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!