The Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire councillors
should censure Shire CEO Tim Clynch for his handling of the Yornup Hall issue.
For many years, Mr Clynch condoned and defended
a situation in regard to the management of the hall which has now been found by
the Department of Local Government to be in breach of the law.
This might be excused as simple mismanagement,
but what is worse, Mr Clynch has provided misleading information to Council and
others about the arrangements in regard to the hall.
For example, he repeatedly told councillors
that the Council’s Yornup Hall Management Committee was collecting revenue from
hall hire and expending this on the hall.
We now know that this committee never touched the hall hire revenue. The
money was actually being collected and spent (on anything they saw fit) by a
group of locals known as the Yornup Hall Committee.
That this group of locals includes members of
Mr Clynch’s extended family raises questions around the impartiality of his
advice, which must be addressed by Council.
The task for Council of getting to the bottom
of this affair will be made harder because its new President, Tony Pratico is deeply
involved in the issue.
Mr Pratico is a member of both the Council
committee which is supposed to run the hall and the private group which
actually runs the hall. Mr Pratico voted several times against motions I put to
forward during my term as a councillor which were aimed at ending the curious
Yornup hall arrangements. He did not once declare an impartiality interest.
If the other councillors do nothing about this
emerging scandal, they will stand accused of a failure to insist on even
minimum standards of governance and accountability for the public assets in
their care.
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