Glen Eira Debates

November 7, 2012

Letters To The Editor

Posted by gleneira under Miscellaneous
[26] Comments

Join the local democracy

I knocked, I walked, I ran, I drove and 1203 citizens voted for Newton Gatoff. While not enough to get me elected to Glen Eira Council, I have found a wonderful community spirit alive and kicking across our city – with one big problem.

There were at least 13 per cent who spoiled their votes in Tucker Ward, who clearly didn’t want this election. Tucker’s voters returned the three incumbent councillors.

The new arrivals in Camden and Rosstown ward exude a palpable freshness. I cannot accept these elections should be compulsory.

Ban the mandatory vote (at least for local government elections), but let’s have a referendum on that.

And either get an electronic voting system or make it postal votes only in all local government areas. The election is ultimately more engaging if only tnose who want to, take part in it. We may be surprised how much more we can achieve from a positive democracy.

Newton Gatoff

An election thank-you

On Saturday October 27 I was humbled to be re-elected as a Glen Eira councillor for a second term.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who voted for me. For those who did not vote for me, I will continue to serve you as your friend on council

Thank you for placing your trust in me.

Oscar Lobo

November 5, 2012

Need We Say More?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance
[33] Comments

This comment has been sent in by Oscar Lobo –

“Ola Pend…”

GLEN EIRA DEBATES/COMMENTS.

Please do not delete this replay (be fair) as I have disclosed my name and I am not writing under an anonymous burqa.

I have read with interest the various DEROGATORY 82 comments made by people who look down upon others. The gas tank is released before they go home.

This is attributed to lack of education in a proper private schools and top notch universities. I believe a well educated person who has travelled the world will not succumb to such comments and particularly a father or a mother who have dearth of time will not write the pooh material.

I thought the mission statement of the blog was “We are committed to facilitating genuine debate within Glen Eira…. This blog is not a debate but comments as can be shown that 86 comments have been received under the title of “NOT QUIET “TWO UP”! – with 86 comments instead of Debates.

PRIDE AND ENVY CAN CAUSE THE BEST OF MEN TO SUCCUMB TO THEIR INFLUENCE……..

I will respond in seriatim some of the interesting comments (debates?!) that have been posted in the topic under reference.

1. Comment on the blog: Hyams and Lobo! Glen Eira has reached a new low. Good reason to abolish local government.

Ans: Are you a “loco” in spanish? – You would like to abolish local government just because you dislike two people on the council? This shows that you do not put your cranium in gear before putting your fingers on keyboard in motion. You are indeed a Richard Cranium these two words I picked up from the blog. Very educational stuff on this blog!!!!

2. Comment on the blog: Newton is undoubtedly in 7th heaven and Lobo, that good Christian, appears to have once again sold his soul – but for so little!

Ans. In your denomination of religion, how many souls does your teaching say? Your statement “..that good Christian, appears to have once again sold his soul – but for so little. weak in religion.

3. Comment on the blog: Lobo would be a disaster as Mayor. My tip is he’ll make a hash of the Deputy’s role the gang won’t want to know him (By a famous autonomy)

Ans: What do you mean a disaster – is it the same as a disaster when you get divorced by your wife or partner? Are you comparing me with ex Mayor Helen Whiteside and her description that appeared in the Age some 10 days ago. Ms. Whiteside bit the hand that fed her? I do not think I will follow her footsteps if and when my turn comes.

4 Comment on the blog: Lobo you have disappointed so many voters by going with the gang. You could have changed it all with your casting vote.

Ans: Are you one of the voters that is disappointed? Please let me know. I am happy to talk to you and others. You know how to reach me on mobile and e-mail.

5. Comment on the blog: If Lobo is so hard-working why did he miss so many council meetings in 2011/12, including those where the Mayor was elected?

Ans: Did you ask me that question before? I would have told you the real reason; I showed explained my circumstances and showed my sick leave certificate. Did you expect a copy of the certificate to be sent for this blog. If so, let us know.

6. Comment on the blog: Tell that to Cr Lobo who was very disparaging of this forum in his impromptu speech at the swearing in of the new Council

Ans. Read 1 Corinthians 16:11-21 (The Message)

You guys just do not have a clue about Jamie Hyams. Terming him as NAZI is just below the belt. One is sick to stoop so low. Have you met Jamie Hyams before, if not you need to meet him and then comment and hear/see for yourself how decent he is with lots of patients.He uses rationale where required, smart and intelligent,affable, extremely good memory,making things happen rather than waiting for things to happen (principles of late Stephen Covey). Very co-operative, ready to assist residents of Glen Eira not only Tucker ward. I do not have to justify to you why I have proposed him as a Mayor but I will let you in. There are multifarious reasons: He has the required knowledge, he writes well, portrays good true and proper image. Does not assume things like most of you guys. I could go on and on about him and my other colleagues. Just because Jamie belongs to Liberal party, it does not mean that we should hate one another. I work on the methodoligy of observing, investigating, verifying, reporting and then decision making.When a decision is made, it is made on the basis of what is beneficial to the residents who have put us in a trustworthy position. If residents were unhappy, this would reflect in the latest reports on the declarations of the number of votes we all received.

Smart Aleck, D. Evans. Elsternwick need a good holiday!!!!!!

I believe we have many unusually stupid people in this universe. They need to grow up and not succumb to knee jerk re-action. I seize this opportunity to thank other positive anonymous people who wrote in defence of me and I thank them warmly.

A. Comments on November 2, 2012 at 9:27 by an Anonymous.

B. Comment on November 2, 2012 at 10.34 am – Henry Richards. He may have been served by me or been told of my attention to every problem my residents have.

C. Comment on November 2, 2012 at 10.10 and 10.34 am – Thank you.

Hope you enjoyed the foregoing as I thought I would respond with my name. Beware the fury of a patient man.”

November 4, 2012

Monty Python, Basil Fawlty, & Catch 22 All In One!

Posted by gleneira under GE Governance, GE Service Performance
1 Comment

The amended Local Government Act has now come into effect. In our humble view it is a mess, a piece of legislation that the Monty Python’s of this world would have a fine time in lampooning. We will highlight only one aspect of the new legislation.

In their infinite wisdom legislators have decided that a Probity Auditor is necessary to investigate THE PROCESSES involved in any complaints of bullying, sexual harassment against a CEO. Please note – the probity auditor will not investigate the actual complaint, just how it was handled. But it gets even worse! At the 11^th hour legislators decided to introduce an amendment which gave the CEO the power to declare complaints as “vexatious and frivolous”. So what we have is the ludicrous situation where the person complained about can decide whether the complaint is bona fide or merely vexatious.

Given that some Labor members then raised the perfectly logical argument that this in effect would constitute a conflict of interest, Minister Guy and later Minister Powell argued that this could be overcome by the CEO delegating this function to one of his/her underlings!!! This should work a treat in Glen Eira no doubt.

For those who would appreciate a good laugh (or cry) we’ve uploaded the sections from HANSARD which deal with this issue. We have to seriously question where plain old common sense has disappeared and why bureaucrats are increasingly becoming a protected species thanks to both Liberal and Labor governments.

November 1, 2012

Not Quite ‘Two-Up’!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance
[90] Comments

Hyams was elected Mayor tonight by a vote of 5 to 4.

Lobo nominated Hyams and Magee nominated Pilling. The votes in favour of Pilling were:

Delahunty

Pilling

Magee

Sounness

The votes in favour of Hyams were:

Hyams

Lipshutz

Esakoff

Okotel

Lobo

For Deputy Mayor there was only one person nominated by Hyams – Lobo. He was elected unopposed.

All councillors signed the Code of Conduct and 7 councillors were sworn in by Affirmation and 2 via the oath – Okotel and Lobo.

October 31, 2012

Who Will Be Mayor & When?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance
[19] Comments

We’ve decided to have a closer look at the question of who will be Mayor following some recent comments. We’ve already stated that we believe it would be another case of “indecent haste” if the Mayor were to be elected tomorrow night. Two days following the announcement of the successful candidates is certainly not enough time for these individuals to make rational and long term decisions on the future. When a Mayor can wield so much power (ie gagging councillors, allowing residents to address council and most importantly, determining what can be over-ruled with no option for dissent) then who assumes the title of Mayor is crucial.

We speculate that there are possibly three candidates – Hyams, Pilling, and Lipshutz, with the latter as perhaps Deputy Mayor. We’ve ruled Esakoff out given that she’s been in the role 3 times and making it 4 times would be over the top even for the gang. That leaves room for some major political manoeuvring. We have 3 Labor councillors (Delahunty, Magee and Lobo); 2 Greens (Pilling and Sounness) and 4 Libs (Lipshutz, Hyams, Esakoff, Okotel). The possible combinations and permutations are mouth watering.

Will the Greens join forces with Labor to run the roost and elect Pilling? If they do, what does this augur for the rest of the life of this council?
Will Lobo ditch his Labor mates and side with the gang? What would Crean & Staikos think of this?

All in all, it should be a real eye-opener tomorrow night!

October 30, 2012

Cracking The Whip – Already!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance
[26] Comments

Thursday night (8pm) will see the first meeting of this council. The agenda items make for interesting reading.

Council has generally left the frontispiece on its Agenda and Minute papers for Special Council Meetings blank apart from the date and logo. Not this time! There’s a nice little subliminal ‘message’ reading – “The primary object of a Council is to endeavour to achieve the best outcomes for the local community having regard to the long term and cumulative effects of decisions.” – s3c(1) Local Government Act”.
Councillors, apart from signing the Oath of Office will also be “invited” to sign the Code of Conduct.
There are also 4 options in relation to the Mayoral election – 1. Vote for a 1 year term for Mayor and Deputy Mayor; 2. Vote for a 2 year term for Mayor and Deputy Mayor; 3. Defer till next Ordinary council meeting or (4) Defer until no later than 30^th November.
There’s also a notice about Councillor Expenses policy and remuneration.

We’ve done a quick search to determine how other councils may be approaching the first meeting of the new councils. Whilst not too many agendas are up as yet on other councils’ websites, we have located the following – none of which make any mention of the election of Mayors, nor of the ‘offer’ to sign the Councillor Code of Conduct. Most councils appear to be taking the sensible option and allowing a couple of weeks for councillors to come together and work out who will nominate, and how they will each vote. (See: Port Phillip, Boroondara, as examples).

The outcomes of Thursday night’s meeting will reveal much about the new dynamics and the power structures within Council. Meanwhile, the administration is still up to its old tricks we feel.

October 29, 2012

Official Result

Posted by gleneira under Miscellaneous
[30] Comments

From: “Jill Esplan (Glen Eira RO)” <Jill.Esplan@vec.vic.gov.au>

Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2012 19:54:27 +1100

Subject: Computer count result.

Dear Candidates,

Please find attached the computer results of the 2012 Glen Eira election.

Congratulations to the successful candidates :

Camden : Michael Lipshutz, Mary Delahunty and Thomas Sounness

Rosstown: Margaret Esakoff, Karina Okotel and Neil Pilling

Tucker: Jamie Hyams, Oscar Lobo and Jim Magee.

The formal declaration will take place at 9am tomorrow morning at the Town Hall.

Regards,

Jill Esplan

Returning Officer

Glen Eira Council Election

ph. 9563 5013

October 29, 2012

Election Results: #2

Posted by gleneira under Miscellaneous
[5] Comments

There must be real fun and games going on at the count. We now have confirmation of the THIRD DELAY! (See below). There are two possibilities for these continued delays – (1) computer problems, or (3) major argey-bargey with and between scrutineers. If the latter then we assume things are indeed very, very, close in at least 2 wards.

“Dear Candidates,

Here’s the promised update.

The calculation will now take place for all wards in alpha order commencing at 6pm this evening.

The declaration has now been tentatively set for 9am tomorrow morning. The venue remains the same.

Regards

Jill Esplan

Returning Officer

Glen Eira Council Election

ph. 9563 5013

October 28, 2012

Election Results

Posted by gleneira under Miscellaneous
[27] Comments

Tables below are taken from the VEC website as at 9.15am Sunday. Updates to the counts will be made by VEC throughout the day. See: https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/Results/GlenEiraResult2012.html

At this stage Council could have 4 new councillors.

Candidate	First preference votes	Percentage
FORGE, Cheryl	466	3.44%
KRAINA, Catherine	126	0.93%
LIPSHUTZ, Michael	3373	24.87%
SPIEGEL, Joshua	372	2.74%
WEIL, Martyn Daniel	224	1.65%
SOUNNESS, Thomas	1582	11.67%
DEMPSEY, Kate	752	5.55%
PENHALLURIACK, Frank	1543	11.38%
KURAN, Bernie	1264	9.32%
STEEDMAN, James	398	2.93%
DELAHUNTY, Mary	3461	25.52%

Rosstown Ward (3 vacancies)

Results below are only provisional results.

Results for this ward will be published progressively. The figures below may not include all votes.

Enrolment:	33482
Formal Votes:	16874
Informal Votes:	1491 (8.12% of the total votes)
Voter Turnout:	18365 (54.85% of the total enrolment)

First preference votes

Candidate	First preference votes	Percentage
ESAKOFF, Margaret	5583	33.09%
OKOTEL, Karina	3794	22.48%
MIKELSONS, Wilmars	1236	7.32%
HO, Kelvin	518	3.07%
HSU, Ryan	1046	6.20%
CASPI, Michael	608	3.60%
DUNSTAN, Don	1460	8.65%
PILLING, Neil	2629	15.58%

Tucker Ward (3 vacancies)

Enrolment:	33307
Formal Votes:	18588
Informal Votes:	2407 (11.46% of the total votes)
Voter Turnout:	20995 (63.03% of the total enrolment)

Candidate	First preference votes	Percentage
DUDEJA, Raj	835	4.49%
HYAMS, Jamie	4289	23.07%
MAGEE, Jim	1894	10.19%
HEDGER, Brett	958	5.15%
CADE, Anne Marie	472	2.54%
LOBO, Oscar	2372	12.76%
De’ATH, Phil	1598	8.60%
MYERS, John Barry	213	1.15%
KAY, David	157	0.84%
GATOFF, Newton	1117	6.01%
READ, Rose	1846	9.93%
PILCHER, Trudy	163	0.88%
ANDONOPOULOS, Rodney	2146	11.55%
BUCH, Henry	528	2.84%

October 26, 2012

Appalling Behaviour

Posted by gleneira under Miscellaneous
[23] Comments

In front of countless residents waiting to vote late this afternoon, Esakoff, Hyams and Jack Esakoff sank to the lowest depths of gutter politics and personal slander. Here’s what happened.

Penhalluriack was speaking with a voter in the queue who had asked him a question. The unholy triumvirate were on the opposite side of the queue. Penhalluriack started answering the resident’s questions by pointing out the huge interest bill accrued via GESAC and the impact on rates for the next 15 years. Esakoff intervened with “tell the truth Frank”. Penhalluriack told her to mind her own business since he was basically engaged in a private conversation. Mr Esakoff then accused Penhalluriack of lying and the crème de resistance came from Hyams who stated that Penhalluriack has no “principles”.

Not only was such behaviour embarrassing, it demeaned council and in particular these 3 individuals. We also have to wonder whether it possibly breached the councillor code of conduct. This is not the first time that Hyams has revealed his true colours with obnoxious remarks directed at both councillors and residents. Mr Esakoff’s performance over these past two weeks also needs to come under scrutiny. As for Esakoff herself, we can only surmise that if she had devoted as much time to being an informed councillor as she is to muck-raking and electioneering, then Glen Eira would be a far better place.