November 26, 2023

Vale David Zyngier

Posted by gleneira under Miscellaneous
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Statement from Mayor Cr Anne-Marie Cade on the passing of Cr David Zyngier

It is with deep sorrow and a heavy heart that we share the news of the passing of Camden Ward Councillor Dr David Zyngier.

Cr Zyngier’s passing is an immeasurable loss for Council. We extend our deepest condolences to Cr Zyngier’s family, friends, and all who had the privilege of knowing and working alongside him. Cr Zyngier is survived by his loving wife, Suzanne, children and grandchildren.

Cr Zyngier was the son of Holocaust survivors from Poland and was the first in his family to complete high school and attend university. He was a student at Melbourne Boys High School and then went on to study history and politics at Monash University. He later returned to Monash where he studied to become a humanities teacher.

Cr Zyngier was as well-known member of Glen Eira’s Jewish community. He worked in education for more than 35 years and was principal of a local Jewish school. He was an active member of his synagogue, Kehilat Nitzan, an advocate of Jewish LGBTIQA+ rights, and a member of the Jewish Climate Network. As a volunteer with the Ardoch Foundation, Courage to Care, and Father Bob Foundation, Cr Zyngier’s passion for giving a voice to the vulnerable permeated all that he did.

As a representative of his community, Cr Zyngier was a passionate advocate for climate action. Cr Zyngier co-founded the Glen Eira Emergency Climate Action Network, participated in the development of the Glen Eira 2040 Community Vision, and helped guide the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Trust Land Management Plan. He helped develop Council’s target of achieving net zero Council emissions by 2025 and net zero community emissions by 2030. Cr Zyngier worked closely with young people across Glen Eira to give them a voice.  

As a member of the Metropolitan Transport Forum, Cr Zyngier advocated for integrated transport and improving connectivity in the local community. On the Local Government Working Group on Gambling, Cr Zyngier called for the reform of Victoria’s gambling laws in the lead up to significant reform to minimise harm from gaming machines. As a member of Council’s Community Engagement, Sustainability and Multicultural Advisory Committees, Cr Zyngier helped Council better engage with our community, respond to the climate emergency, and hear from people from all backgrounds.

Cr Zyngier never shied away from asking the big questions and challenging all of us to aim higher. The Chamber was richer for his contribution. During this difficult time, we come together with our community to support one another and honour the memory of Cr Zyngier. We owe a great debt to Cr Zyngier for the indelible mark he left on our organisation and community, and the positive influence he had on each of us personally and professionally.

Flags at Glen Eira Town Hall have been lowered to half-mast in a sign of respect. Details of any memorial services and arrangements will be shared as soon as they become available. May Cr Zyngier’s legacy continue to inspire us and strive to make a positive difference, just as he did.

Vale Councillor Dr David Zyngier.

 

November 24, 2023

Bentleigh Structure Plan – Feedback Summary

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
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Once again a whopping agenda that lumps together some of the most important planning issues that confront the community. These are:

  • Bentleigh Structure Plan community feedback
  • Bentleigh East  Neighbourhood Centre amendment
  • Elsternwick Structure Plan amendment
  • Carnegie Structure Plan amendment

Very little has changed in regard to the Major Activity Centres, especially in relation to heights, and overshadowing. All this despite the fact that the majority of responses were opposed to various recommendations in the structure plans and the mooted DDO’s. Carnegie did not even have community consultation following the abandonment of version one (ie Amendment C184)!!!!!!!

We will deal with each of the above as separate posts beginning with the Bentleigh consultation summary.

Bentleigh Community Feedback ‘summary’

  • There were 106 survey responses, 17 emails and a petition of 221 signatories. Council states that it sent out 4,101 letters to surrounding households. The feedback equates to a pathetic 2.56% response rate for the survey. Why? Are Bentleigh residents so apathetic that they don’t care? Have residents given up on believing that their voices can affect outcomes in Glen Eira? Or is there something drastically wrong with the way in which council communicates its intentions? We have yet to see any analyses EVER of why feedback is so low and what can be done to improve this. It serves council well to simply go through the motions of ‘consultation’ despite the fact that survey after survey has been anything but a genuine attempt to elicit relevant and valid responses.
  • Again, we are not privy to the raw data. No publication of the responses as has happened in the past. Instead we have a ‘doctored’ summary that falls far short of reporting on what was actually said/written.
  • Language used remains a problem. The officer’s report is vague and imprecise with terminology such as ‘mixed responses’, ‘about half’, ‘support for accommodating growth’, ‘some support’, etc. Very little is quantified.
  • The summary report itself is nothing more than a public relations exercise. For example: On ‘retaining character’ we find this conclusion in the report – 55 percent of participants indicated that accommodating growth above the commercial strip was better than doing it in other parts of Bentleigh. Ostensibly this sounds like a majority are in favour, but one must query the value of the question itself. There could very well be support for greater density in the commercial core, but THIS DOES NOT MEAN that respondents are in favour of 8 storeys (discretionary) adjacent to heritage homes. The value of any response and what conclusions might be drawn are 100% dependent on the quality of the questions asked. The online survey as we’ve commented on before was carefully engineered to avoid as much as possible any responses that could be interpreted as ‘negative’ or opposed to the recommendations of the structure plan.  
  • The above criticisms can also be directed to this conclusion – 51% of participants indicated they ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ that measures such as height limits and upper-level setbacks for new development would help to retain the character of Centre Road. Of course people want height limits. But we were never asked what those height limits should be!!!!!!!
  • On page 4 of the summary report we are told that 20 percent of participants indicated they would like a building height limit reduction in the centre when asked about retaining character in a growing centre. This sounds like a clear minority in favour of reduced height limits. But this  alleged 20% is only from those individuals who took the option to write something in the text boxes. And again, no question asked what is an appropriate height limit?
  • More concerning is that the above cited 20% does not correlate with what is then presented in the following table:

 We’ve highlighted all those responses which could be seen as pertaining to the issue of height. The totals are far in excess of the previously stated 20%!!!!!! However, without full publication of all the responses then it is not possible to determine whether the 20% is anywhere near accurate or council’s fudging of the responses. Transparency is again the victim in this reporting.

CONCLUSION(S)

Until this council is prepared to undertake genuine consultation that includes full oversight by councillors and the community engagement committee in the drafting of survey questions then residents cannot hope to be participants in anything but a carefully orchestrated farce that fulfils legal requirements and nothing else. Nor can residents have any confidence in the resulting feedback summaries when the raw data is with-held. When council fights so hard to avoid full disclosure one must surely doubt the results.

As stated earlier, there must be a full analyses of why consultation in Glen Eira is such a failure in terms of community feedback. This should start at the first stage of notification to residents – are they provided with enough detail to engage their interest/concern? Are they expected to undertake hours of reading that involves hundreds of pages instead of succinct summaries? And how many residents have simply given up because they don’t believe that anything they put forward will eventuate? This isn’t apathy we believe. It is simply distrust of council and the predetermined nature of all decision making. If residents truly believed that council was ready to listen and act, then we are confident that feedback would quadruple and that residents could actually believe that council was acting on their behalf. Sadly this is not the modus operandi of Glen Eira City Council!

 

November 22, 2023

Boroondara Versus Glen Eira

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
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Earlier this month Boroondara City Council voted in a resolution which basically condemned the flurry of planning changes introduced by the State Government over the past 18 months or so. The vote was a result of a detailed officer report outlining the consequences of these changes and how they would impact the Boroondara community.  In Glen Eira, apart from a bit of fear mongering by some councillors used to justify their voting patterns on activity centres (ie  we would get worse results if the minister calls it in, blah, blah, blah) there has not been one report, analyses, or discussion similar to the Boroondara stance. In all likelihood, residents have no idea of what these changes to the planning system entail, or what they mean for future development.

If councils are truly working for their residents, then it is incumbent on them to provide their communities with the necessary information and to work collaboratively with various community groups in their advocacy roles. None of this has happened in Glen Eira. Why not? Why can’t we have an officer’s report which is out in the open and discussed in council chambers so that everyone knows what this council stands for?

The Boroondara vote can be watched via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4f_0Tab2Ag. It starts at approximately 52 minutes into the webcast.  We’ve also uploaded several pages from the officer’s report. It was lengthy, but the highlighted comments here are important and reveal the primary concerns of Boroondara. Are these shared by Glen Eira? Who knows?

Again, we have a myriad of questions:

  • Have councillors even been briefed on what each new piece of legislation means?
  • Have options been presented to councillors on what can and should be done in response?
  • What communications have taken place between officers and departments? Have councillors been made aware of all such communications? If so, have they seen hard copies of this communication or simply had to rely on officer’s verbal summaries?

Residents deserve heaps better from our council. Or is the truth simply that the Glen Eira administration is fully behind the government’s actions in removing as far as possible all third party objection rights and allowing more and more development?

 

November 1, 2023

Wherefore Art Consistency & Transparency?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance
[2] Comments 

Lockdowns in Melbourne ended in late 2021. Throughout the past few years council meetings were held in public with residents present in the gallery. During this ‘return to normal’ all public questions asked, irrespective of whether the questioner was present in the gallery or not, were read out, answered, and recorded in the minutes. Yet at the last council meeting without any explanation, council resorted to its ridiculous policy of NOT reading out and answering questions if the resident was not present in the chamber. Nor were the questions recorded in the minutes. Even more bizarre is the fact that previously absent questioners’ names WERE RECORDED IN THE MINUTES. Not for the last meeting!

There are other questionable practices that require explanation. For example: historically, all proposed amendments were noted in the ensuing minutes, whether or not they were seconded and if they were seconded a vote taken as to whether the amendment became the substantive motion. Again, the current minutes from last council meeting fail to record an amendment moved by Zyngier and seconded by Pennicuik. Admittedly minutes are not supposed to be a Hansard recording of what was said. But they do have to record what decisions are made in council meetings and the voting on the issue. So we now have another subtle change in what is recorded without explanation and without reference to long standing previous practice.

A quick perusal of previous and recent minutes reveals that on the following dates council minutes DID record amendments as well as the resulting vote(s) in the minutes. The dates are: 8th  June 2021; 9th August 2022; 8th February 2023 and 28th February 2023.

Council’s approach to its governance rules and the lack of consistency certainly requires examination and explanation. But this is more than a simple case of lack of consistency. It harkens back to the central issue of lack of transparency and questions how well this council acts in accordance with its own policies, practices and legislation.

PS: here’s a couple more examples of what a mess council’s governance rules are – or more precisely, how little that is done is in accordance with the existing policies.

  1. The publishing of agendas. According to the governance rules, agendas will be available on the Friday post noon before every ordinary council meeting. Over the past year or so, agendas have come out either late Wednesday afternoon, Thursday, and even late Friday – well after the supposed 12pm time line.
  2. Public questions. We now have the farcical situation that at every council meeting there has to be a motion to bring forward the public question section nearer the beginning rather than towards the end of the meeting as pronounced in the governance rules.

Surely all that is required is for the Local Law to once and for all enshrine the simply procedures so that public questions are heard at the start of all council meetings and that definitive times are imposed on the publishing of agendas.

The governance rules also need to make it absolutely clear as to what will feature in the minutes and the constraints of word limit, and questioners’ presence in council chambers be removed. As it currently stands some questions are well and truly over 150 words, yet are permitted. Others that might be 156 words are deemed to have exceeded the limit and are not read out. The hallmark of what’s been happening is not only inconsistency, but raises the question of why bother having rules and regulations to begin with if they can so easily be ignored and bypassed when it suits.

 

October 13, 2023

Elsternwick: May Street Finding!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
[3] Comments 

We’ve received the following media release.

 A myriad of questions result from this:

  • If in 2008 legal advice found that May Street was indeed a ‘road at law’, and that council officers were informed and certainly aware of this finding, then where is corporate memory? The Woolies vcat decision goes back years and certain officers such as Torres et al were certainly working for council in 2008 and also up until recently. Surely it is part of their responsibility to have been aware of such documents – or was a blind eye turned on this ‘evidence’ because it would have made things far more difficult for Woolies?
  • Why has no mention been made of this 2008 decision? Why weren’t councillors informed? What does this say about council’s required record keeping and its required role in informing councillors of all relevant information prior to their decision making?
  • Council claims to have received its own ‘legal advice’. How does this supposed ‘legal advice’ refute the 2008 advice and STET’S own comprehensive legal advice? Council has done nothing in the intervening period to change the status of the 2008 decision – ie. no zone changes, no attempt to remove the ‘road’ status, etc. Until everything is out in the open so that the community can gauge for itself, then the perception the council has indeed failed in its ‘due diligence’ remains.
  • This is more than a simple failure to locate, assess and acknowledge the ramifications of a previous finding. It raises very real questions about the integrity of this administration and how far it will go to facilitate major development.
 

October 5, 2023

Childcare

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Service Performance
[3] Comments 

The following Media Release is on council’s website –

Council made a preliminary decision on Tuesday night to close its three small Early Learning Centres in Caulfield, Carnegie and Murrumbeena.

Statement from Glen Eira Mayor Cr Jim Magee: Preliminary decision on the future of Council’s three early learning centres

We are now consulting directly with impacted families, staff, and the community before making a final decision by the end of the year.

We recognise this will be a challenging time for staff and families and are here to support them.

Council’s three Early Learning Centres were established at a time when opportunities for families to access childcare services were limited. In the decades since, a radical change in government funding and policy has led to a boom in the childcare market and slowed demand for Council’s centres.

The number of childcare places in Glen Eira has doubled since 2010, and increased from 3,966 places to 5,731 places since 2019, an increase of 44 per cent. Nine further non-Council centres now in the planning phase will offer a further 919 places.

A service review found we provide quality care and have excellent educators, however our older centres no longer meet contemporary building and service standards that modern childcare centres provide. 

Our centres are expected to operate at a loss of at least $570,000 each year. Amid increasing costs and economic uncertainty, it is getting harder for councils to run services and we need to make responsible choices and provide value to all the community.

The municipality has a vibrant childcare market that provides choice, competition and capacity. We have confidence that the supply of childcare places will meet current and future demand. Our centres now account for just two per cent of the childcare places available across the municipality.

If Council decides to close the centres, the final day of operation is likely to be Thursday 21 December 2023. We will help families find alternative care that best suits their individual needs and help staff find a new role through redeployment to another Council role or career support.

To learn more about the Council preliminary decision and provide feedback, visit www.haveyoursaygleneira.com.au/childcare.

Media contact: Alex Leamy on 0409 086 361

PS: The Age is also running a story on this issue. See: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/glen-eira-council-to-close-three-childcare-centres-before-christmas-20231005-p5e9yc.html

 

September 23, 2023

Andrews & Social Housing!

Posted by gleneira under Miscellaneous
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From today’s Age

A grand bargain indeed: Why the property industry is smiling

By Royce Millar and Josh Gordon

September 23, 2023 — 5.00am

When the smiling heads of every property industry lobby in Victoria lined up on Wednesday with a packet of Sharpie permanent markers to sign what Premier Daniel Andrews dubbed his “Affordability Partnership”, the image said much about the winners and losers from Labor’s much-awaited housing statement.

Repeatedly on the day and since, Andrews lauded his government’s “grand bargain with our property industry friends”.

A bargain indeed. Andrews’ answer to the worst housing crisis in decades is a package of reforms aimed at speeding up and facilitating residential development, reforms that will deliver billions of dollars to developers and builders, but which will cost them little beyond a vague commitment to include more “affordable housing”.

Wind the clock to February 23, 2022, and it was a very different story. After years of policy work, the government had offered the property industry a very similar package of reforms. But it had demanded a quid pro quo – a special new levy expected to generate about $800 million a year for social housing.

As The Age reveals today, the levy was part of a bold plan to boost social housing spending and reverse the long decline in social housing as a proportion of overall housing. It was, in effect, a version of what is known as mandatory inclusionary zoning, whereby landowners and developers benefiting from development approvals are required to tip in a little for the wider social good.

At the time the government thought it had a deal whereby the influential Property Council would publicly support the levy. But at the eleventh hour there was disagreement, not about the fact of the levy, but about the amount. Where the government had proposed a levy of 1.75 per cent of the expected value of all newly built developments with three or more dwellings, the Property Council said it would only cop 1.5 per cent.

Andrews then withdrew the offer, accusing the industry of reneging on a deal. “I am not in the business of creating super profits for developers if they are unwilling to support sharing those profits,” railed the premier.

Nineteen months later that is exactly what Andrews has done.

This week’s housing statement includes the same carrots offered to the property industry last year, including legislation of reforms proposed by Victoria’s Red Tape Commissioner, a reduced role for councils in planning decisions, and more.

But gone is the stick – the levy the government had planned to use to build desperately needed housing for low-income earners like the cleaners and hospitality industry workers who keep the city ticking over but who are increasingly priced out of it.

Under Andrews “grand bargain”, developers will be able to seek to have projects approved especially quickly if they voluntarily offer to include a proportion of so-called “affordable” housing in their private projects.

In reality there is precious little in this overly-hyped housing statement that does much at all to improve affordability in any meaningful way. The government says the key is boosting supply, promising 80,000 homes a year for the next decade. Yet it has been vague on the details. What, for example, will be the mix between public housing and other forms of housing? When the government talks about “affordable housing”, what exactly does it mean? Affordable for whom?

As The Age reported this month, the government’s official parameters for “affordable” private rental actually leave many workers, such as cleaners and baristas, childcare and aged care staff, priced out of Melbourne’s inner-and middle-suburb rental market.

Noticeably absent from the conga-line of property-industry signatories to Andrews’ “affordability partnership” were any representatives from the community housing sector.

As Andrews himself suggested in February last year, a partnership involves give and take from both parties.

Wednesday’s housing package was more pandering than partnership.

 

September 20, 2023

More Stuff-ups?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
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On Tuesday night there was a Special Council Meeting to (re)consider submissions on the closing off of Orrong Crescent/Alma Road in order to facilitate the proposed pop-up park at this corner. What is staggering about the processes involved is that council never seems to get it right – despite all their planning and traffic departments and legal advisors. It is clear that what motivates this administration is to implement something that has already been determined regardless of what the legislation requires! Council wants the pop-up park in spite of previous consultations that were strongly opposed. The first step to achieving this is the closure of the intersection. Thus the two are intricately linked. Trouble is, the law has been ignored!!!!!!

Please listen carefully to the following submission made on the night. It highlights the legal flaws in what council has done as well as the lack of required evidence to support the proposal of closing off the intersection. This new attempt comes on top of the failure to properly advertise and seek submissions on the first attempt.

There can be no excuse for what is happening here. Due legal process has not been followed; pivotal research such as traffic reports have either not been done, or not provided to councillors. Not the first time that councillors are expected to vote on an issue without all the relevant information before them! Even the officer’s report distorts what the submissions say in the claim that 4 were in support and 7 opposed. Of the four allegedly in ‘support’, the focus is exclusively on the pop-up park and NOT the closure of Orrong Crescent which is what this item is about! Council’s approach is akin to a bull in a china shop where the objective is to ram through whatever has already been decided.Hardly transparent and good governance!

 

September 13, 2023

Bogus Reports: Bentleigh & Elsternwick

Posted by gleneira under GE Consultation/Communication, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
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Council’s consultants are maestros in camouflaging the real facts and figures that should be the basis of all decent strategic planning. This of course only reinforces our view that the role of consultants is to provide any so called ‘evidence’ which will support decisions already made by this planning department.

This post focuses on the two traffic reports for the Bentleigh & Elsternwick structure plans. Both were done by the same company – yet they are very different in important components. Why?

We will start off with Elsternwick. On page 28 of the study we have this image:

We are told that: Dwellings in Elsternwick are a split of single detached dwellings (57%) and multi-unit dwellings (43%). The phrasing of ‘single detached dwellings’ would imply that these dwellings are stand alone houses and ‘multi-unit’ dwellings are interpreted as flats. Are we therefore witnessing some sleight of hand, when these figures are compared to what the 2021 Census results tell us? If our interpretation of ‘single detached dwellings’ coincides with the ABS interpretation, then these results are far more than bogus – they represent a deliberate attempt to distort and hide the true facts. Interestingly, we can find no definition in the consultant’s reports of what ‘single detached dwellings’ and ‘multi-unit dwellings’ means.

Compare the above with what the census reveals below:

38% compared to the reports 57%!!!!!!! We can only assume that the 38% has been added to the 19.3% to come anywhere near the stated 57%. If this is the case, then it is entirely misleading – especially since the consultants provide no definitions or explanations.

Another aspect of the above page is the claim that 12% of HOUSEHOLDS don’t own a car. The resorting to ‘households’ instead of dwellings is interesting. When we look at the car ownership per dwelling we get a completely different result (see below).

The Bentleigh transport report doesn’t follow the Elsternwick version. Instead we now get comparisons on page 128/9 to Windsor!!!! Readers should remember that we have been repeatedly told that we CANNOT compare one municipality to another. Yet, this is exactly what this supposed traffic analyses has done. And it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny when we find that Windsor compared to Bentleigh is an entirely different proposition!

For starters, we now are looking exclusively at PERCENTAGES and not NUMBERS in the attempt to prove how similar these two suburbs are. What is not stated are the following that completely change the conclusions. The table below is derived from the ABS 2021 census data.

Please note:

  • Bentleigh’s population is close to 3 times that of Windsor
  • The number of dwellings in Bentleigh is double that of Windsor
  • The number of dwellings without cars in Bentleigh is 446 and Windsor is 344. When these numbers are calculated as a PERCENTAGE of dwellings without cars, then of course Windsor will have a higher percentage given it has half of the dwellings in Bentleigh.

There is much, much more that could be written about these traffic reports and the invalidity of what is presented. Yet these documents are supposed to form the ‘evidence’ for structure plan recommendations. They fail dismally and are there simply to fulfill all legal requirements instead of providing an analyses that does hold up to scrutiny. We can only wonder how much these reports have cost ratepayers!!!!!! Undoubtedly money well spent when the objective is to facilitate more and more development with increased deterioration of residential amenity!

 

September 8, 2023

The Elsternwick Debacle!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
[3] Comments 

The above image of the August 15th pre-council assembly meeting reveals everything about the lack of governance and the manipulation that occurred. Here are the important things to note:

  • Cr Pennicuik DID NOT declare a conflict of interest at this meeting nor at any of the previous 9 assembly meetings where the Elsternwick Structure Plan was listed for discussion.
  • This pre-meeting lasted exactly 54 minutes and we have to wonder when in this 54 minutes was the Cade amendment discussed by councillors? – ie at 7’oclock? 7.20?
  • Responses to public questions at the last council meeting declare that In the case of the Amended Motion on item 8.2 passed at the Ordinary Council Meeting of 15 August, Councillors received written notification of all of its component parts at 5.10pm that afternoon. We assume that this was via email. Thus, did all councillors manage to access their emails prior to the assembly meeting?  And when were councillors forwarded all the other proposed amendments – especially the Zyngier one? Were these discussed on the August 15th pre-meeting, or any of the earlier ones?And how much time (if any) was devoted to each proposal?
  • As cited in some of the public questions on Tuesday night, council’s governance rules include the following: Members have sufficient information available to them to make good and informed decisions. Good decision making requires time – this was clearly not available pre-meeting and certainly not available to Cr Pennicuik to seek independent legal advice to confirm or deny that she had a potential conflict of interest.
  • In another response to a public question we get: There is no requirement under Council’s Governance Rules or the Local Government Act 2020 for a proposed Amendment to a Motion to be provided to other Councillors in advance of an Ordinary Council meeting, although it is encouraged as good practice. Correct that there is nothing specific in either the governance rules or the Local Government Act to determine WHEN amendments should be available to councillors. But this has not stopped Magee from ruling out of order a proposed amendment on the Bentleigh Structure Plan by Zyngier on the July 4th council meeting when he said:
  • Not only was the Zyngier attempted amendment disallowed on the claim of a non-existent ‘no surprises policy’ but that it also was not discussed at the pre-meeting. But in several responses to public questions we have the above council quote – no ‘in advance’ notification is required. Thus Magee basically gagged Zyngier!

For all the mumbo-jumbo, and claims of sound governance, what occurred on August 15th can only be seen as deliberate manipulation to ensure that only 8 councillors voted and that the casting vote was left in the hands of our compliant Mayor.

 

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