NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

You saw it first on the blog…

Well, not really, because I didn’t name him, but I’m talking about the gentleman whose photo I displayed as possibly being that of the new ‘broome’ that will sweep York clean. 

(No, it wasn’t a spelling mistake. It was a not-so-cryptic clue.  Well done, everyone who got it.)

The gentleman’s name is Paul Martin.  He is currently deputy CEO of the Shire of Broome, with responsibility for business enterprise, property and strategy development and community services.

Before taking up that position, he was briefly CEO at the Town of Port Hedland from 2010 until early in 2012.  His decision to leave the top job in Hedland for the deputy’s job in Broome will seem less surprising to someone like me who has lived in Hedland and and knows Broome than to anyone who hasn’t and doesn’t.

Mr. Martin’s departure from Hedland followed a misunderstanding with the Corruption and Crime Commission arising from a BHP proposal to build a donga city able to accommodate up to 6000 FIFO workers.  Ah, those were the days, when iron ore was king, the skies were full of working men and women in orange or yellow vests and we dreamed that the Chinese dragon would prop up our standard of living forever! 

There is no suggestion that Mr. Martin did anything wrong or that the misunderstanding was the reason for his departure.    I mention it only because I know you will all be googling his name and finding a report by Beatrice Thomas in the online West Australian for 10 January 2012, and an ABC report dated 29 March 2012 that Mr. Martin was heading for Broome.   Some cynics are bound to draw the wrong conclusions. 

By now, everyone will have heard that York Shire Council has appointed Mr. Martin as the Shire’s new CEO.  It chose him from a field of 41.  So much for those who said nobody would want to come to York because the blogs would frighten away potential candidates!

From all accounts, the choice was a wise one.  Mr. Martin is reputed to be a cheerful and gregarious fellow as well as a clever manager who enjoys a challenge and can think outside the square.  True, he comes from the swamp, but he’s no dinosaur, and indications are that Broome people who know him will be sorry to see him go.

Congratulations, councillors.  You’ve done well.  I’ve gazed upon the future in the tea-leaves and bless my soul, I really think it’s going to work.

A scapegoat

By now, I imagine most readers will have studied Pam Law’s account of her reasons for resigning as rating officer at the Shire.

I applaud Pam’s decision to come forward with her story.  It confirms what many of us have long suspected, that aspects of the Shire administration have been for too long over-dependent on the whims and fancies of certain senior staff.

Pam copped a lot of flak from disgruntled ratepayers.  It’s no picnic trying to collect debts from desperate people who can’t afford to pay.  Up to a point, being snarled at comes with the territory—but only up to a point.   

People complained to me that Pam lacked compassion in the exercise of her responsibilities.   Perhaps—but after reading what she has to say in her own defence, I wonder if she had much choice.  It now seems to me that she acted under instruction, in the process setting herself up as a scapegoat for the callousness of her superiors. 

Nobody would have mistaken former CEO Hooper for Mother Teresa, and I remember somebody showing me a disgraceful letter from A/CEO Simpson in which he dismissed a plea for merciful treatment on the grounds (I’m paraphrasing) that it was his job to maximize revenue coming into the Shire, not to show compassion to ratepayers fallen on hard times. 

This from an inept carpetbagger soaking the people of York to the tune of around four grand a week, and encompassing one of the most outrageous rate hikes in Western Australian history!

Not surprisingly, attitudes like that trickle down to middle management and folk doing it tough may find themselves being clobbered hard by frontline staff and doing it even tougher.

What I found most disturbing in Pam’s narrative is her statement that at what was obviously a very difficult time for her she got no support from Human Resources.  This calls for an investigation.  Pam’s critics on the blog may have acted unfairly towards her, but they didn’t owe her a professional duty of care. 

The Shire certainly did, and it seems pretty clear from what she says that it failed her, especially when, as she claims, another staff member started spreading malicious lies about her.   

I find myself agreeing with Anonymous 24/2 @ 00:50:  write it down, Pam, the whole story, naming names, and send the result to A/CEO Mark Dacombe. 

And yes, I may be, as Anonymous says, ‘a bit of a prick at times’, but I’ll help in any way I can.  Drop me a line at wildwood@westnet.com.au .   And thanks for sharing your story on the blog.   It was a brave thing to do.

Rules of engagement

To the person who submitted a comment under the name ‘Sharney Colton’:  I did not, as you allege, permit the lady you named to criticize someone, then refuse to allow the person criticized to exercise their right of response.

The lady in question did not mention anyone’s name.  She remarked on something she reported having witnessed, framing her remark in the context of a generalization about people in York—not one I agree with, by the way. 

On receiving your comment, I could see you had assumed that her remark was no mere generalization but specifically critical of you.   Why you assumed that is something only you can explain. 

There are two reasons why I won’t publish your comment.  Neither has anything to do with hypocrisy, as you have charged.  The first is that your comment is unduly acerbic and aggressive, and based simply on the supposition, no more than that, that the lady’s comment was directed at you. 

I repeat, no names are mentioned in the lady’s comment, and the comment contained insufficient circumstantial detail to identify you, whoever you are, or anyone else.

The second and more important reason is that whatever lies behind your comment appears to be some kind of private dispute that has nothing whatsoever to do with this blog.

From the outset, I’ve published a wide range of comments—probably too wide a range—but I think I must draw the line at allowing the blog to become a vehicle for the expression of personal acrimony arising from private disputes.

People who want to engage in that kind of thing should get in the queue to take part in My Kitchen Rules.

******* 

Witch-hunt in Joaquina Street 

Councillors and senior shire employees were apparently incensed by the publication on this blog of a photo of our new CEO, Paul Martin from Broome, a day or two before Shire President Wallace officially announced the appointment.

They seem to have assumed that one of their own had leaked the information to the blog.

In the course of the ensuing witch-hunt, councillors and staff alike endured merciless grilling.  Torture was used in the attempt to extract confessions, but to no avail.  Not even being forced to read aloud from the Fitz Gerald Report, followed by threats of involuntary suicide, could wring confessions from the unfortunate souls writhing in agony at the feet of their pitiless tormentors. 

No surprise there, because no such leak occurred.  I got some hints from a source that has no connection with the Shire of York—and has never lived here.  Then, by a process of elimination and deduction, I concluded that Mr. Martin had applied for the position, and that the mandate of heaven had finally passed to him.

As Sherlock Holmes said in The Sign of Four, ‘…when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’.

I had no qualms in posting the offending photo.  I can think of no reason why Council’s decision should have been kept secret for even a day from the people of York, who will be paying Mr. Martin’s salary and emoluments.  I didn’t post his name against the photo because I didn’t want too much egg on my face if my conclusion proved to be wrong.   Instead, I opted for a cryptic clue.  We all have our little vanities, I suppose.

(Posted 290216.)

MEANWHILE FROM VICTORIA, A BIT OF LIGHT RELIEF...COURTESY OF ABC NEWS 16 February 2016 (DON'T START GETTING IDEAS, FOLKS)

Victorian council meeting cancelled after person in banana suit protests against mayor's trip

A person dressed as a banana and handing out bananas in protest against mayoral expenses has disrupted a local shire council meeting north of Melbourne.

The stunt was apparently a barb directed at Mitchell Shire's mayor Sue Marstaeller over her trip in her council car to Coffs Harbour, which has a tourist attraction known as the Big Banana.

The Broadford meeting was called to a halt after the large banana wandered around the chamber.

Former mayor Bob Humm said it was unfortunate a council meeting was cut short by the person's antics.

"I think it was very disappointing for probably a couple of the councillors because a couple of them had some fairly important items on the agenda that they needed to get moved and passed through the council," he said.

"I was a little bit surprised that the meeting was completely adjourned; the councillors possibly could have gone to the council room — called the meeting off for half an hour, got [to] the council room, then come back and completed the meeting.

"But obviously the mayor was quite offended, which she has the right to be offended because she'd been given the opportunity, the right, to be able to use that vehicle by the CEO in the first place."

Mr Humm said it was not the first time locals had resorted to the tactics. Someone dressed as a gorilla ran around the chamber when the shire was discussing circuses about 10 years ago.

Mitchell Council had 'serious' issues to discuss

Mr Humm said he believed the person dressed as a banana was a local being disruptive.

"I think there's been enough said and enough put around in the local papers in regard to the mayor and the trip up to Coffs Harbour ... I think it's time we put it aside and got on with more serious things," he said.

Mitchell Shire ratepayers have a fortnight to decide whether they want to seek an exemption to new laws that will see all Victorian local council rate increases capped at the inflation rate of 2.5 per cent, starting in mid-2016.

The council has notified the Essential Services Commission that it is considering the exemption option, and it has until the end of March to make a final decision.

Ms Marstaeller said under a 2.5 per cent cap $633,000 would be cut from the budget for the next year and a total of $44 million over the next decade.

*******

 

NUDGE NUDGE, WINK WINK…

Is this the new ‘broome’ that will sweep York clean?

Come to Monday’s Council meeting and find out.

NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

Incorporating Fair Comment on Matters of Public Interest

Lies, damned lies—and DLGC annual reports

As we all know, there is more than one way of deceiving our fellow human beings.  The most obvious is telling an outright lie.

This is the kind of deception most easily recognised as morally reprehensible and deserving of public censure.  It is a favourite of politicians in trouble, and sometimes turns on questions of definition. Everyone remembers Bill Clinton’s ‘I did not have sex with that woman’, implying that the act he engaged in with the young woman in question wasn’t the same as having sex, which may have come as a surprise both to her and to Mrs Clinton.

The other kind of deception may offer a bit more scope for subtlety, and is popular not only with politicians but also with government bureaucrats and chief executives of corporations.  Instead of telling lies, you simply conceal the truth. 

If you’re lucky, it will remain concealed forever.  If some horrid busybody digs it up, the trick is to say you don’t remember anything about it.  If push comes to shove, you blame the victim or victims for whatever it was that went wrong, or if that’s not possible, somebody lower down the corporate ladder than you.

For many centuries, lawyers have distinguished between lying (suggestio falsi) and concealing the truth (suppressio veri).  I believe the distinction was first clearly drawn by the mediaeval theologian St Thomas Aquinas in his writings on ethics and canon (ecclesiastical) law.  

The Angelic Doctor, as Thomas was known, seems to have thought suppressing truth slightly less odious than telling a lie.  Common law and common sense, on the other hand, have tended to regard both activities as being on much the same plane of moral turpitude.

DLGC Annual Report 2014/15

What triggered these musings was the Annual Report for 2014/2015 of the WA Department of Local Government and Communities.  It was published late last year.  You can find a link to the report by googling the department’s website.

(I’d give you the link directly, but it doesn’t want to work, not from my computer anyway.)

Undeniably, the report is a very handsome document.  In keeping with the department’s multicultural commitment and responsibilities, it is brightly illustrated with photographs featuring happy citizens, of diverse ages and ethnicities, making joyful use of the copious bounties allegedly dispensed by the department to the citizens of WA.

For a while, I was reading quite happily and began to wonder if I had got the department’s panjandrums—Jenny, Jenni, Brad, Bigfoot, Andrew and the rest—all wrong.  Were they in fact good people after all?  I even found myself having second thoughts about Minister Tony Simpson.  Could he really be as incompetent, stupid and vindictive as I had uncharitably represented him as being to readers of the blog?

Then I reached page 45, and quickly realised that if anything I have from the beginning treated those worthies, including the minister, far too kindly.

That page and the next provide a potted version of the department’s intervention in the affairs of the Shire of York during the period the report covers.  As you might expect, it is couched in soporific bureaucratic language designed to shackle disagreement by stifling thought. 

It begins with an outright lie, namely, that the department’s decision in 2014 to monitor council meetings and conduct a ‘probity compliance audit’ was ‘a result of a number of complaints from the public’.  No, it wasn’t. 

During the Hooper-Boyle-Hooper years, the department ignored hundreds of complaints from members of the public that should have prompted a probity compliance audit—and didn’t.  Complaints from members of the general public in York don’t seem to have cut much ice with the DLGC. 

In this instance, the department clearly acted on the basis of complaints coming variously in the form of letters, emails and phone calls from CEO Ray Hooper and his successor Michael Keeble, at least two Shire of York senior employees (go on, guess who) and our old friends councillors Hooper, Boyle and Duperouzel. 

All were terrified that a popular new Shire President, Matthew Reid, was going to fulfil his promise to bring open, honest and accountable governance to the Shire of York.

A major topic of concern was Matthew’s determination to clear up controversy over the use of the CEO’s corporate credit card.  That seems to have caused Ray Hooper palpitations of dismay, to the point that he went so far as to write to the FOI Commissioner (of all people) wanting to know if there was any way to stop people asking questions about it. 

That has always puzzled me.  If you’re not doing anything wrong, why should it bother you that people are asking questions about some aspect of your conduct?  Surely most of us would welcome such questions, because they would give us the chance to demonstrate how squeaky clean we are and how deserving of public trust.

Inexplicably, CEO Hooper, his senior underlings and his ‘acolytes’ on council saw matters differently.  For the present, we can only guess why.

The Fitz Gerald Report

Another topic of concern to CEO Hooper and his underlings and acolytes was the enquiry into his stewardship of the shire that led to the submission of the Fitz Gerald Report. 

As we all know, three councillors, acting on the advice of ex-CEO Hooper as he had by that time become, met for the specific purpose of suppressing that report, which promptly found its way online into the public domain, where it belongs and remains.   

Minister Simpson publicly accused Matthew Reid of releasing the Fitz Gerald Report to the public.  He didn’t.  I’m pretty sure I know who did, but I’m not saying.

Give us the money, Minister

Where the department’s Annual Report really hits its straps is in its brief account of the Minister’s appointment of James Best, ‘an experienced local government mayor’, as commissioner to act in place of council while the latter was suspended. 

Here, the department glides nimbly from suggestio falsi across to suppressio veri.  There is so much it should have said about the calamitous reign of Commissioner Best over York, but there’s none of it in the report, and most obviously, no ministerial apology, though heaven knows we deserve one.

The minister and his advisers are very well aware that James Best’s sojourn in York was, for us but by no means for Mr. Best, a disaster from start to finish.  No less aware of this are Premier Colin Barnett—for what that’s worth—and Mia Davies MLA and Paul Brown MLC, which is worth nothing at all. 

Together with his dozy sidekick Acting CEO Graeme ‘Gollum’ Simpson, Best managed to alienate almost everyone in town with his ‘visioning’ nonsense, false promises, terminological inexactitudes and furious self-promotion.   I say ‘almost everyone’, because…well, you know why, you can fill in the gap for yourselves.

So far as I’m concerned, Minister Simpson owes the Shire of York getting on for a million dollars, made up of $625,000 for the purchase of Chalkies, whatever we had to pay Commissioner Best by way of salary and expenses, about $50,000 for his additional ‘consultancy fees’ and the balance as compensation for pain and suffering caused by having to put up with Mr. Best’s arrogance and mendacity.

And to those who are busily wriggling out of the woodwork to condemn me for being negative and raking over the past:  in my last article, I invited you to post on the blog your positive suggestions as to what we should do to revitalise York.  A few faithful readers did do that, and I thank them, but from the dark side—NOTHING, not even from the Capital Screamer. 

I can’t tell you how bitterly disappointed I am.  But I’m not at all surprised.

Shire workers bring down the Great Wall of Bayly Road

For some time, the street boundary of a property in Bayly Road has sported a giant concrete erection known to locals as ‘The Great Wall’.

It was said to be the only construction in York visible from the moon.

The person who built this remarkable edifice was Mr. Steve Cochrane, who with his wife Tyhscha owns the property in question.

The story goes that Mr. Cochrane’s reason for building the wall was to minimise flooding on to his property, which is situated on the lower side of the road.

Some mean individuals put it about that the Great Wall was an illegal construction for which Shire permission was neither sought nor given.  It was even suggested that nobody dared do anything about it because of Mrs Cochrane’s position as a senior Shire employee.

Meanwhile, Mr. Cochrane was so delighted with his handiwork that after recent heavy rains he started to build a similar structure across the gateway of a property on the other side of the road.  Apparently this was intended as a friendly surprise for his neighbours.

Unfortunately, the owners of that property didn’t see the advantage of having a gateway they couldn’t drive their cars through and complained to the police.   Mr. Cochrane’s second wall was speedily dismantled.

This week, visitors to Bayly Road were shocked to see the Great Wall lying in ruins.  Rumours that this act of wanton destruction was carried out by agents of ISIS were soon replaced with the truth, that the persons responsible were members of the Shire’s workforce acting under orders from above.

Residents are asking if this means that Mrs Cochrane’s power as deputy CEO is on the wane.  ‘Nobody dared say boo to her while Ray Hooper and Graeme Simpson were in charge here’, one usually reliable Shire source told me. 

‘The bloke we’ve got at the moment is a different kettle of fish.  Blubbering doesn’t move him, and if somebody shouts at him, he simply takes no notice.  If the new CEO is like him, I can’t see Tyhscha hanging around for long.’

TALKING ABOUT YORK’S FUTURE

Let’s put up an agenda…

Readers will have seen for themselves the demand in numerous comments on various topics that the blog should forswear referring to the past and deal exclusively with the challenges likely to face York now and in years to come.

Many times, I have responded by pointing out that the past is mirrored in and does much to shape the present, which in turn, as it becomes the past, will play a decisive part in moulding the future. 

This is not mere academic theory.  It is common sense.  We ignore it, as individuals and as a society, at our peril.

It seems my argument has fallen on deaf ears.  A century ago the pioneer motor vehicle manufacturer Henry Ford proclaimed that ‘History is bunk’.   As I have discovered, he has more than one vociferous disciple in York.

I prefer George Santayana’s aphorism from his book Reason in Common Sense: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’.  No less do I like novelist Kurt Vonnegut’s rejoinder: ‘I’ve got news for Mr. Santayana.  We’re doomed to repeat the past no matter what.  That’s what it is to be alive’. 

If we’re doomed to repeat the past, our best course is to find out as much as we can about it and try to figure out how to avoid repeating the really bad bits.

I’m well aware that the folk most eager and determined to thrust York’s recent history aside are those most at risk of ignominy, disgrace or worse if the truth about the last ten years is fully revealed.

Currently, I have four articles lined up for the blog.  Each of them starts with a look at the past and tries to tease out implications for the present and where possible, the future.  Unfortunately, I can’t write a lot about the future.  I haven’t been there lately, not since the dog ate the operating instructions for my time machine.

Real voices

This blog, as I’ve said in the past, is called ‘The REAL Voice of York’ for a very good reason.  My voice alone is NOT ‘the real voice of York’.  Nobody’s voice is, certainly not mine. 

The real voice of York is a collective voice, made up of individual voices often in furious disagreement.  It was always and remains my desire to provide a stimulus to discussion followed by a platform for the expression of diverse opinions. 

Naturally, I make no secret of my own opinions, but I only apply the heavy hand of censorship to comments that are designed to be more abusive than enlightening.  Not everything I censor comes from the dark side.  I have sent nasty or obscene remarks about certain denizens of the dark side to the same spam folder as nasty remarks about me. 

For example, the blog does not welcome scurrilous assertions about the imagined sex lives of Shire employees or councillors and commissioners past and present. 

Up to a few days ago I simply deleted such comments, but no longer.  History must be served.

Correspondents (I like that word better than ‘commenters’) who are trying to discredit me by accusing me of jettisoning comments that disagree with my point of view in fact do themselves no credit at all.  The evidence on the blog, going back to the beginning, is against them. 

I repeat for the nth time: comments that embody or advance an argument, or provide information, and are not obscene or grossly impolite, will always find a home on the blog no matter which side they favour.  That’s a promise I have kept and mean always to keep.

Enough, already.  As the French say, let’s return to our muttons (revenons à nos moutons), namely the subject at hand.  Which is: what’s the way forward for York?  What should we be talking about when we talk about York’s future?

Setting an agenda

These are some of the things I believe we should be thinking and talking about.  You may not agree with my choice of topics.  Feel free to add to the list or suggest that some topics should be removed from it.

1.  MONEY   This is the big one, in my view.  The last Shire budget, promulgated and adopted by His Rapacious Excellency Commissioner James Best, condemned York’s ratepayers to an historic rise in rates—among the very highest in Australia, I’m told.  Are we getting value for money? 

What should Council be doing to make sure that for next year and in future rates are fixed no higher than the CPI?  (For  2016/17, should rates increase at all?)

2.  STAFF   Is the Shire overstaffed, for example at the upper levels of the administration?  Is it time to restructure?  Do we really need a DCEO, and if we do, should we be looking for one who is able and willing when necessary to step into the CEO’s shoes? 

Are contract staff salaries in general too high and perquisites too generous?  In this area, too, are we getting value for money?  If not, how should Council exert pressure on the new CEO to change that situation in the ratepayers’ favour?

What should Council and the new CEO do to ensure that the Shire’s long history of nepotism and patronage is never repeated, and that past instances of this illegality are corrected with a minimum of delay?

3.  CONSULTANTS   Do we really need to engage so many highly paid consultants; and is the reason we have them that senior staff aren’t up to the jobs they are paid to do? 

On the latter point, A/CEO Dacombe doesn’t seem to think so.  Last week I was shown a letter he had written to a ratepayer defending the continuing engagement of the services of his fellow ex-CEO of the City of Canning, none other than Dominic Carbone, to assist the Shire’s financial controller. 

According to Mr. Dacombe, this arrangement is definitely giving value for money (yes, he used that very phrase).  Are we all convinced that he’s right?

(By the way, I owe Mr. Carbone an apology.  In a recent article, I may have insinuated that he has no financial qualifications.  Mr. Dacombe wrote that his friend was in fact for many years a CPA, but no longer renews his certification because he no longer needs to. 

I’m not sure what Mr. Dacombe was trying to tell the recipient of his letter.  Was he saying that Dom used to need his CPA as a local government CEO, but no longer needs it as a WALGA-promoted financial adviser to local government authorities?  Does that really make sense?  Anyway, whatever Mr. Dacombe meant, sorry, Mr. Carbone.)

4.  FITZ GERALD    What is Council going to do about the Fitz Gerald Report?  Will it tell us what its lawyers currently recommend? 

I say ‘currently’, because there is a 12 months’ limitation on pursuing an action in defamation, and the document has been around on the Internet and elsewhere since it first appeared in or about July 2014.    Like the Australian Women’s Weekly, it’s very widely read.  (Yes, I realise the situation may not be that simple, but the lawyers will know.)

More to the point, what does Council plan to do or what is it doing by way of compensation or other redress for the victims of past wrongs committed in the name of the Shire of York?

5.  THE YRCC   This is a thorny one.  I’m working on an article about it, so I won’t say much here.  I was surprised to be told the other day that the YRCC is used by less than 20% of York’s population (the actual figure quoted to me was 18.6%). 

Can that be true?  If so, whatever happened to ‘user pays’?  Why should 4/5 of the population be slugged with maintaining at considerable cost a facility used only by the remaining 1/5?  How much has the development cost since its inception, and what is the rate of return on this costly investment?   How often has it done service as a convention centre, and at what profit to the Shire?  Does Council have a plan for the future of the YRCC?

6.  THE OLD CONVENT SCHOOL   What should Council do about this unsafe, apparently unusable building, purchased on the whim of Commissioner Best, a.k.a. Jimmy the Rat, aided and abetted by A/CEO Simpson?   How does it plan to use the building, if at all, and if that isn’t the intention, how does it plan to get rid of it?

7.   TOURISM   Much of York’s future lies in tourism.  I sense that this important economic activity has taken a bit of a dive since the collapse of the old Tourist Board.  What’s to be done?  How best (I wish there was another word) can we promote tourism in York so that we get more than our fair share of tourists from overseas as well as interstate and WA?

8.   ALLAWUNA   Any day now, presiding member MacNab will bring down his verdict.  If it goes against us, will it be possible for JDAP, as defendant, supported by Council, to appeal?  If not, how does Council plan to make sure that the citizens of York get the best possible deal from the dumping of Perth’s waste in York’s agricultural zone?

OK, no more from me.  What do readers think?  Over to you!

A good news story…

Robyn and Kay Davies are heroines of the fight against SITA’s proposed landfill at Allawuna.

Here they are on Australia Day with the certificates awarded to them as nominees for York Citizen of the Year.  (Photo courtesy of Roma Paton.)

The top award went to Adelphe King, in recognition of her many years of voluntary service to the York community.  If anyone has a photo of Adelphe, and is willing to share it, I’d love to post it here.  Please email it to wildwood@westnet.com.au .

Congratulations to all three ladies, stalwarts of the Shire of York.