The plain truth: for many years our Shire Council allowed thousands
of dollars collected from the hiring out of the Yornup hall -- a public asset
-- to go into the bank account of a private group of citizens, including Shire CEO Tim Clynch’s in-laws, to spend as they saw fit.
It was done illegally. This has
been confirmed by the Department of Local Government and acknowledged recently
by Mr Clynch.
During my time on Council I tried several times to end the cosy arrangements regarding the Yornup Hall, but was
thwarted by Mr Clynch, who repeatedly told the other councillors (and Department of
Local Government officers) that everything was proper and the hall hire
money was “retained” not by the private group, but by the Council-appointed
Yornup Hall Management Committee.
I was a journalist for 20 years and I can tell you folks, this is scandalous.
So how does the Mr Clynch keep his job? By pretending nothing happened, inventing his
own alternative reality - a world in which he did nothing wrong.
I went along to the last Council meeting and asked him about the
misleading statements he had made. Here
is an excerpt from the Council minutes:
Question 1. The Department of Local Government has
found that duties that were supposed to be carried out by the Yornup Hall
Management Committee,including retaining hall hire income, has in fact
been carried out by a private group – the Yornup Hall Committee. Did you, the CEO,
mislead councillors and others, when on several occasions in recent
years, you said in writing that the Management Committee retained the hall hire
income?
CEO’s
response – No I do not think I misled councillors.
Question 2. Or others?
CEO’s
response – No I didn’t.
Question 3. If the Department of Local Government
found that the Yornup Hall Management Committee did not retain hall hire income,
and if you have said in writing that that was the case, then how do you
explain the discrepancy?
(CEO's) response – We will take that question on notice.
The
CEO has since sent me a written response. In part it says: “I was aware that
the hall hire funds were banked in an account under the name of the Yornup Hall
Committee. This wasn’t considered to be ultra virus (sic) to the Local
Government Act as the minutes of each meeting of the Yornup Hall Management
Committee reported on the income received from hall hire since the previous
meeting of the Management Committee and expenditure of those funds in the same
period. Up until receiving the correspondence from the Department of Local
Government, as CEO I was satisfied with that arrangement. The findings of the
Department however require changes to be made to those practices.”
Mr
Clynch does not answer the question of whether in a situation where a private
group keeps the money and simply tells a Council committee what it spent it
on, it is misleading to tell people the Council committee “retains” the money. Instead, he simply outlines a half-assed process to provide some accountability which was only introduced
after I started complaining about the Yornup Hall situation in 2009.
That
Mr Clynch has made misleading statements in official advice to Council is now established
as plain as day, even if he will not admit it.
The question is, what will the councillors do about it? If the answer is nothing, what should we do
about them?
It seems the people who are running Bridgetown had a big win at the Special Meeting of Electors last Thursday night. I wasn't there, but apparently it was an unedifying spectacle.
The outcome was that Council has been asked by electors to push on with moves to have Zinnecker's House demolished or removed.
So what does "victory" look like to former Shire President Brian Moore, his wife, past and present councillors and their friends?
Victory is an empty, dusty patch of land in the middle town where a nice old house used to stand.
