NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

With deep concern for the realm, [Mentor] rose and warned,

‘Hear me, men of Ithaca.  Hear what I have to say.

Never let any sceptered king be kind and gentle now,

not with all his heart, or set his mind on justice—

no, let him be cruel and always practice outrage’.

Homer: Odyssey, Book 2, lines 255-259, trans. Robert Fagles

Return of the King

As every schoolchild knows—or used to know, before political correctness rampaged through the curriculum, rooting out as much of traditional Western culture as it could manage before anyone had time to prevent it—the word ‘mentor’, meaning a sage and trusted adviser, comes from the name of a character in Homer’s Odyssey.

Mentor is the wise old man entrusted with the care and tutelage of Odysseus’ son Telemachus when the hero sailed away from Ithaca to take part in the war against Troy.

On Monday night, along with about 40 other residents, I attended the Council meeting (or most of it) and the Special Electors Meeting that followed. These were the first such meetings for many months that were not chaired by Minister Tony Simpson’s calamitous protégé, James Best.

So it was with great relief and rejoicing that we witnessed Matthew Reid take his seat as Shire President, flanked on his right by Crs. Smythe and Wallace.   (It was with rather different sentiments that we observed Acting CEO Graeme Simpson ensconced to the left of Cr Reid.  He’s well past his use-by date.  It’s time he was put out to grass.)

Who should be a mentor?  Not somebody from the Department!

What struck me as odd was the provision of several places behind and to the right of President Reid marked as being for ‘mentors’.  It turned out that these were for a couple of councillors from other local governments and a senior officer of the Department of Local Government, Ms Jenni Law.

Why Minister Simpson should have selected Ms Law, or any other senior member of his department’s staff, to act as mentor to Shire President Reid is beyond my comprehension. 

The Department, like the minister, was responsible for the appointment of Mr. Best as commissioner and therefore for the damage he inflicted on our shire while he was here.  They were warned over and again that Mr. Best was not an ideal appointment. 

They chose to do nothing about it, just as they chose for many years to ignore the cruelty, bullying and worse perpetrated upon residents of the Shire during the period of the Hooper-Boyle-Hooper ascendancy.

It goes without saying that neither the minister nor his senior bureaucrats will ever accept the slightest responsibility for Mr. Best’s catastrophic reign over York. 

Apologising for mistakes, however disastrous, is not in a politician’s DNA, and state government employees are trained never to apologise for or acknowledge any kind of error except under extreme duress involving the application of electric cattle prods to their intimate parts.

Frankly, I don’t believe for a moment that Cr Reid and his colleagues need mentors.  They have shown themselves to be perfectly capable of managing the Shire’s affairs.  If they lack anything, it may be experience, which time and practice will provide.

But I think the Department needs mentors, and so, I believe, does Minister Simpson—in spades.  I think they need training in ethics and probity, though not from their self-styled probity expert, Brad Jolly, who seems incapable of understanding the concept of ‘conflict of interest’ as it applies to himself and for that reason must be excluded from any such process.

Let’s hope Minister Simpson’s mentor is a bit more circumspect in what he says than was Homer’s Mentor.  The minister and his departmental advisers are cruel and outrageous enough already.

Have our councillors been brainwashed?

Glad as I was to witness the return of our councillors, I’m concerned that the training they received while under suspension may have inculcated a warped and fundamentally anti-democratic philosophy of local government that in my opinion, and not only mine, is not supported either by the Local Government Act 1995 or by regulations made under that Act.

Warped though it is, that philosophy underwrites virtually every decision of the minister and every action of his department.  It goes a long way to explain why they declined to intervene in the Shire’s affairs when intervention was sorely needed, but couldn’t wait to intervene when a reforming shire president, overwhelmingly supported by the electors, tried to find out what was really going on in the Shire and put a stop to the administration’s shenanigans.   

It may also explain why they are so determined to ensure that what they regard as York’s ‘historical issues’ will never be investigated but instead must be swept far away on a tsunami of deceit.

The main plank of their philosophy is that real power in a local government only appears to be vested in the elected councillors and through them the electors.  That’s just for show, to make the rest of us feel good.  (This was also very much the opinion of former CEO Hooper, who frequently impressed it upon his staff.)

According to departmental realpolitik, power actually lies with the CEO and through him senior officials in the Shire administration.  The legislation says something quite different, but the department doesn’t care, because the CEO and senior administrative staff are much easier to control than elected members of the Council, and control, as opposed to representation, is in their view what local government is all about.

It's the councillors who appoint the CEO, but once he is in the job, he is regarded as having complete sway over all matters connected with administration.  Councillors are expected to deal only with ‘strategic’ matters, i.e. policy.  Councillors are not supposed to inquire into or make judgements about administrative matters, and members of the public are not permitted to ask questions about such matters in public question time.

The effect of this travesty of democracy is to turn Shire staff into a protected species, immune from outside criticism.  When criticised, staff are given the opportunity to scurry off on so-called ‘stress leave’, leaving their work to be done by expensive consultants.

Everybody seems to crave victim status nowadays, but it seems ridiculous that members of staff whose conduct is held up to the light in any forum by the people who pay their wages should feel obliged to stage a nervous breakdown or, as allegedly happened recently, organise a stop-work meeting to tell the world and each other how hard done by they are.  

Taking into account that some senior staff possess no qualifications to speak of relevant to the jobs they do, but for all that are very well paid, I think they are more than adequately compensated for being the targets now and then of a few harsh words on a couple of blogs.

‘Unreasonable conduct’

At the council meeting held on 6 July 2015, thankfully the last to be chaired by former commissioner Best, Acting CEO Simpson tabled a skimpy report headed ‘Unreasonable Conduct’.  By ‘unreasonable conduct’, he appears mainly to have meant some ratepayers’ unreasonable habit of asking questions in an (often vain) attempt to find out exactly what the Shire is up to and how it is spending our money.

His report refers to ‘abuse and ill informed criticism of the Commissioner and staff [which] has resulted in the Shire being considered an Unsafe Workplace.’

Statements like that go way beyond the reach of satire. 

The idea that unkind comments or ‘ill informed criticism’ on a couple of blogs—because that’s what we’re talking about here —would turn a nice comfortable suite of offices into an unsafe workplace is worse than mere nonsense.  It is also a lie. 

Applying the Acting CEO’s reasoning, if I may so dignify it, to my own situation, I suppose I should declare my study an unsafe workplace because since I started writing about the Shire I have received a couple of silly death threats, other intimations of physical harm and a handful of barely literate insults which I published and responded to on this blog. 

Another lie contained in Acting CEO Simpson’s report is the absurd statement that ‘community perceptions’—whatever that means—‘have resulted in the Shire expending a sum of of $807,824 on legal fees, reports, payouts to sacked staff’.

Apart from its gold-standard absurdity and rank dishonesty, what makes this assertion interesting is that at Monday’s council meeting, and previously in a letter to a ratepayer, Acting CEO Simpson affirmed that the word ‘sacked’ was misapplied in this case to staff receiving payouts.  He seemed to see this misapplication as a mistake of Mr. Best’s.  Yet here he is publishing the mistake in his own name, under the heading ‘Officer Comment’.

I'm not yet sure that either of those two gentlemen were mistaken.  I suppose that in Acting CEO Simpson's eyes, just as there are, as he said in Ray Hooper's case, 'degrees of resignation', there are also 'degrees of being sacked'.

No less absurd is Acting CEO Simpson’s other ‘officer comment’ that ‘The independent umpires have found there are no cases of criminal behaviour but there is still a disconnection between some members of the community and the various findings’.

Mr. Simpson, you know very well that there were no 'independent umpires'. There were no proper investigations, so there can have been no findings for members of the community to be disconnected from.  Your statement is simply not true.  If you believe it is, I challenge you to say who were the ‘independent umpires’ and publish full details of the investigations they carried out.

Otherwise, my calling you a bare-faced liar would be well-informed and justified criticism on my part.

And as I’m sure you’re well aware, there has been behaviour of a criminal nature, or at any rate behaviour bordering on criminality.  Some of the evidence has made it into print before now.  And there’s more to come.

To round it all off…poor old Ray jumps the gun

Readers may recall that the Avon Valley Gazette published in full James Best’s childish and misleading ‘Open letter to residents’.  A week later, on 17 July, the paper ran a letter from none other than The Old Wise Man of Alexander Heights, former York Shire CEO Ray Hooper, and his wife Shirley.

Here it is:

Sorry, old chap, but you have not been cleared of wrongdoing. Allegations made against you were never investigated, so how is it possible that you have been cleared? 

I'm not aware that the people of York generally have been falling over themselves to give you their 'ongoing support' since you left us.  I'd be surprised if that were so.

As to Shire staff...I'm not sure that many of them have maintained contact with you during the last 14 months, but I can think of at least two who probably have, and in the firm's time, too.  I like to see such loyalty on the part of former colleagues who owe their good fortune in the job almost entirely to a departed boss and mentor.  Thanks now to Messrs Best and Simpson, ratepayers will be paying for the consequences of Ray's mentoring for several years to come.

NOTE:  Be sure to read David Taylor's latest contribution on our friendly rival blog, http://shireofyork6302.blogspot.com.au/ ('The official unofficial website').  And enjoy the cartoons that go with it!

YORK'S REAL ESTATE SALE OF THE CENTURY

URGENT
Tonight's the Night! 

  Notice of Special Electors Meeting

Posted on: Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 9:52:04 AM

A Special Electors' Meeting will be held on Monday 27 July 2015 commencing at 6:00 pm at the York Town Hall, York.

PURPOSE OF THE MEETING:

• The Shire of York Annual Budget 2015/16
• Purchase of Lots 800 & 801 South Street, York
• Borrowing $625,000 to fund the purchase of Lots 800 & 801 South Street, York

GRAEME SIMPSON

Acting Chief Executive Officer 

*******  

SOLD!  IT'S YOURS NOW, SUCKERS

Regards, Jimmy the Rat

The Old Convent School, aka Chalkies, aka The Rodent's Revenge

[Settlement is scheduled for next week.  The Offer and Acceptance is available for public scrutiny at the Shire offices in Joaquina Street. JP 290715]

Below is Minister Tony Simpson’s reply to Jane Ferro’s and my open letter posted here on Saturday 4 July 2015.  The letter raised issues arising from the proposed purchase of the Old Convent School.

As you can see, the minister’s reply is addressed not to Jane or me but to Mr. David Templeman, shadow minister for local government and (I was surprised to discover) the Wheatbelt. 

You may recall that Mr. Templeman was among those copied in to our letter.  He kindly forwarded a copy to the Minister, who no doubt would otherwise simply have ignored it, as has everyone who was copied in apart from Mr. Templeman.

(Click to enlarge)

Now, here is my take on Minister Simpson’s response.

As we expected, the minister and his advisers have avoided the issues we raised by resorting to a legalistic mode of argument.  Unfortunately for the minister, that approach has made him look foolish and evasive.

Let’s examine what he’s written point by point, pausing for a grim chuckle now and then.

Sneaking the deal through

It is the case, as the minister says, that former commissioner James Best in calling a Special Council Meeting at short notice on 2 July 2015 met the requirements of section 5.5 of the Local Government Act.  That is not the issue.  What is at issue is whether or not he should have called the meeting at such short notice, considering the gravity and controversial nature of what he was proposing to do.

It seems most likely that his intention was to sneak the Old Convent School deal through with as little public scrutiny as possible.  The people of York were kept in the dark about it up to the very last minute.  We were given no opportunity to object to or influence it in any way. 

‘I am the Council’

Mr. Best’s attitude as commissioner was dictatorial.  As far as he was concerned, he could do more or less what he wished.  He actually said, at the meeting on 2 July, ‘I am the council’.  If he had said it in French—‘Le conseil, c’est moi’—he would have sounded just like Louis XIV.

Having the authority to do something, such as calling a meeting at very short notice or purchasing property from your friends at ratepayers’ expense, does not impose an obligation to do such things or confer a moral right to do them.  In a democracy, the exercise of authority at any level must be carried out, as far as humanly possible, with the full knowledge of those affected by it and in their best interests. 

The people of York have made it as clear as can be that they want neither the property nor the debt that comes with it.

The commissioner did not act in their best interests.  After warning us that York was heading for insolvency, he compounded the shire’s financial woes by secretly setting out to borrow a large sum of money for the purchase of a property, the Old Convent School, from business people in York with whom he had become friendly while commissioner.   

Some of us have misgivings, to put it mildly, about the probity of that arrangement.

 James Best the Sun King

"Le conseil municipal du comté de York, c’était moi!"  (I was the York Shire Council!)

Clever—or just crafty?

Mr. Best may not be as clever as he seems to think he is, but he is craftier than we might have imagined.  As a cover for the proposed purchase, he dredged up a couple of antique town planning documents, one dating back to 1977 and the other to 2006, which he said suggested something along the lines of a town square in the space currently occupied by a park.  This idea became his justification for the purchase of the Old Convent School. 

If Mr. Best were really clever, instead of merely crafty, he would have buttressed his proposal with a fully costed business plan.  He would have made provision in the budget for repair and renovation of the building, which from all accounts is not in very good condition, and for the subsequent development of the town square project.  He did neither of those things. 

A ‘concept plan’—which is what accompanied the proposal—is not a business plan.  Moreover, the budget provides only for the purchase of the property, with nothing left over for improvements.  Is the Old Convent School to sit there slowly dilapidating until the Shire of York wins first prize in Lotto and can afford to undertake a program of restoration?

Getting value for money—or not, as the case may be

What most gives Mr. Best away, however, is his failure to get a sworn valuation from a licensed land valuer before agreeing to buy the property.  Property values in York have been sliding towards Antarctica for several years. 

Mysteriously, though, if Mr. Best is to be believed, the Old Convent School—which before he decided to buy it for us had languished on the market for two years or more, attracting very little attention from prospective buyers—has remained immune from this process, increasing very significantly in value since his friends bought it in 2009.

Still, would it not have been prudent to obtain a sworn valuation, to make sure that the people of York were getting value for money?  Yes—but not if the point of the exercise was not to get value for money for the people of York, but to confer a benefit on one’s friends.

Acting CEO Graeme Simpson defended the failure to get a sworn valuation on the grounds that the law only requires it when a local government is selling a property, not when it is proposing to acquire one.  If that’s true—and I can scarcely believe it, but that’s what he said—it’s a potent recipe for corruption.

Consulting the community

It may be true, as the minister asserts, that the commissioner wasn’t legally obliged before deciding to buy the property ‘to consult with the community about the expenditure of local government funds’. 

However, that isn’t the point.  The point is that no honest and rational administrator would have made such a decision at such a time and in such circumstances without community consultation.  That may come as a shock to Minister Simpson, who seems to believe that morality plays no part in local government, and that it’s OK to do anything, regardless of circumstances, that the law says you can do.

Corrupt or not corrupt?  That is the question

Finally, let’s look at Minister Simpson’s concluding paragraph, where he comments on the relevance of section 83 of the WA Criminal Code to the actions of his protégé Mr. Best.

The section isn’t hard to understand.  It says that a public officer (Mr. Best as commissioner was one of those) who:

‘…without lawful authority or a reasonable excuse…acts corruptly in the performance or discharge of the functions of his office or employment, so as to gain a benefit, whether pecuniary or otherwise, for any person, or so as to cause a detriment, whether pecuniary or otherwise, to any person, is guilty of a crime and is liable to imprisonment for 7 years’.

Incredibly, Minister Simpson interprets this to mean that if a public officer acts corruptly, but does so while acting within the scope of his lawful authority, he is exempt from the rigours of the criminal law.

A moment’s reflection reveals this to be absurd.  A police officer may have lawful authority to search licensing records, but if he does so in order to provide information to a member of the public, whether or not he is paid to do so, he is guilty of an offence.  A shire CEO may have lawful authority to employ staff in lucrative positions, but if in exercising that authority he appoints his friend’s daughter to some such position regardless of merit and without declaring an interest, he too commits an offence.  I’m sure readers can come up with many other apposite examples. *

The minister’s interpretation of the section is another potent recipe for corruption.  I hope for his sake it doesn’t say more about him than he could possibly want us to know.

I’m not alleging Mr. Best acted corruptly.  What I’m saying is that the circumstances surrounding the purchase of the Old Convent School are sufficiently questionable to warrant investigation, and if wrongdoing were to be proved, there would be no good reason not to charge him under section 83.

What will the minister do now?

Probably nothing of use or value to the good people of York, but my hunch is that he will go on covering for Mr. Best.

As I see it, Minister Simpson is stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place.  On the one hand, it is now evident that James Best, his choice as commissioner, has been a disaster for York and may have abused his lawful authority in that role. 

On the other hand, as a senior politician, Minister Simpson cannot allow his judgement to be called into question.  He had plenty of notice that Mr. Best had failed lamentably to act in the interests and attract the respect, trust, and goodwill of the York community.  The minister did nothing to correct the situation.  It is now much too late to blame his advisers, so Minister Simpson’s political instinct tells him to bury the problem and brazen the matter out.

Not very edifying, but that’s government for you.

James Plumridge

* The following learned comments on the law relating to section 83 of the Criminal Code were included with my article, 'In the Court of Community Opinion', published on this blog on 26 June 2015.

Keep up, Minister!  Read our blog!  You'll be so much better informed!

The word ‘corruptly’ is not defined in the Code.  It is to be given its ordinary meaning which, in my opinion, when one is concerned with the quality of the act or omission which is said to be corrupt, will involve the notion that there has been a dereliction of duty, an element of fault, some perversion of the proper performance of the duties of office…If the misconduct of that kind is performed by the accused for the purpose of gaining a benefit or causing a detriment, and the misconduct is without lawful authority or a reasonable excuse, then the offence of corruption, defined by section 83 of the code, will have been established. (Emphasis added)

Murray J. The State of Western Australia v Burke [No.3] [2010] WASC 110, p. 22

[Section 83] is to be read and understood to make criminal an act undertaken by a public officer, which could include an act which is ordinarily properly performed by that officer in the conduct of his duties, but which is a corrupt act because it is performed for the purpose of gaining a benefit or causing a detriment…(Emphasis added)

Rowland J. The State of Western Australia v Burke [No.3] [2010] WASC 110, p.22-23

SO LONG, SUCKERS!

 

NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

Pop goes the commissioner…or, that’s the way the money goes!

Yes, readers, it’s true.  James Best has vacated the position of commissioner.  The elected council is restored.  (But don’t start cheering yet—he turned up with the Tardis on Saturday morning and will remain an occasional ghostly presence in York at least until elections are held in October.)

Mr. Best’s departure from office put me in mind of some lines from Robert Browning’s poem ‘The Lost Leader’, not that Mr. Best proved to be a leader of any kind, lost or found:

                                 Let him go then, let him never come back to us!

                                    There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,

                                    False praise on our part, the glimmer of twilight,

                                    Never glad confident morning again…

Except there hasn’t been much in the way of praise, not even false praise, for Mr. Best from the majority of York ratepayers and residents.  And we haven’t had too many glad confident mornings since he rode into town.

It isn’t hard to see why.  Mr. Best seems to have taken his integrity out of the fridge a long time ago—perhaps when he stood for Guild President at Curtin—and forgotten to put it back when the fuss was over.  Towards the end of his period as York’s commissioner, virtually anything he said provoked gasps of shocked incredulity.  If warping the truth were an Olympic event, Mr. Best would win gold for Australia.

‘Naughty ratepayers, forcing us to waste your money’

One of his—and Acting CEO Simpson’s—most daring furphys is the assertion that we, the people of York, are responsible for setting the Shire on the road to insolvency.  Allegedly, that’s because we have this shameful tendency to complain and ask questions when we’re not happy with something the Shire is doing, has done or is threatening to do.

In fact the real culprit is not Joe Public but our old friend Mal Administration.   This is nothing new in York, but under the short but troubled reign of James Best and Acting CEO Graeme Simpson it has risen to a level of creativity that even former CEO Hooper could not readily have  ‘ideated’ or ‘envisioned’ (as Mr. Best himself might say).

One of the problems facing us is that full details of Shire expenditure are not included in the Shire’s financial reports or otherwise made publicly available.  This means that if ratepayers want to find out precisely how money is being or has been spent in particular directions, they have to ask questions in public question time at council meetings.

 If they don’t get satisfactory answers—the usual story where detailed questions about money are concerned—ratepayers are forced to exercise their rights under the Freedom of Information Act 1992.  Naturally enough, this imposes a financial burden on the Shire.

However, it is a burden that could easily be shrugged off.  The solution is breathtakingly simple.  Instead of stuffing around with FOI, why not just tell people what they want to know? 

Alternatively, why not make every detail of Shire expenditure available online?  Doing that would involve some staff time, but overall it would save the Shire a fortune.

As I’ve said many times, and intend to keep on saying, there is absolutely no good reason for the Shire to withhold information from the community it is meant to serve.  Unfortunately, there are quite a few bad reasons, among them the need or desire to conceal laziness, incompetence, stupidity and corruption. 

The problem for the Shire is that every time it refuses to give out information on any topic, it provokes the suspicion that councillors or staff, or both acting in concert, have been up to no good.

The problem for the community this time round is that, in the absence of detailed financial information, Messrs Best and Simpson have been able to equivocate through their teeth about the causes of our present financial discontents.

Lies, damned lies and Shire expenditure

What are those causes, as those worthies see them?

Mr. Best raised them (of course, ‘without discussion’, but not without protest) at the so-called ‘council’ meeting on 2 July.

According to the minutes (page 11), Mr. Best ‘outlined expenditure that was putting the Shire of York on a path heading for insolvency’.  The expenditure in question amounted to $807,824, including GST.  It was allegedly incurred from March 2014 through financial year 2014/15.

Now let’s take a closer look at this expenditure.

1.              The Fitz Gerald Report.  I may be wrong, but it was my understanding that the report cost $20,000.  So what caused additional expenditure of $18,380—where did the money go?

2.              Legal.  Presumably this heading refers to payments made to solicitors.  The amount in question totals $140,354.  Judging from remarks made by Mr. Best on previous occasions, it seems that much of this expenditure—about $80,000—was devoted to getting legal advice on FOI applications.  Is that true?

If it is true, I remind Mr. Best, Mr. Simpson and anyone else involved that the emphasis of the FOI Act is on providing information, not hiding it.  The Shire, like every other public agency, is obliged by law to employ a properly trained FOI coordinator.  By ‘properly trained’ I mean someone who knows and understands relevant legislation and is able to deal efficiently with FOI applications.

Lawyers should be a last resort, not the first port of call for puzzled Shire employees who have no idea how to do the job but are quite happy to waste public money covering up their ignorance of what they are supposed to be doing.

It goes without saying that if the Shire took my advice about avoiding FOI applications simply by giving enquirers the information asked for, the position of FOI coordinator would be close on a sinecure for some lucky soul.

3.              Consultants to replace staff.  The amount cited under this heading was a staggering $393,000.  What consultants?  On what conditions were they engaged?  Were they really necessary, and if so, why? How much did each of them cost?  Were they engaged on an hourly rate or according to some other method of remuneration?  Which staff were replaced, for how long, and why (sacked, or on leave)?

  

I have noticed lately that the Shire has taken to employing an outfit called ‘FOI Services WA’ to deal with FOI applications. I have never applied to the Shire under FOI (I bet that surprised you), but those of you who have will have noticed the initials ‘AS’ on relevant Shire communications.  I haven’t found a web presence for FOI Services, but ‘AS’ seems to be the sprite in charge.

I wonder whose friend or former colleague ‘AS’ might be.  At the April or May ‘council’ meeting, when Mr. Best announced his intention of hiring a consultant to deal with FOI applications, I remember asking him whether the person concerned was a lawyer.  He said no, it was somebody ‘with a legal background’ but declined to explain further.

4.              Staff payouts.  ($77,090).  Details, please.  I believe some of this money found its way into the pockets of Ms Jacky Jurmann, now apparently back working in some capacity for the Shire.

5.              PPR—‘brand reputation management and corporate communication’. ($33,000).   What this means is that Messrs Best and Simpson engaged a tawdry mob of public relations consultants, better described as ‘spin doctors’, based in Perth to tell the world what a wonderful job Mr. Best was doing in reviving York’s drooping fortunes.

‘Brand management’, indeed.  York is not a brand, but Mr. Best is (the BBC Consulting Brand), so the ‘reputation’ of whose ‘brand’ did we shell out money to manage?

I’m pretty sure PPR wrote the ‘Voice of York’ column in YDCM as well as Mr. Best’s ‘Open Letter to Residents’, a truly awful composition best described in Churchillian vein as a tissue of terminological inexactitudes.  I wonder what that cost us.  I hope we got a discount for the misspelling of ‘puerile’ and the replacement of ‘wanker’ with ‘worker’.

6.              Governance. ($126,000).  According to the draft Annual Budget for 2015/16 (page 9), ‘This service provides assistance to elected members and ratepayers on matters which do not concern specific council services.’

In other words (I suppose) it means money spent on elected members’ allowances, setting up meetings and so on—keeping the meretricious show on the road while maintaining the appearance of democracy as required by the Local Government Act 1995.

No doubt a considerable proportion of that $126K dropped into the coffers of BBC Consulting.  For that we can thank Minister Tony Simpson.  

We didn’t ask for Mr. Best to come here.  He was foisted on us.  His character and outlook are those of a latte-sipping city slicker.  He came here believing us to be yokels and ruffians. He should never have been sent as commissioner to a country town like York.

I think Minister Simpson should refund at least a portion of what we’ve had to pay for the dubious privilege of having Mr. Best mismanage our affairs.

He has been a gigantic flop, and for much of his six months governing York, he seems to have worked part-time. 

For many of us, there is something brutally ironic in Mr. Best warning us about impending insolvency on 2 July while arranging on the sly to borrow money to purchase the Old Convent School from his friends for $625,000, probably a good deal more than it’s worth—and without taking the obvious precaution of first getting a sworn valuation from a licensed land valuer. 

Perhaps Minister Simpson should give us the money to buy and renovate the property, if the purchase goes ahead.  It’ll be his fault if we end up getting lumbered with the place.

Old Convent School still up for sale…

 (Click to enlarge)

Well, that’s what the sign on the fence tells us.

Rumour has it that a local politician approached both the Minister and James Best to protest the proposed purchase.  The Minister admitted that he was worried about it but said he couldn’t find a reason to stop it going ahead. 

Give him a reason!  Keep those letters of protest rolling into his office!  Tell him that as the one who made the appointment, he should take responsibility for Best’s behaviour while in York, especially his decision to buy the Old Convent School.

And remind him of the conditions that have to be met:  finance from Treasury Corporation, and the preparation of a proper business plan.  So far there’s no business plan on the horizon: if I’m wrong about that, tell me where I can get a copy.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t believe the Minister is powerless to prevent this ridiculous purchase.  Let him know exactly how you feel.

 And finally, a big thank you…

To Mr. Mark Lloyd, for having the decency and courage to publish in YDCM an edited (i.e. less wordy!) version of my response to James Best’s ‘Open Letter to Residents’.   It’s appearing in two parts in the paper’s letters column.  Part 1 is already on the news stands, Part 2 will be in the next edition of the paper.

Good on you, Mark, you’re a star.

*******

MORE DETAIL ON SHIRE SPENDING

Not a lot more, alas, and certainly not as much as we should be given, but here’s an appendix to the minutes for the ‘council’ meeting held on 6 July 2015 (click document to enlarge): 

Some questions:

1.              Fitz Gerald. 

How much was Mr. Fitz Gerald actually paid for his report?  If not the full amount cited in the above appendix, what happened to the rest?

2.              Legal.

(1) For advice or legal action on what processes and topics was Dirk Feinauer’s firm engaged?

(2) What legal firms or agencies are included under the rubric ‘civic legal’? For advice or legal action on what processes and topics were they engaged?

(3)  What is meant by the description ‘FOI counsel’?  Does it refer to yet another lawyer, as the word ‘counsel’ implies? If not, who or what does it refer to, and why is that person or entity described as ‘counsel’?

(4) How many instances of mediation did the Shire undertake? How many days of mediation were obtained for the amount expended?  In how many of those instances was mediation successful?

(5) Is it true that Macri found no evidence of wrongdoing in relation to a corporate credit card?  If so, how does that square with evidence produced on the ‘Official Unofficial’ blog relating to use of the card in Tasmania and elsewhere? 

(6) In relation to what process or event was the Shire required to pay an excess of $5000 to Local Government Insurance Services (LGIS)?

3.              Consultants.

(1) Pardon my inexcusable ignorance, but what does ‘LOGO’ stand for?

(2) Exactly how much did each of the two former CEOs, Hooper and Keeble, receive by way of payout—and why?  Were those payments based on statutory entitlements, or were they negotiated settlements?

(3) Why was it necessary to spend so much on Hendry and GHD?  What precisely did they do to earn those amounts?

(4) Who are the town planning consultants who received $32,000 and what did they do to earn it?

(5) Who are the civil engineering consultants who received $71,000 and what did they do to earn it?

4.              Sacked Staff Payouts.

(1) Were the payouts to the Manager Works and Services, Manager Planning and Building Surveyor based on statutory entitlements, or were they negotiated settlements?

(2) Why were the Manager Planning and Building Surveyor each permitted to retain the use of a house and car for three months after being dismissed from their employment?

5.              PPR—Brand reputation management and corporate communication.

(1) What exactly is ‘brand reputation management’, and why and how is it relevant to the Shire of York? Does it involve distortion and/or denial of the truth?

(2) Precisely what activities fall under the rubric ‘corporate communication’?  Do they involve distortion and/or denial of the truth?

6.              Governance.

May we have a breakdown of the $75,000 ascribed to Elected Members—particularly bearing in mind that they have been more or less hors de combat for six months of financial 2014/15?

7.              Exclusions.

Is this section meant to include a veiled indication that residents are somehow responsible for reducing the level of customer service, costs of replacing staff, ‘loss of corporate knowledge’ (how is that costed?) and cost of advertising positions ? 

Surely what this document really points to is a stunning degree of profligacy on the part of the Shire, which has been spending our money like the proverbial drunken sailor instead of getting on with the job.

As for ‘lost staff time chasing complaints’…for any public agency, chasing complaints goes with the territory.  If an agency is spending too much time chasing complaints, might that simply reflect the fact that some of the people in charge are doing a crap job? 

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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

In the document below (click to enlarge), the Shire of York reveals to the world how much it is prepared to waste every year on trying to deny residents information they are or should be entitled to receive on request.  

Of course, compared with the unsustainable proposed purchase of the Old Convent School, the cost of preventing the people the Shire exists to serve from knowing what the Shire is doing in their name is a mere bagatelle.