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)