GREAT EXPECTATIONS

 (Note: postscript added 13 June 2016
            further postscript added 14 June
          and a tribute in verse added 16 June
          and another great photo for day 4 of the challenge, the best yet in my opinion)

Silence isn’t always golden—sometimes it’s just a way of keeping us in the dark

Ever the optimist, I submitted in writing a question for Council to consider at the ordinary meeting on 23 May 2016.

The question was set out, more or less as it went to Council, at the end of my article ‘The White Elephant in York’s Pajamas’, posted on Friday 13 May.  

According to popular superstition, that may not have been the most auspicious day to post it, but the article provoked close to a record number of comments, indicating a high degree of public interest in the history and possible future of the York Recreation and Convention Centre. 

At the meeting, I read out my question, omitting the obsequious bits I had craftily added by way of preface.  Shire President Wallace’s response was so friendly, cheerful and enthusiastic that for a moment I thought he was about to give me a medal, make me a freeman of the shire, present me with a prize-winning stud ram and offer me his daughter’s hand in marriage (the last being subject of course to the pending introduction of sharia law and the consequent legalisation of polygamy).

My question, in essence, was about the cost and benefits (if any) of the construction and operations of the YRCC. 

I wanted to know how much the centre had cost to build; how much of that cost had been skimmed from other projects; what it had cost to repair and maintain since being opened for public use; what financial benefits, i.e. revenue and profit, had accrued to the Shire from the centre’s operations; and whether or not the centre was ever likely to pay its own way.

Introducing the question, I reminded everyone that former A/CEO Graeme Simpson had well over a year ago promised to provide us 'within a week' with a ‘fact sheet’ containing information of that kind.  He made the promise in one of his rare lucid moments, so it’s no wonder I remember it so well.   

We are still waiting for the promise to be fulfilled.  I was expecting the present Council and Shire administration to fulfil it, on the premise that a promise made is a debt unpaid.  After all, it was made in the Shire’s name.

Be careful what you wish for, because if it’s hard facts you’re after you might not get them from the Shire of York

As I wrote in ‘Notes from Underground’ (25 May), ‘I formed the impression that the question wasn’t unwelcome, as I had felt it might be, and would evoke in due course a detailed response’.  In my innocence, I expected Council to instruct the CEO to make public what I (and many others) would like to know.  

Using the kind of language beloved of politicians and bureaucrats, I pointed out in asking my question that such information might help us ‘to facilitate an informed consultation process’ regarding the relevant aspects of the draft strategic community plan.   

Alas, the vanity of human hopes and wishes!  By ‘detailed response’, I meant that the question should be answered in detail—and further, that the detail would relate for the most part to the question as I had asked it, not to another distantly related question that I didn’t actually ask, but might have asked if my purpose had been to assist Council and the Shire administration to obscure the awful truth about the YRCC.

This was the Shire President’s response, slightly edited, as recorded in the minutes of the meeting:

…the draft Corporate Business Plan refers to an action “YRCC Management Review” to be undertaken in the 2016/17 financial year…It is expected that this review will result in a Business Plan for the YRCC being presented to Council for consideration.  The Business Plan will address many of the … issues [forming] part of your question.  Once this Business Plan is considered by Council and directions for the Centre decided involving consultation with sporting clubs this would be a better time to issue a Facts Sheet if possible.

No, Dave, that wouldn’t be ‘a better time’.  The best time to give us the facts is NOW.

‘I want to believe…’

OK, let’s paraphrase what the Shire President said.  The tart comments displayed in italics are mine.

1.              This financial year, there’s going to be a ‘Management Review’ of the YRCC.  (Excellent! But who will carry out the review, under what headings, and if the review reveals that the centre isn’t cost-effective, and can’t be made so, will the Shire tell us?)

2.              The review should result in a ‘business plan’ for the centre.  (What form will the review take, based on what underlying assumptions?)

3.              The proposed business plan will address ‘many issues’ raised in my question.  (Precisely which issues will it address?)

4.              We don’t think this is the right time to put out a Fact Sheet.  It may not be possible to produce one (why the hell not?) It would be better to put one out when Council has considered the plan and decided, after a round of chin-wagging with the sporting clubs that use it, just where the centre’s future is heading.  (Most residents aren’t members of sporting clubs and don’t use the centre.  Suppose that a majority of residents would prefer not to go on paying in their rates for a centre they don’t use and which can’t pay for itself—what then?  Will their objections be cast aside in favour of the interests of a handful of sports fanatics—and of a bevy of superannuated boozers getting subsidised grog in the tavern?)

I think Shire President Wallace and his cohorts completely missed the overall point of my question, which as I made clear from the outset was to enable residents to make an informed contribution to the development of a business plan for the centre.

We shouldn’t have to wait for a facts sheet until after the business plan has been presented to Council.   We need the information I asked for now, not when the plan is to all intents and purposes a fait accompli.

To give just one example of what I mean:  if it turns out, after examining the figures, that the tavern and restaurant are paying their way and reaping excellent profits for the Shire—stranger things have happened, though not often—will that raise the spectre of competitive neutrality in relation to the town’s struggling hospitality sector?  

If it does, should we close those operations for the sake of local entrepreneurs?  We can’t reflect on that question, or indeed on the future of those operations, without a full knowledge of the facts.

Like Agent Mulder in The X-Files, I want to believe.  I really, really do.  I want to believe that the new Council and administration not only have our best interests at heart, but also want to share with us the facts and figures upon which their perception of our best interests relies. 

I want to believe that the bad old days are gone forever, that the truth will no longer be withheld from us, that it will shine forth resplendently for all to see as a new and more confident era dawns.

I want to believe that unlike most if not all of its predecessors, Council will eschew secrecy in government in the knowledge that such secrecy isn’t only the first step on the path to corruption, it’s also the first step on the path to public opprobrium and loss of trust. 

I want to believe that our Council really is committed to open, honest and accountable government.  

Yes, I want to believe all of that.

But I’m buggered if I'm ready to believe it yet.

POSTSCRIPT:  Why won’t the Shire of York tell us what the Major Fraud Squad found in the Shire’s financial records?

In my History Channel post of 17 April 2016, I discussed Acting CEO Dacombe’s recommendation that Council should suppress details of the Major Fraud Squad’s decision not to investigate irregularities arising from transactions on the Shire’s corporate credit card and (I believe) other financial dealings of the Shire.

I did so under the heading ‘And now for something completely different—lawyers advise York Shire Council to suppress Major Fraud Squad report’.

I adverted to the matter again in my farewell tribute to Acting CEO Dacombe, posted on 26 April.

It wasn’t my intention to have a go at Mr. Dacombe, whom I like, respect and admire.  He made it clear that his recommendation relied on legal advice.

Nor was I being critical of the police.  They identified irregularities, but described them as ‘governance, accounting or record-keeping issues’.  It’s the governance issues that most concern me here.

Presumably, governance issues arose because councillors had approved irregular expenditures, thus providing those responsible for them with a viable defence to any criminal charges that might otherwise have been laid.

So far as the police were concerned, the Shire Council has the authority and power to approve all expenditures made in its name, and by giving that approval, to validate them.

Explained—or explained away?

I’m not entirely happy with that explanation of what seems to have occurred. 

Can it really be the case that what ratepayers might regard as dishonest —I won’t say fraudulent— activity ceases to be so because lazy and incompetent councillors aren’t bothered to check what is thrust under their noses for approval month after month?

And were our highly paid auditors asleep at the wheel when they examined the Shire’s financial records year after year?

I suppose it’s possible that certain members of past councils were directly implicated in some of those irregularities, which in total may have cost ratepayers a significant amount of money. 

It’s my understanding that some of the irregular expenditures were on alcohol purchased from a bottle shop in Perth, while others related to a trip interstate.  On a more trivial note, I know of at least one occasion when the Shire’s credit card was used to buy icecreams in Mundaring on the way home from consulting a lawyer in Perth.

Probity

Leaving aside the vexed question of possible criminality, were questions of probity involved in any of this, and if so, what did Brad Jolly and his fellow lotus-eaters at the DLGC have to say about them?  Do they have anything worth hearing to say now?

The DLGC knew what was going on, because York ratepayers told them.  They did nothing, probably because they didn’t care.  Or perhaps they thought it wasn’t ‘in the public interest’ for councillors and staff to be embarrassed by the truth being made available to the forelock-tugging residents of York.

Thankfully, new policies are in place to reduce the likelihood that such improprieties, large and small, don’t happen in the future.  We have Mark Dacombe and Dr Gael Ferguson to thank for that.

But is that a plausible excuse for turning a blind eye to past iniquities?  I don’t think so, and I doubt that most of my readers do, apart from the tiny tribe of self-interested zombies who are all for flushing uncomfortable ‘historical issues’ down the toilet.

Inappropriate?

What most puzzled me about Acting CEO Dacombe’s recommendation was the assertion that it would be ‘inappropriate’ to release details of issues raised in the police report because to do so might result in individuals responsible for them being easily identified.

Most of us have a shrewd idea who those individuals might be.  Frankly, I don’t care who they are, if they are no longer members of Council or employed by the Shire.

What troubles me is that some of them might be members of Council who were also members of past councils at times when the irregular expenditures occurred, and were among those who approved them.

What troubles me even more is that their complicity, witting or not, in giving such approval might be what lay behind both the recommendation and Council’s vote to adopt it.   At the April ordinary council meeting, that vote was split 5-2, with councillors Saint and Walters dissenting.

I believe that if any current councillors were in any way, at any time and for any reason so complicit, they should not have voted on the recommendation because they had a discernible interest in avoiding embarrassment by keeping the matter under wraps.

(Incidentally, it was a similar line of reasoning that led me to conclude that a former council’s decision to suppress the Fitz Gerald Report was illicit.  The three councillors forming the quorum that voted for suppression were all mentioned adversely in the report and had no business voting on it.)

It’s the issues that matter

That said, I suspect most of us would be happy just knowing precisely what the issues were—all of them, not just governance issues—without being given details that could identify the individuals responsible for them.

This isn’t just about history.  It’s about the present and the future.  It’s about ensuring as far as possible that nothing that shouldn’t have happened ever happens again.

Good policies are helpful, but human ingenuity in the service of self-interest will usually find a way around them. 

The best safeguard for good governance is an electorate that knows the truth and is vigorously and permanently on the lookout for bureaucratic misfeasance and for the failure of councillors to put community interests ahead of personal concerns.

 So, councillors, come clean—tell us what the issues were that the police identified.  As our ancestors used to say, before truth became a casualty of the postmodern era, telling the truth shames the devil and sets us free.

POSTPOSTSCRIPT: On a lighter note…

From Cr Randell’s Facebook page—his first entry in The 5 Day Photograph a Twat Challenge

I don’t know if Trevor’s going to win, but they say he’s in pole position.

 The challenge continues with a second entry…

Game of Thrones…Trev snaps a selfie in a public toilet—and not a hair out of place!

 He missed out on the Queen’s Birthday Honours.  Is he aiming for Twat of the Year?

…and rolls on with a third…

 

THE TWAT IN THE HAT

  

(apologies to Dr Seuss)

This is the tale of a Twat in a Hat,

Some said he was silly, some called him a prat,

Others laughed at his antics and called him a dork

But he shone like a star in the fair shire of York.

An adept of Facebook, and eager for fame,

He had earned by his efforts a luminous name:

The world read with wonder his trenchant remarks

That wound up in rows of exclamatory marks;

His favourite epigram, oft written down,

Declared that his foes should be run out of town—

Those complainers and whingers, who dwelt on the past,

Had no place in HIS town, and from thence should be cast

Back to where they'd all come from.  Lip angrily curled,

He cried, ‘First Ashworth Road, then tomorrow the world;

The future of York rests with rubbish in trucks.

It’s time to move forward.  History sucks’.

Most of all he detested—I’ll mention their names—

York’s dastardly bloggers, David and James:

Those horrible creatures, those arrogant knaves

Who slime in and out of their cowardly caves,

Pointing the finger at bloody good blokes

Who’d looked after their mates and struck down other folks.

The summit and crown of his glorious career

Was to stand for election as Twat of the Year.

Not everyone thought that was such a good thing,

The bloggers poked fun as his campaign took wing,

While respectable residents said he’d lose face

If he wasn’t elected, and bring us disgrace,

Which of course would be shameful, a shock and a scandal—

But he’s certain to win.  Just ask Councillor Randell!!!!!

…now it’s Day 4, and the champ weighs in with a defiant declaration of where he stands on a vital issue of principle affecting us all—if those figures refer to inches, he must have shrunk in the wash, probably during the spin cycle…

 

Don’t worry, Trevor, nobody around here thinks love is a crime, or wants to see you dragged off to jail.  Such an event would ‘eclipse the gaiety of nations, and diminish the public stock of harmless pleasure’.

Disappointing News:  Day 5 of the ‘Photograph a Twat Challenge’ seems to have been cancelled or indefinitely postponed.  The Facebook page that hosted it, Trevor and Sharon’s Love/Hate Page, is no longer available for viewing to the general public.

I wonder—is it possible that the day 4 photo isn’t of Trev but of the mysterious Sharon?