Physician, heal thyself!

Wow. Talk about disingenuous… the CEO leaves the President for dead.

In today’s Donnybrook-Bridgetown Mail he attacks me as being “incorrect” and failing to research matters. These are quite damning accusations, so let’s test them.

He refers to my complaint to the Department of Local Government (DLG) that Council failed to rescind its existing resolution to retain Zinnecker’s House before it passed one to demolish it.

He then suggests I have asserted his claim to have advice from DLG that rescission was not necessary was a major determinant in councillors deciding not to rescind.

“This is totally incorrect, and unfortunately demonstrates Mr Southwell has failed to research the matter,” Mr Clynch is quoted as saying. “Nowhere in my report to the April 2012 Standing Committee… did I mention anything about DLG…”

This is what is known as setting up a straw doll, then knocking it down.  I have not stated, nor was it part of my complaint, that Mr Clynch told the Standing Committee he had advice from the Department when he advised councillors it was not necessary to rescind the existing motion.

I know, because I have properly researched the issue and kept copies of everything that he only claimed to have advice from the Department backing his assertion that rescission was not required when he was asked a question about the matter at the July Council meeting.

Mr Clynch must be referring to my comments on the issue on this Blog. It’s good to know he is reading it, but he should do his research properly. This excerpt from a post below shows that I put the chronology clearly and never said he had mentioned DLG advice when assuring councillors they did not have to rescind. Rather, I said he mentioned it ‘when called to account publicly’.

I wrote on August 6:

IT would be an untenable situation if a Shire CEO had given councillors incorrect information causing them to breach proper procedures, then when called to account publicly he misled them (and the community) by falsely stating he had official advice that the information he had given was correct.

I’m not sure if this has happened, but consider the following;

-   -- At the April Council meeting, CEO Tim Clynch asked councillors to vote for a resolution to “de-construct” (demolish) historic Zinnekers House in Hampton Road. This motion contradicts a previous resolution by Council, passed in December 2010 that the house in question should be “retained”. Yet in written background information given to councillors, the CEO said there was no need to rescind the previous motion (which is required if a Council is going to reverse an existing position).

-      --   At the July Council Meeting, Mr Clynch told Council and the gallery: “ Advice received from the Department of Local Government was that the decision by Council a few years earlier had been acted upon therefore it did not require a rescission.”

   This is clearly a case of the pot calling the kettle black!

Lets be honest...

Shire President Brian Moore phoned in to ABC Radio’s South-West Morning show last Thursday to defend the CEO and the Shire in relation to the decision to demolish Zinnecker’s House.

He made three points;

-        It is not the CEO, but the councillors who made the decision

-        The Shire does not have a lot of money to spend on doing up buildings - $30,000 is the equivalent to a one per cent rate increase.

-        Of the people he has spoken to in the last few weeks only one complained about the decision to bowl over the house.

But I think he was being more than a little disingenuous. Let me ‘deconstruct’ these points…

True, the CEO does not make the decisions, but he makes recommendations to Council which these days are invariably followed.  In the case of Zinneckers House, the CEO recommended in 2009 and 2010 that the house be removed. In both cases, Council rejected his advice and DECIDED to retain the house.  Undeterred, the CEO brought the matter back again earlier this year with yet another recommendation to get rid of the house. This time, a compliant Council agreed, without even discussing the matter.

So the reality that is that the CEO effectively makes the decisions, due to the compliant mindset of the current councillors.

True, the Shire has only limited resources and spending an extra $30,000 requires a rate rise of one per cent. But what Mr Moore did not mention is that the Shire also has hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed away in “reserves” which are earmarked for such things as building improvements. And as he spoke last week about not being able to afford to fix  Zinnecker’s House, more than a million dollars of ratepayer’s funds (along with $2m of State taxpayer funds) was being spent on building a large “state of the art” library up the road.

So the reality is that Zinnecker’s House can be fixed without a rate increase being necessary, as the President suggested.

It may be true that only one person has approached Mr Moore to complain in person about demolishing Zinnecker’s House, but perhaps that is because the many hundreds who have signed a petition protesting the decision believe that by doing so they have already registered their objection and that Mr Moore and his collegues will pay heed to the petition.

So the reality is that many, many people have objected to the Council’s decision.

Hoist with his own petard

When Shire CEO Tim Clynch CEO prepared the agenda for a Council meeting in December 2010 he included a proposal for disposing of historic Zinnecker's House.

 In background for councillors, contained in the minutes he stated:

 “The future of Zinnecker’s House has been debated at length over the last ten years or so. Whatever decision Council arrives at this time should be considered final and implementation of that decision should proceed as soon as possible.”

But the CEO's proposal was rejected by Council, which voted instead to "retain" the building.

 Despite his commitment to honour "whatever" decision was made that night, in April this year (with two of the councillors who voted to save the house now off the Council) Mr Clynch brought the matter back, recommending again that the house be demolished. This time, he succeeded.

'He's not the messiah...'

I predict the day will soon come when our elected councillors will be forced to remove the rose-coloured glasses through which they view Shire CEO Tim Clynch.

More evidence is emerging that the man in whom the councillors (particularly President Brian Moore) place their complete and absolute faith is not infallible after all. In fact, he may have overseen a number of serious bungles.

If local retired businessman Pat Wines is correct, ratepayers have been improperly overcharged -- to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars -- for  the Shire’s waste collection and recycling services and the money will have to be paid back.

Mr Wines intends to lay out his concerns to councillors and copy to them questions on the matter he has sent to CEO Tim Clynch. 

I think it's time for the councillors to quit acting simply as a cheer squad for the CEO and his senior staff and start carrying out their sworn duty to act in the best interests of the ratepayers and electors of the Shire.

PS: I have another prediction…  When put on the spot about problems and mistakes the CEO will do one of the following; a) say it was “an oversight”, b) blame “workload” or c) say he has (verbal) advice from (an un-named person at) the Department of Local Government that what he did was ok.

This is serious

IT would be an untenable situation if a Shire CEO had given councillors incorrect information causing them to breach proper procedures, then when called to account publicly he misled them (and the community) by falsely stating he had official advice that the information he had given was correct.

I’m not sure if this has happened, but consider the following;

-   -- At the April Council meeting, CEO Tim Clynch asked councillors to vote for a resolution to “de-construct” (demolish) historic Zinnekers House in Hampton Road. This motion contradicts a previous resolution by Council, passed in December 2010 that the house in question should be “retained”. Yet in written background information given to councillors, the CEO said there was no need to rescind the previous motion (which is required if a Council is going to reverse an existing position). 

-      --   At the July Council Meeting, Mr Clynch told Council and the gallery: “ Advice received from the Department of Local Government was that the decision by Council a few years earlier had been acted upon therefore it did not require a rescission.”

-       - -   Asked recently by a newspaper to provide a copy of the Advice he received, the CEO has responded that it was verbal advice during a telephone conversation.

-        -- Asked to identify the person in the Department from whom he received the Advice, the CEO has refused. 

So we (and the councillors) are now unable to verify whether the CEO did in fact receive Advice on the matter from the Department, as he stated.  This, in an organisation which claims to hold ‘open and accountable’ as one of its key values.

The CEO must verify that he did receive formal Advice and that Advice was as he stated, or he must resign.