NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

Breaking News from the Landfill Front

On Friday 29 April 2016, Kay and Robyn Davies met with Premier Hon. Colin Barnett and Hon. Jim Chown, MLC for the Agricultural Region, at the Flour Mill Café in York.

You can read a report of the meeting, and view a photo of the participants standing together outside the café, at https://www.facebook.com/Stop40YearsOfPerthRubbishInYork/

The report makes clear that the main topic for discussion at the meeting was the proposed SITA landfill at Allawuna.

I was pleased to see that in addition to making known their concerns about water, threats to agriculture and potential traffic problems along the Great Southern Highway, Robyn and Kay raised with the premier the unjust impact on the WA community and environment of the rules governing the operations of the State Administrative Tribunal and the Departmental of Environmental Regulation.

Those rules were established in legislation introduced by none other than the premier and current government. Their purpose was to facilitate ‘development’ in all of its aspects by enfeebling the community’s ability to obstruct or prevent it by way of action in the courts.

According to former York CEO Ray Hooper, as reported in the media some years ago, the aim of the new system was ‘to take the emotion out’ of planning processes. 

You know what we forelock tuggers are like—when we think proposed developments endanger the welfare, comfort, safety or livelihoods of our communities and families, we get angry and start screaming and jumping up and down, pulling our hair out and gnashing our teeth in impotent rage. 

Stupid bloody nimbies, the lot of us.

I don’t know how Mr. Barnett responded to Robyn and Kay, but I think I can imagine it. 

He would have clucked sympathetically, denied having known anything about a landfill in York and what SITA is up to, then told them that the relevant bureaucracies had completed their work and there was absolutely nothing he could have done or can do now to help the people of York in their fight against SITA’s proposal.

So, despite York’s historic importance and its value as a tourist destination—not to speak of its agricultural significance—and notwithstanding that he is now WA’s minister for tourism, he is and always was powerless to intervene.

I bet that’s more or less what he told Robyn and Kay, with the Hon. Jim nodding benignly in the background.

He would have stumbled his way along the bumpy rhetorical track pioneered by his minister for water.

Since Premier Barnett can’t help us, perhaps the Almighty wouldn’t mind stepping in to take his place.   Surely He could organise a minor earthquake or flood, or a series of major traffic pile-ups—no injuries, Lord, please, a few harmless truck roll-overs will do, so long as they inconvenience dozens of politicians and bureaucrats wending their way homewards to Perth—to demonstrate some of the dangers of permitting a landfill to be sited at Allawuna.

Meanwhile, back at the farm…

Not long ago I mentioned a rumour flying around York that SITA intended to pull out of the Allawuna deal.   The rumour predicted that this would happen because the company had bought Perthwaste’s much bigger landfill at North Bannister, thereby rendering Allawuna superfluous to its requirements.

Is that rumour true?  I’ve still no idea.  Until I receive confirmation from an unimpeachable source, namely SITA itself in the person of its state manager, Mr. Nial Stock, I shall go on burning candles to St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.

What I can confirm, after closely examining a sheep’s entrails, is that Allawuna is still the property of Mr. and Mrs Chester.  The sale to SITA hasn’t yet gone through. 

After four years of uncertainty, this must be a trying time for the elderly vendors and the real estate agents representing them.  For their sakes as well as ours, I hope another rumour does turn out to be true, that somebody is waiting in the wings with an offer to buy the property and farm it without converting part of it into the site of a noxious industry. 

Now that would be providential—and a well deserved poke in the eye for anybody hoping to profit, at the community’s expense, from a rubbish-led recovery in York.

POSTSCRIPT Readers, I was wrong to imply above that Colin Barnett had simply washed his hands of the landfill issue.  He told the Shire and members of AVRA as well as Robyn and Kay that he intended to investigate the community’s concerns and discuss them with SITA.

See the report and accompanying photograph on the front page of the current edition of York and District Community Matters.

 
 

Robyn and Kay Davies, farmers of York

Hon. Colin Barnett, MLA for Cottesloe, Premier of WA, Minister for Science and Tourism

                     Hon. James Edward (Jim) Chown, MLC for the Agricultural Region

FAREWELL, MARK DACOMBE, AND THANKS FOR ALL THAT YOU’VE DONE FOR YORK

As most readers will know, Mark Dacombe has completed his term of office as Acting CEO of the Shire of York. 

I understand he will remain in York for another week or so to hand over the reins of office to his successor, Paul Martin, who took up his position yesterday as the Shire's new CEO.  So this farewell is a little premature, though I hope none the worse for that.

Mr. Dacombe is leaving to resume his duties as director of Localise, a consultancy specialising in advising local governments in WA.

I suspect he will have found working for the Shire of York a particularly challenging assignment.  So it’s greatly to his credit that he persisted with it for so long and has achieved so much during his time here.

He and I have met and spoken only on a few occasions.  We are not on familiar terms, but I think it fair to say that the atmosphere of those brief contacts has been one of cordiality and mutual respect. 

Disagreement

Recently, I took issue with his recommendation to Council to suppress the Fraud Squad report.

It is no secret that I have a philosophical commitment to openness at all levels of government.  In my view, the public has a right to know the details of everything done for it or in its name by elected officials and their appointed executives and advisers—except where matters of national security and defence and of international diplomacy are involved, and sometimes, not even then.

Since those excepted matters rarely if ever fall within the purview of local government, I have never quite understood why the Shire of York would choose to suppress reports like those of the Fraud Squad and Mike Fitz Gerald.

Not surprisingly, many believe, wrongly or not, that in the latter case that was done to protect the reputations of individuals who recklessly and sometimes maliciously abused their authority to injure people who opposed them, while doing favours for their supporters.

Mr. Dacombe’s argument in favour of suppressing the Fraud Squad report was based on advice from the Shire’s lawyers.  Lawyers have a natural tendency to counsel caution in making such reports publicly available.  

Forefront in their minds is the possibility that publication might prompt persons aggrieved by disclosure of wrongdoing to seek redress in the courts. 

In my view, the interests of honesty, openness and accountability should generally take precedence over advice from lawyers, however well intentioned (and expensive) that advice may be. 

Sometimes caution is best put aside, and there is always the defence of truth, or of fair comment on matters of public interest, wherever plenty of evidence exists to bolster a vigorous defence. 

The Fitz Gerald report has been available online since mid-2014, but the individuals mentioned adversely in that document have not so far as I know resorted to legal proceedings or otherwise seriously attempted to clear their names.

All we have heard from them on the topic is a resounding silence.

Difference

Mr. Dacombe’s recommendation and associated comments concerning the Fraud Squad report indicates that in at least one important respect his view of the responsibilities of local government differs widely from mine.

Mr. Dacombe is an accomplished administrator with excellent academic credentials in the sphere of public management and a wealth of practical local government experience acquired in his home country, New Zealand, as well as in WA. 

It is therefore with some diffidence that I presume to disagree with him regarding the suppression of the Fraud Squad report, but disagree I must. 

It appears from a remark he made at the last OCM that he believes the Fitz Gerald report should also remain under wraps.  For my part, I am with those who continue to clamour for the Shire to release it officially into the public domain.

The mysterious leaking of that report reminds us that truth has a discomfiting habit of making itself known.  As Hamlet says on learning that his father’s ghost has appeared above the battlements of Elsinore:  ‘Foul deeds will rise, though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes’.

Changes

Despite our disagreement, I have no doubt that in everything Mr. Dacombe has said or done as the Shire’s Acting CEO, he has acted selflessly and tirelessly in what he has considered to be the best interests of the Shire of York and the community its purpose is to serve.

In so doing, he has brought about significant changes for the better in how the Shire operates and interfaces with the community.   He has helped the current council to lay a foundation upon which all of us—whether as councillors, Shire employees or members of the community at large—may cheerfully and confidently build.

My friend Roma Paton recently corresponded with Mr. Dacombe on a matter that had caused her and Liz Christmas considerable embarrassment and distress and about which she had previously but without success sought an apology from the Shire.

Roma has asked me to publish Mr. Dacombe’s response to her request for an apology.  I am very glad to publish it, because it illustrates the humane qualities that have enabled him to steer the Shire of York in a more positive and productive direction than we have been used to for many years. 

His letter shows him to be meticulous in searching out the truth, honest in acknowledging it and compassionate in acting on it.  It is a model of how a local government CEO should respond to a request like Roma’s.

In bidding Mr. Dacombe farewell, I offer him my best wishes and sincere thanks for the changes he has encouraged and helped to bring about in the Shire of York.   We all stand to benefit from those changes.   His achievement has been remarkable.  He has done us proud.

 (Click to enlarge)

A DANGEROUS RADICAL ON THE LOOSE

Town of Vincent Mayor John Carey’s outrageous proposals for the reform of local government in WA

Some of you may have read a report by Kate Emery, headlined ‘WA Councils urged to embrace reforms and let ratepayers speak’, in Tuesday’s West Australian.

If you missed it, you can find the report online at https://t.co/NFLw7ZCyNa .

The person doing the urging was John Carey, the redoubtable mayor of Vincent.  On 22 August last year, under the heading ‘Message from a distant galaxy—a glimpse of the world to come?’, I posted reports of his attempt to persuade delegates to the annual WALGA conference to agree to various reforms.

 Among them was that councils should publish online details of all gifts, travel concessions and hospitality received by councillors and all contacts with developers.

He also argued that ratepayers had an unqualified right to information about how municipal funds are spent.

Needless to say, the conference decisively rejected Mayor Carey’s proposals, which would have enforced openness, honesty and accountability on everyone involved in local government in WA. 

No doubt the majority of delegates, determined not to be dragged feet-first into the current century, regarded him as a dangerous radical with undesirable revolutionary views which if put into practice would set tumbrils rattling through the streets and heads rolling along them.

Nothing daunted, Mayor Carey has now put forward a raft of progressive reforms he desires to introduce in his own bailiwick of Vincent and to see adopted by councils throughout the state. 

In summary, those reforms include:

1. Councils to permit ratepayers to speak more freely at meetings  (and presumably, in York’s case to take up more time in asking questions than the stingy absolute legal minimum of 15 minutes which is all that’s currently allowed). 

2. CEO positions to be re-advertised after their incumbents have enjoyed three consecutive terms in office.

3. Council meetings to be recorded and the audio put on line. 

4. The role of the Auditor General to be expanded to include financial and compliance audits of councils (this is in line with state government intentions). 

5. Councils to register impartiality interests online.

6. Councils to make public online full details of official travel undertaken by councillors and council staff, not just contributions to travel.

Mayor Carey said that his proposed reforms would empower ratepayers, while making some CEOs and Mayors (and I suppose by extension some shire presidents) ‘very uncomfortable’. 

What would be the implications of such reforms for the Shire of York? 

Obviously, the reforms tend in the direction of greater transparency.  This is not something the Shire currently favours, as witness the suppression of the Fitz Gerald Report, former councillor Pat Hooper’s so-called ‘minority report’—both nevertheless illicitly available for all time online—and most recently the Major Fraud Squad report, apparently on the grounds that individuals are named in it at whom we might be tempted to throw stones if it got out.

I’m sure Mayor Carey would agree with me that protecting already sullied reputations, and worse, concealing issues and anomalies for which those individuals were responsible, is no way to inspire confidence in our elected representatives and the staff employed to give effect to their decisions and handle municipal funds. 

Vincent's  mayor John Carey and friend

POSTSCRIPT

‘I know that’s a secret, for ‘tis whispered everywhere.’

William Congreve, The Double Dealer, Act III Sc. 3

Rumour has it that at 5 pm this day, Friday 22 March 2016, our councillors will meet in secret session to discuss…well, I honestly don’t know, but we’ll find out soon enough.

One of my informants opined that the meeting’s purpose is to discuss a letter from a certain former CEO demanding that Council maintain its resolve to bury the Major Fraud Squad report as deep as the spade will go, and threatening fire and brimstone if the report should ever leak into the public domain.

Another said that the meeting would deal with the thorny question of what and how much information the Shire might be prepared to share with the people who elect the Council and pay for the wages, salaries and emoluments of its employees.

A third suggested that Council will consider ways to shut down or tame the blogs—not so much this one, which they probably regard as a vehicle for the lucubrations of a harmless crank, and very likely don’t read, but the other one, which tends to proclaim more ferociously its views on issues of the day. 

I doubt that any of those prognostications holds water.  I think the meeting may simply have been called to give councillors the chance to get to know socially the Shire’s new CEO, Paul Martin, who starts work on Tuesday.  As to what will be discussed, your guess is as good as mine, and probably better.

It would be a nice gesture for Council to organise a social occasion allowing us humble ratepayers to meet Mr. Martin and discuss with him informally our wishes and concerns regarding future directions for the Shire of York.

We might then be able to raise with him the need to downsize and restructure staffing arrangements, exercise more stringent control over the management of Shire assets, and impose a moratorium on further rate increases.  

Readers, if you had the chance to meet Mr. Martin socially, what topics would you want to chat about with him?  Answers, please, in a sealed brown envelope, and don’t forget the stamp.

THE HISTORY CHANNEL

PLUS ÇA CHANGE… THE SONG ENDED MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO, BUT THE MELODY LINGERS ON

Mayor and Councillors accused of financial mismanagement and withholding from ratepayers information about the state of York’s finances

From the Beverley Times and Pingelly and Brookton Gazette, Saturday 1 December 1906, p. 6

EX-TOWN CLERK OF YORK

George Arthur Stevens, ex-town clerk of York, was arrested in Melbourne on Wednesday on a charge of forging a cheque for £18 4s 1d. He left York in July last, and went to Hong Kong. Telegrams received in Melbourne stated that he arrived by a Thursday Island mail boat, and from his landing has been under surveillance. He will be kept in custody until the warrant issued in Westem Australia arrives.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/22517584

From the Beverley Times and Pingelly and Brookton Gazette, Saturday 1 December 1906, p. 7:

York Ratepayers' Meeting.

EX-TOWN CLERK'S DEFALCATIONS.

REPORT OF SPECIAL AUDITORS.

The annual meeting of York ratepayers, which was adjourned from

November 15 to November 22, caused a great amount of local interest and excitement, and by 8 p.m. the Council Chambers was packed, and a large number of ratepayers had to be content with positions at the windows.

The meeting was adjourned previously to enable the balance-sheet to be printed and laid on the table. Cr. Neville, the acting chairman, presided.

From the outset, more than ordinary feeling was manifested, through an idea that the councillors were keeping back information regarding the defalcations of the late town clerk.

Mr. H. H. Roche, J.P questioned a number of items on the balance-sheet, some relating to construction, and others in relation to various works in the municipality, which were charged under a wrong heading. The Acting

Mayor, replying to most of the criticisms, stated that owing to the bad

state of the books, it was impossible to give a lucid explanation.

The gross receipts for the year ended October 31, 1906, showed a revenue of £2,717.

The suspense account for the defalcations of the late town clerk (G. A.

Stevens) amounted to £538 6s 7d, to which had to be added the sum of £58 for the secretary's defalcations on the local Board of Health account, making a total deficiency of £586, caused by the late town clerk.

The special auditors (Messrs. O. L. Haynes and Co, of Perth) presented a very voluminous report, covering the years 1903, 1904, 1905, and 1906. The report showed a general indictment of the whole Council, Mayors, councillors, town clerk, and auditors coming in for some very scathing criticisms.

Had ordinary business methods been adopted, it stated, the defalcations would not have been possible. Duplicate receipt books were shown to have been used, roads boards funds were used for the purpose of making good shortages in the Council, and various other methods of hoodwinking the auditors were adopted.

The report, which created quite a sensation, was followed by a motion by

Mr. H. H. Roche, seconded by Mr. C.T. Pyke—"That as a consequence of the want of care by the Mayor and councillors, whereby the defalcations shown on the certified statement as printed became possible, this meeting of ratepayers calls upon the Mayor and councillors to make restitution to the funds of the York municipality of the amounts shewn on the said statement as defalcations, under the heading of

suspense account."

A lot of discussion took place, and some serious charges were made and

refuted.

Upon a vote being taken the Mayor declared the motion lost. Another motion was moved by Mr. Roche—"That the councillors be asked to resign," but this lapsed for want of a seconder. The Mayor, previous to the vote being taken on the first motion, informed the meeting that it would be of no effect, even if carried.

An expression of opinion was taken by the Mayor as to whether distress

warrants should be issued against certain defaulting ratepayers, and it was eventually decided upon a motion by Mr. Roche, to compel all defaulting rate payers to pay arrears of rates.

The meeting closed at about 11 p.m., and was unique to York annals, as on other occasions it is difficult to get a sufficient number of ratepayers to take any interest in Council’s proceedings.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/200727760/22517585#

From the Northam Advertiser Saturday 29 December 1906, p. 2:

A Town Clerk in Trouble

York, Friday

G. A. Stevens, ex-Town Clerk of York, who, it will be remembered, absconded from York some months ago and went to China, and who afterwards surrendered himself to the Melbourne Police, was charged at the York Police Court this morning on four separate counts of forgery, the amounts being £18/4/1, £5, £18/4/1 and £1/4/1.

The accused, who was remanded from Perth on the previous day, where he appeared on extradition warrant, made no statement.  He was remanded for 8 days, and applied for bail, which was refused.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/211712242/23058095

[Does anyone know what happened to Mr. Stevens?  Was he convicted?  Did he spend time immured in the ghastly confines of Fremantle Prison?  If so, how long was his sentence, and where did he go after being released?]

 

Fremantle Prison c. 1900

…PLUS C’EST LA MÊME CHOSE—A FAIR COP FOR THE SHIRE OF DOWERIN

From Communitynews.com.au, Thursday 12 April 2016:

 

Dacre Alcock, former Shire of Dowerin chief, pleads guilty to stealing charges

Lynn Grierson | Tuesday 12 April 2016, 9:30 AM | Hills Gazette

FORMER Shire of Dowerin chief executive officer Dacre Alcock pleaded guilty yesterday to four separate charges of stealing as a public servant following an investigation by the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC).

The CCC uncovered 665 instances of theft totalling almost $600,000 from the Shire over four years, from October 2011 to October 2015.

Investigators found Alcock used several methods to steal from his employer, including the use of a Shire-issued purchasing card to deposit money into personal online betting accounts and EFT transfers from the Shire's Municipal Fund or Trust Fund accounts to his personal bank accounts.

The CCC said its investigation highlighted the importance of the watchdog's role in prosecuting serious misconduct and reinforced the need for vigilance at all levels of public service.

https://www.communitynews.com.au/news/Dacre-Alcock-former-Shire-of-Dowerin-chief-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-charges/7685487

Dacre Alcock, disgraced former CEO, Shire of Dowerin, in happier days when he had something to grin about

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT—LAWYERS ADVISE YORK SHIRE COUNCIL TO SUPPRESS MAJOR FRAUD SQUAD REPORT

By James Plumridge, celebrated public nuisance and noted friend of irony 

The REAL Voice of York, Sunday 17 April 2016

On 6 October last year, after years of community disquiet about alleged mismanagement and corruption in the management of Shire finances, the newly elected York Shire Council voted to ask the Major Fraud Squad of the WA Police ‘to investigate possible offences’.

For the purposes of that investigation, the Shire turned over to the Squad a copy of its Response to Local Government Minister Tony Simpson’s Show Cause Notice.  That Notice was issued late in 2014 as prelude to the suspension of the previous council.

The Shire also handed over numerous files—or maybe what was left of them after vigorous shredding—to the Squad’s Detective Sergeant Kearns Gangin.

The Shire has since received a police report that issues raised in the material provided to police  ‘do not reveal evidence that would justify a police investigation’.  (Here and henceforward, all quotes come from the agenda for tomorrow’s Ordinary Council Meeting.)

Quite a few of us have had access to Shire documents that render that conclusion surprising.  A friend of mine has a stack of them stored in a secret vault guarded by a ferocious Scottish terrier.

In fact, lurid versions of some of the evidence submitted to the Major Fraud Squad were displayed in the windows of a property on Avon Terrace, for the world, his wife and his dog to see and sorrow over.

Explanations

So what’s the explanation?  Why did the Major Fraud Squad’s investigation, which wasn’t really an investigation, find nothing worth investigating?

Let me explain.  The explanation is—wait for it—that there are explanations. 

More precisely, ‘The matters [raised] are either governance, accounting or record-keeping issues for which there are explanations…what is or is not reasonable or justifiable expenditure of Shire funds or use of Shire resources is a matter for the Shire’.

Between the lines

Time, I think, to read between the lines, which if the Shire has its wicked way with the police report is all we shall ever be able to do. 

The Major Fraud Squad has not given the Shire in its previous incarnations a clean bill of health.  It found ‘issues’, which is simply another way of saying that not every aspect of Shire business—for example, use of a corporate credit or ‘purchasing’ card—was carried out as it should have been.

Unfortunately, those of us who suspected as much, and got cross about it, made a serious category mistake as philosophers might say.  We thought that crimes had been perpetrated. 

We were wrong.  What we thought might have been crimes were nothing of the kind.  They were only ‘issues’, or as we might prefer to call them, ‘anomalies’ in the accounts.

Then who was responsible for those issues or anomalies?  Was it a former CEO, assisted by other employees of the Shire? 

After all, isn’t a shire CEO charged with making sure the Shire’s business is conducted in a manner that is legally above board, honest, open and accountable—in short, squeaky clean?

Isn’t a shire CEO required by the Local Government Act to give legal advice to the council to help it stay on the straight and narrow?

Well, yes—but only up to a point.

Governance 

Brace yourselves, people.  The issues the police found were essentially ‘governance’ issues, even the ones classified as ‘accounting or record-keeping’, which on the face of it seem administrative.  It’s the elected Council—or more correctly its predecessors—that must be held at fault.

That’s because the York Shire Council, as governing body, had oversight of the totality of the Shire’s affairs. Its job was to review and authorise everything done in the Shire’s name, including and especially how and for what reason Shire funds were being spent.

And it stuffed up, time and again, with the inevitable result that when nemesis came knocking at the door, a certain former CEO and his acolytes unjustly copped interminable flak from suspicious and angry ratepayers.

How unfair was that?  Why should Shire employees take the blame for questionable expenditure, when the Council chose to approve it and successive shire presidents shouted down the foolish peasants, a.k.a. ratepayers, who dared to raise objections during public question time?

Shame, fellow ratepayers, shame.  Sackcloth and ashes all round, and compulsory public flagellation, except of course for those who would enjoy it.

Legal advice

Now we arrive at the nub and nitty-gritty of this dolorous dissertation.

Sadly, we forelock tuggers will never clap eyes on the police report, or even gain a clear idea of what’s in it —that is, if Council accepts and acts upon the recommendation of Acting CEO Mark Dacombe.

His recommendation, let it be stressed, is based on advice from the Shire’s lawyers, that the report should never be released for public scrutiny.

Now, I’m a sincere fan of Acting CEO Dacombe.  (I’m going to call him Mark from now on.  I hope he doesn’t mind.)  He’s a good man.  He’s worked hard and successfully to turn the Shire around.  Compared with previous incumbents of his office, he shines ‘like a good deed in a naughty world’  (Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act V sc. 1, in case you were wondering, and yes, Richard, I’m showing off again). 

The Shire was fortunate indeed to secure his services.  I for one will be sorry to see him go, and in saying that I mean no disrespect to his anointed successor.

But I can’t agree with his recommendation.  Apart from other considerations, he wouldn’t expect me to agree, and would probably be disappointed if I did. He’d think he’d gone wrong somewhere.

A/CEO Mark Dacombe, MPM

Reasons

Let’s take a look at Mark's reasons for making that recommendation.

He mentions (in bold type) that the police report is ‘confidential’.  Sorry, Mark, but that weighs lightly in the balance against the public’s right to be informed.

He says the matters raised in the report are ‘historical’.  Now where has that word turned up before?  Ah yes, in David Morris’s advice to Minister Simpson that he shouldn’t concern himself with ‘historical’ issues in York because the Department couldn’t give the proverbial act of aeronautical sexual congress about them. 

Why shouldn’t we be told about historical issues?  Anything that happens becomes historical the moment it goes on record.  That doesn’t mean it ceases to be relevant or important.

It’s right that we should focus mainly on the present and future, but not at the cost of ignoring the past.  History, personal as well as political, tells us that those who ignore past mistakes are in serious danger of repeating them.

Mark says, if I understand him correctly, that things are much better at the Shire now than in the bad old days when the historical issues raised in the police report arose.  I believe him.  I believe that he—together with Dr Gael Ferguson, who has written a new set of policies for the Shire—can take much of the credit for that improvement.

But again, that does not outweigh our right as residents and ratepayers to know about past wrongdoing, criminal or not.  We elect the Council.  We need to know exactly what was amiss.

 The clincher, in Mark’s eyes, appears to be legal advice the Shire has received that the Major Fraud Squad’s report ‘should never be released’ because ‘it is couched in such a way that individuals are easily identified and this would not be appropriate’.

There you go, that weasel word ‘appropriate’, the verbal cancer that obscures a multitude of bureaucratic abuses.  Why isn’t it ‘appropriate’ that people who’ve done the wrong thing by their fellow citizens should be identified?  Why should they escape ‘appropriate’ calumny and scorn?

Well, in this case, we don’t need to be told who those people are.  There’s no cause to have them identified.  We know who they are, and perhaps more to the point, so do they.

We also know that two current councillors were members of previous councils, and may have been—I don’t say they were—in varying degrees complicit in the financial mismanagement and negligence of former days.  Not identifying those really responsible could be a tad unfair to them.

But what we residents and ratepayers really need to know isn’t ‘whodunnit’, but what was done, how it was done, and why.  That’s so we can keep a sharp eye open for evidence of future misfeasance, while knowing what to look for.

A modest proposal

The Shire Council and administration, like other governments and bureaucracies at all levels, shouldn’t expect to be trusted just because they say they’re trustworthy, especially in this brave new world of social media.

So, Mark, might I be cheeky and suggest an amendment to your advice?  What about adding an injunction to the new CEO to prepare a statement for public consumption detailing what ‘issues’ were identified by the Major Fraud Squad—but without mentioning names or otherwise giving the guilty parties away?

Perhaps one of our councillors might like to put up a motion to that effect.

Yes, preparing such a statement might not be easy, but please don’t tell me it’s too difficult a task for an intelligent person to accomplish.

In the spirit of the Plumridge family motto, ‘Prest d’accomplir’, which is Old French for ‘Ready to do the job’, I’d be only too happy to help.  Now, about my fee…

REMINDER TO COUNCILLORS

The letter displayed below featured on the other blog many months ago.  I’ve posted it here as a reminder—I trust, superfluous—to our councillors of why they were elected and what residents and ratepayers expect of them.

Before arriving in York in 2004, Ray Hooper was for several years CEO of the Shire of Chittering.  As a councillor, Anthony Cockburn, the letter’s author, would have known him well.  I surmise from his letter that Dr Robert Smillie’s recommendation of 1999, quoted in bold type, wasn’t implemented while Mr. Hooper was the Shire of Chittering’s CEO. 

(Click to enlarge)