Alfred Health has let the building to the council for 21 years, with the lease expiring in December 2011. Sixty-four families use the centre. Save Local Childcare Coalition spokeswoman Nicole Owen said the parents’ group wanted the council to buy the building. ‘‘We’re still hopeful . . . we can secure the site,’’ she said.

Mayor Steven Tang said the council would meet again with Alfred Health. ‘‘Issues of time and cost involved in building a new children’s centre would most likely prevent any alternative being ready in time for the end of the current lease,’’ he said.

We direct readers’ attention to the latest posts on Elsternwickcommunity regarding council’s recent decision to grant an application for the development of an 8 storey highrise at Ripon Grove.

Today is a kind of little anniversary – we have been live, online for exactly three months. So once again we would like to thank all our readers for their support and the countless emails of encouragement and endorsement for what we are trying to achieve – a genuine forum for discussion and debate. No spin, no dodging uncomfortable issues, no grandstanding. We’ll let the facts speak for themselves.

Reviewing our blog stats we see that our ‘popularity’ has gone through the roof – even garnering a mention in today’s Glen Eira Leader! These are the stats for the past 3 months:

July – 1,225 hits

August – 3,943 hits

September – 6,617 (and the month still has a couple of days to go!)

We are thrilled with these results because they show that residents do care about their community and do want an avenue which affords them expression. Spread the word folks – let’s together make this the people’s voice of Glen Eira.

Item 11.2 of the agenda items for next Tuesday night’s council meeting contains several statements from councillors and the CEO. All vigorously protest their innocence, emphasising that the Municipal Investigator found ‘no breach of the Act’. There is also a response ‘signed’ by 6 of the nine councillors, alleging the ‘selective, misleading or distorted reporting’ by the Caulfield Leader, and in particular Jenny Ling, the journalist. Of note, and make of this what you will, this final ‘letter’ fails to include the names of Oscar Lobo, and Jim Magee (Cheryl Forge is understandably absent since the incidents did not include her).

Readers would have far more confidence in these protestations of innocence if:

Councillors Hyams, Esakoff, and Penhalluriack, had seen fit to pen clearly INDIVIDUAL ‘rights of reply’ rather than each adopting the pro forma response of: “There was no suggestion from the Municipal Inspector in his letter to me or in his report to all councillors that there was any reason that I should not have been involved in the CEO appointment process.” Come on councillors – a little bit of independent creativity wouldn’t have gone astray!!

As to the epistle signed by 6 councillors we note the following: The constant refrain of ‘no breach of the Act’ is not an exoneration. It simply means that there are numerous ‘loopholes’ and gaping holes in the legislation. We remind readers that the Municipal Inspector did find repeated instances of lack of ‘transparency and accountability’. There was ‘no breach of the Act’, because these incidents fall outside the current wording of the Local Government Act. To claim in the end that the entire matter is really one of not keeping records properly, and that the public is not affected, is disingenuous in the extreme. We repeat what we have said time and time again – distrust between councillors, between councillors and the CEO, and between councillors and officers does affect the community. No orchestrated ‘united’ front can whitewash this irrevocable fact.

The following article appeared in today’s Melbourne Weekly Bayside

Council called to account

Posts and comments are becoming frenetic on our site, so we’ve decided to do a little housekeeping.

1. We’ve set up an email address so you can contact us directly rather than through comments. It will be housed on the left hand side of the page. Our email address is: gedebates@gmail.com

2. We need to reiterate once again our rules: All comments are moderated, and we ask that people please not comment in a defamatory and/or abusive manner. We moderate everything that comes in, and in future, if certain comments are determined to be offensive we will simply edit out those few sentences (or more, if need be).

3. We’ve also set up a Recent Comment list, so that you may locate people’s thoughts directly from the home page.

Again, we invite all readers to offer any suggestions they like in order to improve this site.

Finally, a big thank you to all our readers. Our stats have gone through the roof, which means that people are interested in what we’ve got to say. Please continue to publicise our existence.

Just a short note of thanks to all our readers. We have now been online for two months and are delighted with the interest aroused and the responses received from you all! In fact, we’ve even surprised ourselves. After an expected slow start, we are now really up and running with over 1000 visits per week – week after week! This is extraodinary for a two month blog! With undue modesty, it means that we’re really hitting a chord; that a critical dissection of Glen Eira issues is desperately needed, but more importantly, that residents want their views out there in the public domain.

We hope that you continue to read our posts and comment on issues that interest you. Again, if there are any suggestions, then just let us know.

As expected, Cheryl Forge was today declared the new Glen Eira councillor. She will be sworn in at tonight’s council meeting.