BOWLING CLUB PRESIDENT PAT HOOPER GOES FOR THE JACK BUT WINDS UP WELL AND TRULY SKITTLED

 (Postscript added 2 September 2016)

No apple for the teacher this time, just a few friendly words of advice

Mark Lloyd, my opposite number at York & Districts Community Matters, has kindly passed on to me a letter he received from a certain Mr. J P McG. Hooper, JP, of this parish. 

Some readers may remember Mr. Hooper.  He is a former York shire president, exposed by York’s blogs as author of the so-called ‘Minority Report’ that in 2014 encouraged Local Government Minister Tony Simpson to suspend our democratically elected council of which Mr. Hooper himself was at the time a member.

Mr. Hooper secretly submitted the report to the minister after publicly voting with other councillors to oppose the proposed suspension.

Since then, Mr. Hooper has crawled out of his funkhole and craftily reinvented himself as president of York’s bowling club.

I recall observing on his taking up that office that ‘underarm’ was a step up from ‘underhand’.

Mr J P ('Pat') Hooper, President, York Bowling Club and author of 'The minority report'

Anyway, back to his letter.  It is addressed as an ‘open letter’ to me, rudely styling me as ‘Mr.’ James Plumridge  (just ‘James Plumridge’ would have been fine if ‘Dr.’ was sticking in his craw).   

It is a letter of complaint demanding that I make a public apology.  Mr. Hooper asked Mr. Lloyd to publish the letter in September’s YDCM.

However, Mr. Lloyd wisely and fairly decided that I should have the opportunity to respond to the letter in The REAL Voice of York, where the matter Mr. Hooper complains of first appeared.  He has informed Mr. Hooper of his decision.

Without further ado, I give you Mr. Hooper’s ‘open letter’.

(Click to enlarge)

In effect, Mr. Hooper accuses me of misleading readers of the blog by making false claims about the bowling club’s past indebtedness to the York Shire Council.

Here is the text of my remarks touching on the bowling club exactly as they appeared in my article on York’s hungry ‘white elephants’, posted on 23 June 2016.

I was under the impression that the expense of providing services for the benefit of sporting clubs would be to some extent defrayed by agreed contributions from the clubs.   

Apparently that was once the case, but is no longer so.  Council waived that requirement a couple of years ago.

I recall that in 2012 or thereabouts, the Shire took out a loan for the Bowls Club that the club agreed to repay at the rate of around $30,000 per year.  It appears the remaining balance of that debt was also waived. 

Next year, the Shire expects to spend $11,350 on turf maintenance for the bowling greens and to receive green fees of $8,320 (a net cost to ratepayers of $3,030).   Of course, the club wasn’t responsible for the sinkhole, so we’ve really no right to grumble.

Allegedly false claim No. 1:  That in 2012 or thereabouts the bowling club obtained a loan from the Shire with annual repayments of around $30,000.

My response:  The date was wrong (a typo, mea culpa), but otherwise the claim was correct.

I refer Mr. Hooper to page 39 of the minutes of the special council meeting held on 5 September 2008 to confirm the proposed annual budget for financial year 2008/9.  I believe he was at that time shire president, but did not preside over this meeting because he was on approved leave until 19 October 2008.  Acting Shire President Brian Lawrance took his place. 

Other councillors present were Trevor Randell, Tony Boyle, Ashley Fisher and Tricia Walters.

Under the general heading ‘Loans and Self Supporting Loan Information’, the minutes record a self-supporting ‘contingency loan’ to the York Bowling Club of $250,000.00 repayable over 15 years by instalments of $29,799.00 per annum.  If the loan had run full-term, the club would have had to repay a total of $446, 985.00 with a total interest component of $196,985.00. 

It was billed as a ‘contingency loan’ because the York Bowling Club had asked for it ‘in case they [were] not successful in gaining sufficient grant funding to replace the existing grass greens with synthetic bowling greens’.  Those must have been the greens at the club’s old premises, because the YRCC was still in 2008 not much more than a slowly brightening gleam in CEO Hooper’s eye.

I searched council minutes for later references to the loan but found none.  That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, merely that I failed in my search.  If they do exist, and Mr. Hooper knows where they can be found, let him please point me in their direction.

A further point:  if the loan was accepted, and repayments have not been waived, then the club is contractually obliged to go on paying nearly $30K per annum to the Shire until 2023.  

Allegedly false claim no. 2:  That the Shire waived all debt relating to the loan.

My response:  That isn’t quite what I said.  The words I used were ‘the remaining balance of the debt’.  Admittedly, after only a few years of repayments, the remaining balance would have comprised most of the loan.

I have no access and seek none to the financial records of the York Bowling Club, but it seems clear to me that if the club were still forking over nearly $30K a year to the Shire, its president and management committee might by now have come to notice the continuing drain on their funds.  Mr. Hooper’s letter makes it clear that if ever such a drain existed, it ceased operating a while ago.

It’s possible that the club received sufficient funding from other agencies and had no reason to take up the Shire’s offer.  Information obtained from a usually reliable source indicated that that was unlikely to have been the case.

The same source also indicated that the club had in fact accepted the loan but that further repayments were waived because the club had transferred its activities to the YRCC.  

If Mr. Hooper would like to take issue with this version of events and to clarify the club’s actual position regarding the loan, he is most welcome to do so on this blog. 

Regular readers of the blog will confirm that I am always happy for my mistakes to be corrected and have never failed to accord space to such corrections on the rare occasions when they have been necessary.   

I also said I was ‘under the impression’ that the sporting clubs had agreed to contribute towards the expense of running the YRCC, but that the Shire had waived that requirement.   I didn’t direct that comment specifically at the Bowling Club.

Allegedly false claim no. 3:  That the club was granted ‘special favour by waiving of funds they never received or sought’.

  

My response: The club did seek the funds mentioned in my article.  Mr. Hooper is in a better position than I am to say whether or not the club received them.

There was no suggestion or implication in what I wrote that the club got ‘special favour’ from the Shire, if by special favour Mr. Hooper meant a favour not available to other clubs.

I confess that my remarks in the same article about the Hockey Club, Shire President Wallace’s tender nursling, might reasonably be construed as an accusation of special favour. 

As I indicated at the time, those remarks were made in a heightened state of irritation because my English nephew, Kyle, a talented hockey player, had turned his back on the rest of his family, Brexiteers all, and voted to remain in the EU. 

But my tongue-in-cheek animadversions on that occasion had nothing to do with the Bowling Club.

A reminder

Mr. Hooper and his committee remind me that the Bowling Club ‘contributed $80,000 to the Forrest Oval reconstruction’, and relinquished its former premises as well as its former liquor licence.

I knew about the premises and the liquor license, but not about the $80,000.  I think club members were very foolish to let CEO Ray Hooper and his acolytes on Council con them into handing over such a large sum to the Shire and giving up their former premises and liquor licence in exchange for the dubious privilege of shifting their activities to the YRCC. 

By now, most Bowling Club members must surely agree with that verdict.  

The Bowling Club should have followed the example of the York Croquet Club, which eager to preserve its freedom, and guided by wise and intelligent leadership, elected to stick to its current venerable premises and flip the Shire the bird.

Recent photo of giant sinkhole, YRCC bowling green (Groundswell Images Pty Ltd)

Apologies

Mr. Hooper has demanded that I issue a public apology to the Bowling Club if I have no evidence to support my claim that the club entered into a loan arrangement with the Shire.

I think I have produced enough evidence to render such an apology superfluous. 

But to the extent that I have misrepresented any factual detail, or may have misled anyone in relation to matters of context or principle, I AM SORRY.

However, Mr. Hooper is absolutely excluded from the scope of that apology. 

I will not apologise to him about anything whatsoever, not even if he manifestly deserves an apology, until he has had the good grace to apologise to the people of York for his deceitful and treacherous conduct as author of the ‘Minority Report’. 

In that capacity, he played a significant part in unleashing the curse of James Best on York and must accept a corresponding degree of responsibility for the demoralising months of grief and strife that followed.

No apple for the teacher—Mr. Hooper’s language bloopers

I’m told that Mr. Hooper was for many years a teacher and deputy principal in the York District High School.

It’s therefore surprising that his letter contains some elementary English language bloopers.

Blooper no. 1:  The material he complains about was ‘brought’, not as he says ‘bought’, to the attention of his committee.  Sadly, this error is commonplace in Western Australia.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I encountered it in a student’s work.

Blooper no. 2:  Mr. Hooper in his fifth paragraph suggests that I might have to apologise for ‘an inference’.  I think he should have said ‘an implication’.  An implication is ‘something implied or suggested as naturally to be inferred without being expressly stated’ (Macquarie).  An inference is a logical consequence derived by deduction from a statement or premise whether expressed or implied.  For example, a speaker says something, at the same time implying something else; the listener infers that ‘something else’ from what the speaker says.

The erroneous reversal of meaning between ‘imply’ and ‘infer’ is now so commonplace that for more than 30 years the Macquarie lexicographers have classed it as ‘colloquial’.  Colloquial it may be, but surely it should be out of bounds for members or former members of the teaching or any other erudite profession. 

Blooper no. 3:  ‘Repayments…was’ in Mr. Hooper’s first paragraph should of course read ‘repayments…were’.  (Too obvious to merit further comment.)

I also have a problem with Mr. Hooper’s arithmetic.  In his second paragraph, he calculates that annual repayments of $30,000 meant that the loan must have ‘been in excess of [i.e. ‘more than’] $500,000’.

Well, no.  Annual repayments of $30,000 over the prescribed period of 15 years would amount to $450,000, which is not ‘in excess of’ half a million.  Assuming that the repayments included interest, we might reasonably infer that the actual loan would be much less than the total repayments, as indeed it was.

By the way, I thought Mr. Hooper was disputing the existence of the loan.  So how could he have known that the loan period was 15 years, which he must have done to arrive at anything like the (erroneous) figure he suggests?

My article gave no details of the loan other than the amount of the annual repayments.

Can it be that Mr. Hooper’s demand for an apology has arisen solely from a childish cavil regarding the date when the loan was taken out?

Hooper’s bloopers—jeepers creepers!  Sometimes I just want to pull a rug over my head and quietly give way to despair.

POSTSCRIPT:  At last month’s Ordinary Council Meeting, Mr. Hooper asked Council to confirm ‘that in 2012, or thereabouts…the Shire did not secure a loan on behalf of the York Bowling Club’.  (See pp. 7-8 of the current minutes, just released.)

He gave as his reason for asking the question that ‘a Dr James Plumridge’ (my word, he knows how to make a fellow feel special) had ‘blogged’ that the Shire had during the period stated taken out a loan for the club and had subsequently waived the balance of the debt.

I’ve confessed to having typed the wrong date.  But these questions remain:

1.              In 2008, did the Shire secure for the Bowling Club a contingency loan of $250,000 repayable by annual instalments of $29,799?

2.              Did the Bowling Club take up the loan?  If so, how many repayments did the club make to the Shire?

3.              If the club did take up the loan, did the Shire at any stage waive the balance of the loan, and if so, when?

4.              If the balance wasn’t waived, is the club still making annual repayments to the Shire?

5.              When he asked his question, did Mr. Hooper know that the Bowling Club had in fact been offered a loan in 2008—when he was Shire President—more or less matching the description given in the blog article he quotes from?

6.              If he did know that, why didn’t he mention it either in his open letter to me or in his question to the Shire?  In other words, was he just trying to be smart, presumably at my expense?

‘Open and transparent’

In a second question, Mr. Hooper raises concern—as he claims, community concern—over the possible closure of the YRCC.

He calls on Council to ensure ‘that there will be open and transparent processes… regarding any planned changes to the YRCC and that all users of the YRCC and the Forrest Oval complex are full [sic] consulted about planned changes’.

He adds darkly that ‘If the YRCC was closed the Bowling Club would not have a home’.  Well, Mr. Hooper, whose damned silly fault is that?

‘Open’ and ‘transparent’ aren’t words that spring unbidden to the mind when Mr. Hooper’s name comes up in conversation.   

His attitude to openness and transparency has been fully on display since his exposure as author of the ‘Minority Report’—not to mention the Shire’s refusal during his presidency to publish details of corporate credit card transactions.

But on this matter, he has my support.   I would be very sorry to see such an important question as the fate of the Splurj Mahal decided by a handful of people behind closed doors.  

There’s just one point of difference between us.

It’s not only the small minority of York residents who use the centre who should be consulted about its future.  So should the majority of residents who don’t use the centre but are compelled to pay for it anyway.

Priority No. 1 must be shutting down the tavern restaurant and bar.   I’m sure Mr. Hooper and his entourage, regular users of the tavern, will have no difficulty finding alternative munching and swigging stations closer to the centre of town.

THE HISTORY CHANNEL

Back to that Year of Wonders, 2008

A friend who prefers to remain anonymous has very kindly supplied me with a page from a surveyor’s report concerning the proposed sale of the Old Convent by the Shire of York to Mr. David Lawn in June 2008.

According to my friend, the surveyor in question was none other than the husband of one of the Shire’s more senior clerical employees.  Cosy, huh?

At the time of sale, Mr. Lawn worked as the Shire’s planner.  I believe that in a previous incarnation he had worked in a similar capacity for the Shire of Chittering when Ray Hooper was employed there as CEO.  Presumably, he and CEO Hooper were on collegial, even friendly terms.

I’m told that CEO Hooper decided to handle the sale to Mr. Lawn rather than involve an outside agency.  If so, then with the benefit of hindsight he might since have wished he had put a little more distance between himself and the transaction.

I say that because members of York’s tireless army of whingers, grumblers and naysayers—among whom I have now and then been undeservedly classed— have at various times over succeeding years expressed less than polite dissatisfaction with how CEO Hooper handled the sale, and the fact that he handled it at all. 

Wickedly—how can those people live with themselves!—some  have even gone so far as to allege that favouritism or worse may have played a part in the deal.

One allegation that, sadly, I am in no position to refute is that after the sale had been completed, ratepayers found themselves forking out a considerable sum to pay for the property’s connection to the sewer. 

Questioned as to why this had happened, such connection not having been a condition of the contract of sale, CEO Hooper is alleged to have replied that he had forgotten to include it.

Or so the story goes.  If it’s true, we might wonder what happened on this occasion to the ancient principle of caveat emptor—‘let the buyer look out for his own interests’. 

Happily for Mr. Lawn, it appears that the legendary generosity of York’s ratepayers towards the Shire’s most favoured employees came inexorably into play.

Proceeds of Sale—A Hoary Mystery Resolved (or is it?)

In May 2014, my friend Roma Paton asked at a special council meeting what had become of the proceeds of sale of the Old Convent land and buildings.  In response, then Acting CEO Keeble provided her with extracts from Shire financial records pertaining to the Land and Infrastructure Reserve (LIR).  (See first photo, below.)

Those extracts show—or purport to show—that on 30 June 2008 the sums of $286, 363.24 and $31,818.16, described as ‘PROCEEDS OF SALE OF CONVENT & LAND’, were paid into the LIR.  That’s a total of $318,180.40, presumably the full price of the sale. 

Strangely, though, according to individuals claiming to have investigated the matter, there appears to be no corroborating mention of the sale itself in Shire records regarding the disposition of Shire property in the relevant financial year.  

That may be why a good many people remain unconvinced that everything about the sale was kosher.  Poor record keeping, combined with furtiveness, have unfairly ruined many a sound reputation.

It’s time for the Shire to release a specific and detailed summary of the sale and of associated issues like connection to the sewer.  In fact, it’s very long overdue.

Will it happen?  Not so long as we have vain, foolish, ignorant and unprincipled councillors determined for all the wrong reasons to bury and forget about the past.

More questions—Chalkies revisited

A question that seems to arise whenever the Convent sale comes up in conversation—did the sale price accurately reflect the property’s market value at the time?  If so, where is the evidence to support that view?

I don’t have an answer for that—not yet, anyway.  If you have one, please tell us all about it.

Then what about a more recent transaction—the Shire’s purchase of the Old Convent School, aka Chalkies, in mid-2015?  Did we get value for money there?

Which brings me to the surveyor’s report mentioned at the outset of this article.  (See second photo, below.)

In his list of property sales possibly helpful in determining value, the surveyor refers to the ‘Convent School and chapel heritage character brick building that have been completely refurbished on 2659 m² ‘.

That property changed hands in December 2003 for $247,500.  The Shire bought it 13 years later for $625,000.  That’s a difference of $377,500 or approximately 153%. 

As a rule of thumb, in normal circumstances you might expect a property to double in value over 10 years—other things being equal, which of course they rarely are. 

So in 10 average years, Chalkies should have achieved a value of roughly $495,000.  Add on, say, a further generous $20,000 to cover 3 more average years, and you arrive at $515,000—in my submission, the absolute maximum price the Shire should have paid, assuming that the Shire should have bought the place at all and that circumstances were normal. 

On that basis, the Shire paid about $110,000 over the odds for a property that had been languishing on the market for a couple of years, and in various important respects wasn’t, as building inspectors like to say, ‘up to code’.

However, we are not dealing with normal circumstances here.   While the mining boom was in progress, Western Australia experienced a corresponding lift in property prices.  Since the mining boom collapsed in 2013, property values have seriously declined, even in the metropolitan area but especially in the country. 

For example, I would venture a guess that properties in York across the board have on average declined in value since 2013 by between 30 and 40 percent.  (Somebody, please show me that I’m wrong!)

So let’s say for the sake of argument that Chalkies doubled in value over 10 years—taking it to $495,000 in 2013—then lost 30% of its value over the next couple of years, a reduction of $148,500, leaving a current market value of $347,000.

So I now have to revise my opinion of a few paragraphs ago and say that the Shire should not have paid a cent more than that reduced sum. 

But even that figure takes no account of the poor condition of the property at the time of sale.

So to sum up, the Shire was dudded to the tune of at least $278,000 ($625,000 less $347,000) by James Best, ACEO Graeme Simpson, Local Government Minister Tony Simpson who could have stopped the process simply by sacking Best as soon as he set it going, and of course their ultimate beneficiaries Richard and Nola Bliss.

But who gives the proverbial fleeting aerobatic exchange of bodily fluids?  It’s only ratepayers’ money, after all. 

Footnote:  Faversham House

In the second photo, I have highlighted the sale price of Faversham House in February 2004.  It then stood at $1,070,000.  The current asking price is $2,850,000.

Applying the same rough-and-ready process of calculation used above in relation to Chalkies, how do you rate the vendors’ chances of getting something close to that price?

Bear in mind that the property has undergone significant skillful renovation over the past dozen years, carried out in every particular under the benevolent gaze of local government building inspectors.

And it offers a potentially very lucrative business opportunity.  Hard to pass up, I’d say. Time for me to dust off my chequebook and sell my shares in Woolies.

1.  Proceeds of sale Old Convent 30 June 2008

 

2. Prices at sale in December 2003 and February 2004 respectively of the Old Convent School ('Chalkies') and Faversham House.

FAVERSHAM HOUSE UP FOR GRABS!

‘Luxury lifestyle investment’ for sale in York

One of York’s most prestigious and picturesque properties, Faversham House, is back on the market for $2,850,000 after 12 years occupancy by York identities Richard and Nola Bliss.

Mr. and Mrs Bliss have run Faversham House as a highly successful function centre specialising in weddings and conferences.  With council approval at every stage, they have carried out extensive restoration work befitting the property’s Georgian and Victorian origins and style.

The property boasts 14 elegant bedrooms, and manicured grounds spread over 1.70 hectares (4.2 acres in the old money).   The price per acre is $678,571.

It is being offered for sale either as ‘an idyllic private residence’ or as a commercial opportunity.

Several international celebrities have already shown interest in acquiring the property.  They include Islamic State Caliph Al-Baghdadi, who recently suffered the loss due to drone strikes of his palatial residence in Mosul together with most of his domestic staff and high command.

However, his offer would depend on Council permission to add a minaret to the existing structure and the removal of noise controls that might interfere with his religious right as a Muslim to broadcast calls to prayer five times a day.

Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has said that if he fails to win office in November, he will consider buying Faversham House and moving to York.  If he does, he will stand for election to York‘s Shire Council, with a view to displacing Cr David Wallace as Shire President and taking on Cr Trevor Randell as his apprentice.

As shire president, Mr. Trump, supported by Cr Randell, would build a wall around York to keep out newcomers from Perth.  He would force Perth City Council to pay for the wall.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, acting on a recommendation from former York commissioner and Bliss benefactor James Best, has noted the potential of Faversham House as a site for the resettlement of approximately 1000 refugees from strife-torn Somalia. 

“Based on what the commissioner told us, they would feel very much at home in York”, a spokesman for the department tweeted today.

Agents for the sale are the Perth office of Garland International Luxury Lifestyle Investments.  See their advertisements at

http://garlandinternational.com.au/properties/faversham-house-circa-1840/

and  http://www.realestate.com.au/property-lifestyle-wa-york-7839014

Owner Nola Bliss and Cr Denese Smythe posing between two examples of the impressive statuary displayed at Faversham House

LESSONS FROM DOWERIN

Why the CCC investigated Dowerin’s financial anomalies, but seems not to have given a stuff about York’s

Readers who don’t have the good fortune to reside in Western Australia’s beautiful Wheatbelt region may never have heard of Dowerin. 

Indeed, there are probably more than a few West Australians who, even if they have heard of Dowerin, would have trouble trying to find it on a map.

So I’ll begin with a handful of geographical, demographic and political facts about the town and shire.

Dowerin—which styles itself  ‘The Home of Field Days’, in honour of its annual agricultural show—is a small town situated in the Central Wheatbelt about 165 kms north east of Perth, and 101 kms northwards from York. 

Its local government, the Shire of Dowerin, serves a population of fewer than 700 people—683, according to the government website My Council—most of them living in the town.  As in other Wheatbelt shires, the population of Dowerin appears to be aging and declining. 

The Shire Council consists of eight councillors representing three wards—four for the Town Ward, and two each for the rural North and South Wards.  The current Shire President is Mr. Dale Metcalf.  His deputy is Mr. Graham Ralph.

Crime and punishment

Now, to our story: in April of this year, Mr. Dacre Alcock, who served as the Shire of Dowerin’s Chief Executive Officer from 2008 to 2015, appeared in court on charges of stealing as a servant. 

We’re not talking peanuts here.  It wasn’t just a matter of paperclips, biros and a ream of A4 paper.

The Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) prosecuted Mr. Alcock for stealing $599,879.92 from the Shire.  He pleaded guilty to 665 separate acts of theft, occurring over a period of four years from mid-October 2011 to late in October 2015.

Rounding the figures, you might say that Mr. Alcock stole roughly $880 from each man, woman and child resident in Dowerin.

He did so mainly by using the Shire’s credit card to feed an online gambling habit.  He also transferred money from Shire bank accounts into his own.

Mr. Alcock wouldn’t have been the first paid official of a country shire to filch from municipal funds.  I doubt he will be the last.

But he must surely rank among the boldest and most avaricious.

Following Mr. Alcock’s conviction, a spokeswoman for the CCC stressed the importance of the commission’s role in pursuing and prosecuting crimes like his.

What happened in Dowerin, she said, ‘reinforces the need for vigilance at all levels of public service’.

Amen to that.

Mr. Alcock is due to appear for sentencing in the District Court at the end of next month.  Under Section 378 of the WA Criminal Code, the offence to which he has pleaded guilty carries a sentence of up to ten years in the slammer. 

As  (presumably) a first offender, he won’t get ten years, but he’s unlikely to avoid a custodial sentence.  Most probably, he will get between two and five years and may only have to serve two-thirds of his sentence, whatever it is, if he behaves himself while in prison.

An inquest

A couple of weeks ago, on 28 July, the CCC held in Dowerin what might be regarded as an inquest into Mr. Alcock’s crimes.  How did they happen, and how did he get away with it for so long?

I read somewhere that during his period of office, no fewer than seven audits of Shire finances took place.  It’s astonishing that only one—no doubt the last—revealed the awful truth. 

Perhaps that was a forensic audit, commissioned to investigate anomalies in the accounts.

Here are some of the CCC’s findings, as reported in the West Australian on 29 July.

According to Shire President Metcalf, Council trusted Mr. Alcock to provide the council with correct information.  The council did not have a policy requiring independent review of credit card expenditure.

Nothing happened to arouse Mr. Metcalf’s suspicions.  There was, he said, no way for the council to detect fraud committed by its most senior employee.

(But somebody must have found out what CEO Alcock was up to.  Otherwise, he would still be energetically helping himself to the Shire’s money.  I understand it was Deputy Shire President Ralph who dobbed Mr. Alcock in to the CCC.)

The Shire’s finance manager, Sonia King, said Mr. Alcock did not provide her with his credit card statements.  She described him as ‘controlling, intimidating and aggressive’ and as someone who didn’t like being asked too many questions.

Ms King related that Mr. Alcock ‘often spoke about which horses he had bet on at morning tea’, and that on one occasion she had caught him ‘watching a race when he was pretending to work at his desk’.

I’m surprised that Mr. Alcock’s aggressive behaviour, as reported by Ms King, didn’t long ago set off alarm bells for councillors, other employees, and members of the public, as one might expect in Dowerin’s small and close-knit community.  

I suppose it’s a tribute to Mr. Alcock’s capacity for intimidation as well as deception that nobody seems to have dared to gossip about his nasty temper outbursts and dubious financial activities as CEO.

Unfortunately for the good folk of Dowerin, there’s not much chance that they will see much if any of the stolen money returned to the shire.  Most of it was devoured by online betting agencies.  

Those agencies are under no legal compulsion to repay it.

Ironically, the CCC’s ‘inquest’ was held in the Dowerin Community Centre, a building that, as the West Australian report tells us, Mr. Alcock ‘pushed for and helped bring to fruition’.

Parallels

York readers might have observed some interesting parallels between what happened in Dowerin and ‘historical issues’ that have arisen in York. 

I’m not going to spell them out here.  The issues concerned have been canvassed endlessly over a couple of years on this and the other blog.

What I will say, while crossing my fingers, is that on present showing nothing like what happened in Dowerin is going to happen from now on in York. 

Helped and encouraged by former Acting CEO Dacombe and Dr Gael Ferguson, the Shire has adopted a sensible and comprehensive set of policies to ensure York’s finances remain safe in future from the predatory attentions of rogue employees.

Details of corporate credit card expenditure are no longer concealed from public view, as they were for several years after a former CEO took umbrage because local busybodies started to question how the card was being used.

If Council can bring itself to keep strictly to the policies it has adopted—and I’m sure we agree that a question mark now hangs over that proposition—our Shire’s money should be safe for many years to come.

Lessons for York

The lessons York now needs to learn from Dowerin relate not to future regulation of Shire finances but to the historical issues I mentioned earlier. 

They can be summed up in a single question: Why did the CCC exert itself so vigorously to investigate anomalies in Dowerin’s finances, but didn’t give the proverbial nanosecond of high altitude intimacy for what was alleged to have happened in York?

Those allegations have failed to provoke much interest, let alone investigative action, on the part of three major government agencies: the Department of Local Government and Communities (DLGC), the CCC and the WA Police Fraud Squad.

Never mind the DLGC bureaucrats and their doltish minister.  They had friends to protect, reputations to lose and nothing to gain from the truth coming out, and have done their level best to keep it hidden.  

As for the police, they must have realised from the moment they opened York’s files that this wasn’t a case for them but for the CCC. 

They rejected the Shire’s request for an investigation with the explanation—I should say ‘apparent explanation’, because we’re not allowed to read the letter that contained it—that although they had found ‘issues’ in the financials, they were governance issues and therefore not suited to a police investigation.

What they seem to have been saying is that because councils of the day approved the suspect expenditure, there was nothing police could do that would result in a successful prosecution.

With all due respect to our illustrious constabulary, I think that was for the most part an excuse to brush off our complaint.  After all, it’s the job of the CCC to investigate allegations of corruption at all levels of public service—isn’t it?

Perhaps the Fraud Squad pointed that out in its ‘confidential’ letter to the Shire of York.  Since the Shire has no intention of releasing the letter for public scrutiny, or even telling us what ‘governance issues’ the Fraud Squad identified, we’ll probably never know. 

It’s possible that the Fraud Squad’s conclusion may have been arrived at with the assistance of the Sage of Alexander Heights and his disgraced ‘acolytes’ in York.

Governance issues in Dowerin

At this point, I should acknowledge that there is a profound difference between what happened to Dowerin’s complaint and what befell York’s.

So far as I know, in Dowerin’s case the police weren’t involved.  The complaint went straight to the CCC.

Moreover, if Mr. Alcock declined to present his credit card statements to Council, it must follow that Council had no opportunity to approve them.  That is certainly different from what happened here in York. 

As for governance issues, I daresay they must have played some part in facilitating CEO Alcock’s defalcations from municipal funds.

The Dowerin Shire Council had neglected to adopt an effective credit card policy.  Surely that was a governance issue?

It may also be counted a governance issue that for several years nobody on council took the trouble to examine the Shire’s financial statements closely enough to detect that something didn’t add up. 

(Mind you, who can blame the councillors for not seeing what their auditors failed to see—not once, but half a dozen times.)

The Dowerin Council must have known that their CEO had the use of a credit card.   They may even have known that he was refusing to provide credit card statements to the Shire’s finance manager. 

If so, why did they ignore what was obviously a serious problem for the Shire?   Wasn’t that a governance issue too?

Quite rightly, in my opinion, the CCC doesn’t seem to have been worried about any of that.  They directed their energies to sorting out Mr. Alcock, and got him bang to rights.

Why the CCC turned York down—if indeed they were told of our problems, which is open to doubt

York readers will remember that not long before he rode off unlamented into the sunset last year, the Shire’s former commissioner James Best claimed to have investigated various ‘historical issues’ in York on behalf of the CCC.

He said he had found no evidence of wrongdoing.  The truth is that he wasn’t looking for it, and if he had found it, would in all probability have kept that under his hat.

Mr. Best wasn’t appointed as York’s commissioner to clear up the mess created by the Shire and previous councils.  His brief was to hose down dissent.  Instead, he managed to stir up more.

The story Mr. Best put about was that he and Acting CEO Simpson had sent material to the CCC for investigation, but the CCC had returned the material for them to investigate.  I have no idea if that was true.

Which brings me back to the question I asked earlier:  Why did the CCC dismiss York’s plea for help but react vigorously and effectively to Dowerin’s?  (I’m assuming that the Shire of York did in fact contact the CCC.)

Here’s my hypothesis. 

Community leaders in Dowerin had nothing to hide.  As soon as they had worked out that something was amiss in the conduct of their CEO, they wanted something done about it and reported the matter to the CCC.

York, on the other hand, is a town of secrets with shadowy figures pulling strings from behind the scenes.  It has influential citizens who have nothing to gain and much to lose if truth is told and justice takes its course.

There is little or no appetite on Council and in some sections of the community for investigation of past misdeeds. 

Every time somebody politely suggests that the Shire’s ‘historical issues’ should be properly dealt with, up goes the moronic cry: ‘Never mind the past!  Move on! Let’s move forward!’

No prizes for guessing who they are who shout that the loudest, and why.

I believe there are good reasons for not ignoring the past.  I’m going to nominate three matters that the Shire should send, or send back, to the CCC for investigation.

Those matters are the use of the Shire credit card from 2008 to 2013; the sale of the Old Convent at an advantageous price and on advantageous conditions to a colleague of a former CEO; and the purchase last year of the Old Convent School, in apparent contravention of Section 83 of the WA Criminal Code.

Each of those cases raises serious questions of probity that remain unresolved.  In each case, it is possible (in the last one, certain) that the Shire of York suffered a significant degree of financial harm.

It would be a miracle if Council decided to act as I’ve suggested, but I’m off now to light a candle to St Jude.

LAST WORDS (MORE A HOPE THAN A PROMISE!) ON THE OVERSIZED SHED SAGA

Over recent days, a friend of mine has engaged in an exchange of emails with one of the councillors.  She did so hoping the councillor would shed some light (sorry, I couldn’t resist it) on why she voted to approve the application to construct an oversized shed at Lewis Road.

My friend has kindly forwarded those emails to me.  There are several of them, and they take up a fair bit of space, so rather than publish them in full I’ll extract what I believe are the councillor’s main reasons for voting as she did, adding my (italicised) comments in square brackets. 

Statements enclosed in double quotation marks come from advice the councillor received directly from the Shire administration.

I’ll round off my observations with a brief survey of some relevant cases at law.

First Reason: ‘Planning policies aren’t binding’

Planning policies, unlike administrative policies, are not binding on Council.  Instead, councils are bound “to have due regard to the provisions of the policy and the objectives of which [sic] the policy is designed to achieve before making its decision”.

Those objectives are twofold: to “provide flexibility for outbuilding size, construction and materials” to meet residents’ needs, and to “ensure that outbuildings are constructed and located in such a way as to minimise their impact on the amenity of the locality”.

The objectives are binding, even though policy isn’t.

In one of her emails, the councillor says: ‘…over the past week I have come to a new understanding of of the flexibility of planning policy, especially as it applied to the approval of the shed—that it wasn’t as prescriptive as I had first thought’.

[My response: In that case, why bother to have planning policies at all? Why not just ‘have regard’ to the objectives?

The relevant policy as it stands has flexibility programmed into it by way of a 5% leeway.  Commonsense would suggest that this leeway is intended to define the absolute limits of what Council will exercise discretion to approve while the policy stands.

What exactly is meant by ‘flexible’, if a proposal is allowed to exceed the stated degree of variation that a policy defines? 

And how far does ‘due regard’ extend?  Surely the point of a planning policy is so far as possible to set objective standards for what developments are permissible and for determining their likely impact on present and future amenity?  ‘Due regard’ is so vague as to be almost meaningless.  It gives too much scope for subjective judgement.

Allowing subjective judgement—i.e. ‘discretion’— to prevail overmuch in planning matters is dangerous. It makes nonsense of policy (and policy objectives) and offers opportunities for cronyism and other more serious forms of corruption. 

Please don’t tell me those sorts of things are entirely unknown in York and elsewhere in WA.  Remember the Balladong pool!

The councillor’s ‘new understanding’ gives excessive preference to subjective judgement over objective standards.]

Second Reason:  Anomalies

The councillor follows the Shire planner in saying that outbuildings on residential lots (R10) are permitted a higher wall height than on rural residential lots (R5/10), despite residential lots being smaller. 

This, she says, is an anomaly that Council intends at some stage to put right.  

[It is an anomaly, and it’s good that something is to be done about it.  I would agree that there is scope here for the rational exercise of discretion based on objective standards that apply in comparable situations. 

Perhaps, though, it’s better to change the policy formally rather than simply to disregard it.  There are few things more destructive of public confidence in an elected body than perceptions of favouritism or bias.]

Council also intends ‘to revise existing planning policies to make them more flexible and suited to the needs of our community’.

[Substitute the buzzword ‘flexible’ with the homely word ‘elastic’, and up goes a red flag and off goes a warning bell.  I ask again, how flexible is ‘flexible’? Doesn’t policy already allow for a reasonable degree of flexibility?

Under a different council or administration, could greater ‘flexibility’ result in the effective abandonment of objective standards in favour of ad hoc decision-making for the benefit of family, friends, and even well heeled companies and corporations?  You bet it could!] 

Third Reason:  Lifestyle

‘People come to the country…to enjoy a different lifestyle, often with more space around them, as well as animals.  This often involves machinery, equipment and vehicles not needed on smaller blocks, all of which require shelter.  Therefore, I appreciated the flexibility being applied to this shed application that would allow an extra 102 sq m for such a purpose.’

[Yes, councillor, we do expect to enjoy a more relaxed and spacious lifestyle in the country than in the city—but there have to be prescribed limits to what that expectation may entail.

Nobody detests the nanny state more than I do, but a neighbourly existence is hardly possible if my relaxed and spacious lifestyle intrudes too severely upon my neighbour’s right to live in reasonable comfort and peace.  Tolerance is a great thing, but selfishness isn’t.

For example, it seems reasonable to regulate the number of hens permissible on a residential lot, even a fairly large one.  Chickenfeed attracts mice, and chicken poo attracts flies.

 Inevitably, the more chickens you have, the more mice and flies they will attract, to the annoyance and discomfort of the neighbours—though in the case of mice, probably to the delight of the neighbours’ cats.   

Again, it seems reasonable to regulate the number of roosters on a residential lot, or even to exclude them altogether.  As it happens, I enjoy the matutinal crowing of a single rooster.  Many years ago, when my wife and I were living in Bayswater, we had a pet rooster named Trotsky who was very self-disciplined in his crowing regime and excited neither comment nor complaint. 

But multiple roosters sharing accommodation tend to set one another off, and to crow all day, and keeping more than one may amount to a strident declaration of war on surrounding residents. 

In those circumstances, if Council says ‘only one rooster’ or even ‘no roosters’ it isn’t being inflexible or tyrannical, it’s exercising a proper and democratic concern for other residents.

As for the flexibility applied to the cumulative floor space of outbuildings on the Lewis Road property—we’re not talking of a little bit of flexibility here, but of an increase of almost 70%, which is way over the top. 

If every neighbouring property in the rural residential zone were to follow suit—and who could now deny them the opportunity—then as my friend Roma Paton has written, the place would end up looking like Kewdale.

So on what basis do you welcome that degree of flexibility?  Please don’t tell me you have a friend who wants to build an oversized shed on land zoned residential…]

And now for something completely different—a quick look at the law

The overwhelming view of the courts in recent decades has been that while authorised decision-makers may have a degree of discretion in applying policy, departures from policy should be ‘cautious and sparing’ and occur only for ‘cogent reasons’ (Re Drake v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (No 2) (1979) 2 ALD 634).

We know what ‘cautious and sparing’ means—‘not reckless, not often and not very much’—but what about ‘cogent’?  Macquarie, Australia’s national dictionary, defines cogent as ‘…compelling assent or belief; convincing; forcible’, and cogency as ‘…power of proving or producing belief; convincing force’.

The phrase ‘cogent reason’ reverberates through policy and planning case law relating to every level of government.  Let’s confine our discussion to local government in WA. 

In Crisp and the Town of Cambridge [2014] WASAT 71, the Town had a precinct policy emphasizing ‘rear laneway access to retain existing streetscapes’.  Crisp appealed against the Town’s refusal to allow construction of double garages facing on to the street. 

Member Jordan referred to what he called ‘planning orthodoxy…that relevant planning policy has presumptive effect’—i.e. that it must be presumed to apply without exception to all relevant situations —‘and is not to be displaced except for a cogent planning reason’.   In this case no such reason had emerged, so he dismissed the appeal.

Another phrase used interchangeably with or alongside ‘cogent reason’ is ‘exceptional circumstance’. For a court to uphold a proposed variation from a local government planning policy, there must be something extraordinary in the facts supporting the proposal that would justify special treatment.

I doubt very much that being related to an old York family, or being counted among the friends of Crs Randell and Smythe, or being a councillor or the spouse, partner or friend of a councillor, could be held to constitute an exceptional circumstance. 

The rule of law means, among other things, that applicants for planning permission should receive equal consideration in comparable circumstances regardless of who they might be. 

That’s why Council’s Lewis Road decision has created a precedent permitting residents of comparably sized properties in the rural residential zone to have outbuildings covering a total area of 300m².

Damave and the Shire of Dandaragan [2008] WASAT 257 is an oversized shed case.  Shire policy placed limits on the area of outbuildings, with scope for discretion via special approval in the case of outbuildings covering between 162 and 216m².  Damave’s proposal, rejected by the Shire, exceeded that upper limit.

Dismissing the applicant’s appeal for review of the Shire’s decision, the Tribunal held that ‘in order to retain the integrity of the policy, support for applications beyond the 216m² limit would have to be based on exceptional circumstances.  The simple desire of an applicant to have more extensive outbuildings does not constitute an exceptional circumstance or establish a cogent reason why the planning principles that find expression in the policy are not relevant’.

Another oversized shed case is Wignall and City of Albany [2009] WASAT 73.  In that case, the Tribunal ruled that ‘the accumulation of equipment to assist in pursuing a particular lifestyle’ doesn’t count as an exceptional circumstance.

I think that makes nonsense of the ‘lifestyle’ argument put up by our anonymous councillor to support her case for ‘flexibility’ in the matter of oversized sheds.

There are many similar cases, but I think I’ve said enough to make my point.  Binding or not, policy isn’t a plaything. 

Councillors need to take policy seriously, and to exercise ‘flexibility’ only within the scope for flexibility that the policy itself prescribes. 

If they don’t like the policy, they have the option to change it, but while it subsists, it shouldn’t be lightly waived, disregarded or set aside. 

*******

Tiny People 

See thread below comprising a comment from Jyoti (5/8/16 @ 22:10) and my remorseful response.