Council publication misleading

Q;When is awarding a tender not awarding a tender? 
A; When the Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire is trying to cover up its incompetence.

No tender has been awarded, so I wonder who is responsible for approving publication of this lie.  I would assume it had to be signed off by CEO Tim Clynch.

A couple of days after the release of the Council's "Insight", this report appears in the local paper...

This report correctly says the Council has identified its "preferred tenderer", but is yet to award a tender.  It also says the Council is looking at "community fundraising" to help pay for the pool.

If you read between the lines, you realise that Council's $4million budget for the new pool is inadequate.  The idea of community fundraising for Council infrastructure is, in my view, ludicrous.  Council already does compulsary community fundraising via its Rates.

Our Council spends most of the money compulsorily acquired from ratepayers on fat salaries and generous conditions for an inordinate number of employees.  Then when it doesn't have enough money to pay for its grandiose projects, it wants us to chip in (again).

Bridgetown families just want a place to swim on a hot day.  The hole in the ground where the pool used to be is a monument to poor decision-making and bureaucratic bungling.

Once again, the "Insight" magazine is providing very little insight.

Pratico misses the point, again

He's been at it again...

If you know Shire President Tony Pratico you know he likes to influence people behind the scenes, whispering half-truths and rumours on street corners and taking pot-shots at people from behind the screen of "you didn't hear this from me..."

He's quoted in today's Manjimup paper, sympathetic over the demise of the Green Door, which has occurred because after more than a year of illegal operation, it has closed because the Council finally got around to asking them to conform to building and health by-laws. "We had a complaint," he explained.

He knows the complaint was made by me.  He wants people to ask, "Who complained?" so he can mumble my name into their ear.

Once again, Pratico has missed the point because he always plays the man and not the ball.
I shouldn't have had to complain. I waited more than a year for the authorities to do something before I did.

Pratico, his fellow councillors and the Council were aware there was a new entertainment venue open in town and it was obviously in a place which was not properly set up as a public venue.

The question is, why do they enforce the rules for some, and not others?

Why won't we have a pool this summer?

If you ask the Council, or the councillors that question, they will say its because the pool has been removed to make way for the new one.

But now we learn via the Council's "Insight" publication that they still don't have a builder or a contract let for the new pool. The job, originally put out for tender four months ago, is being re-tendered.  Why? "For a number of reasons," is the explanation. Not much 'insight' there.

Council is "hopeful" the new pool will be open in time for next summer in November 2015. 

Why didn't they leave the existing pool in place until they had a contractor ready to install the new one?  We may now see a situation where we have to endure a hot, dry Bridgetown summer with an empty construction site where there used to be a beautiful pool,  and little or no work happening on a new one.  I personally find it hard to believe the project could not be completed in the nine months between April and December.

If this is bungled and families like mine are left without a public swimming pool for two summers, I reckon there will be hell to pay.

Hello?...hello? Is anybody listening?

Lotterywest must have run out of good causes.  The charities which care for the sick, the homeless the poor and the disadvantaged must all have full coffers.

The local paper reports the Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire has accepted a $16,900 grant to install wireless audio equipment in the Shire chamber so that those in the public gallery (especially the hearing impared) may be better able to hear the Standing Committee and Council meetings.

Please note there is already a speaker system in place in the chamber which amplifies the sound.

The problem is, nobody is listening.   In the past six months there has been eleven meetings held where the public gallery was open. At seven of those meetings, not a single person turned up to the public gallery. At three, there was one person in attendance.  At one meeting, a bumper crowd of nine turned up.

And you can understand why.  Who would bother attending when most meetings are over in less than an hour and there is no debate, just a group of people getting paid to rubber-stamp every item put forward by the staff.

The new audio equipment will ensure that if anyone does drift in out of idle curiosity, they will not miss a word of the monotonous repetition; "Those in favour?..... those against?... the motion is carried, unanimously."

 With this sort of waste and indulgence, it's no wonder there are calls to amalgamate Councils.

Signs of apathy

As much as most of us disagree with planning rules and decisions from time to time, any sensible person can understand the need for Local Government planning.  Without controls on developments and building things would get very ugly, very quickly.

One aspect of local government planning is the control of signage.  Controls on signage are important because without controls, the profit motive quickly prevails and an ugly mess is sure to follow.

For an idea of what I’m talking about, check out a couple of examples of businesses creating visual pollution and spoiling the streetscape in a bid to boost sales. 
 

And the same goes for the sandwich boards in the title-picture of this blog.  Permanently placed, miles from the premises being advertised they sit right outside the Shire offices.  Just inside and walking past them every day are the officers who know these signs are not supposed to be there and who are paid to enforce these rules.

Several years ago, when I was councillor,

I tried to put some measures in place aimed at improving the image and reputation of Bridgetown in order to increase its desirability as a place to live or visit.  As part of my plan to enhance Bridgetown’s “brand”, I managed to convince the Council to update our logo, our slogan and to build entry statements.

I then sought to reduce the amount of ugly, unnecessary and distracting  signage around the town.  I managed to convince Council to carry out an audit of the roadside signs on the entries to Bridgetown, identifying those which were redundant, ugly or illegal. Through this process, we managed to get rid of many signs which were detracting from the first impressions of visitors to our town.

Following this, I moved on to signs within the town’s commercial areas, convincing Council to set up a committee to review its policies and rules on signs. Council at its meeting in January 2009 resolved: “That Council consider a policy governing the location and design of signage of all retail outlets in Bridgetown.”

In April that year, Council resolved that  “The Chief Executive Officer progress preparation of a Signage Policy or Local Law, for all commercial and non-commercial activities, including specific consideration of mobile signs including sandwich board and banner signs.”

It took us nearly two years, but on 31 March 2011 after a long and thorough process, we had developed a new Signs Policy for the Shire and it was ready to be adopted.

Unfortunately, on the night it came before Council, one member of the public -- who happened to be a signwriter by trade – got up and voiced his strong disapproval of the policy. So instead, councillors (not me, obviously) voted “That this Item be referred back to the April meeting of the Standing Committee to provide Councillors the opportunity to consider the new information provided by a member of public during “Comments on Agenda Items by Parties with an Interest”, via a copy of the recording of the Meeting.”

Thus, a single verbal objection from a person with a clear vested interest resulted in the plan to properly control signs in Bridgetown being sent back to the drawing board.  This began a three-year odyssey of dithering and indecision.

A second draft  of the Signage Policy Portable Signs In Thoroughfares Policy was

advertised for public comment in August 2012. Only five submissions were received, three in favour and two against.

Yet, in October that year, Council resolved: “that the CEO should arrange for further signage workshops between Councillors and officers to consider a simplified signage policy.”

This workshop was held in November 2012. Council minutes report; “The consensus of the elected members in attendance was that the two draft policies were too complex and onerous and that simplified policies were needed.”

Then nothing happened until July this year, when, at a Standing Committee meeting,

councillors indicated that signage issues were not significant and that further work on draft signage policies should not be progressed.

The new Signage Policy was finally killed off, five and a half years after its conception, at the August Council meeting when Council resolved to “direct the Chief Executive Officer to cease further work on signage related policy matters.”

So its back to the “anything goes” approach which sees the unique character and beauty of Bridgetown gradually despoiled over time as business-owners put up more and more signs, put out any number of sandwich board signs and hang all sorts of flags and banners. The Shire Council which has allowed two illegal signs to sit outside its offices on the main corner of town for nearly ten years long ago lost the moral authority to do anything about it. Now the Council has demonstrated it simply doesn’t care.

"But Tony said it was a big problem...."

From the Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire Council website:

Council's Mission Statement:

The Shire (its Council and Employees) will listen to the community, provide ethical and open leadership, responsible and considered judgement...

This Shire Council never ceases to amaze me.  The bald-faced way they go about trashing their stated values and ignoring all common standards of propriety to suit the narrow, small-minded interests of those in the inner-circle beggars belief.

In recent days, all of our elected councillors (except President Tony Pratico, who has a financial interest) voted to endorse a proposal which will harm the financial viability of the Blues at Bridgetown festival to benefit a few local traders, one of whom is Mr Pratico.

The Council's Blues Festival Trading policy has for years allowed the Festival organisers to sell to street traders the rights to sell food and drink, and other merchandise in the town for the three days of the festival.

The councillors have now unanimously approved a plan to prevent these traders from setting up in certain areas where they have always traded, including near Mr Pratico's chicken shop, and to ban them from trading on the Friday and Sunday of the festival.

So what justification has been put forward for this radical, and possibly very damaging change to this important event?

Simply this statement from CEO Tim Clynch"in his report to the councillors:   Councillors had indicated that in recent years they had received communication from local shopkeepers that competing stalls had been allowed to trade in close proximity to their businesses.

And, if you can believe it, he went on to say: Council will have to determine whether it wishes to release the draft policy for community consultation including a formal referral to Blues at Bridgetown. On the basis that Council has clearly enunciated its position on Blues Trading the
recommendation is that Council adopt the policy without community consultation.

Without community consultation!  What happened to listening to the community? What happened to considered judgement?

Who were these shopkeepers who went to the councillors demanding change?  The only one we know about was Mr Pratico who complained to the newspaper after last year's Blues that vendors were too close to his chicken and chips shop.

Public consultation matrix for Council decision to change Blues trading policy

	Local traders (including Shire President)	Outside traders	Blues festival	Patrons	Locals
Likely impact	positive	negative	negative	negative	neutral
Consulted?	some (anecdotal)	no	no	no	no

The mysterious birth of Council Item C.02/0414

Our Council will soon consider a report from CEO Tim Clynch which is likely to recommend that during the Blues weekend no mobile food or drink stalls be allowed in the vicinity of Shire President Tony Pratico's fried chicken joint.

Funny that... I can remember being told by Blues officials during last year's festival that Shire President Tony Pratico had exploded in anger because he thought food and coffee vendors had been allowed to operate too close to his Chooks outlet. He promised to "fix it" for next year, they said.

President Pratico was even quoted in the local newspaper after the event, complaining that coffee vendors had taken business from the coffee machine in his joint.

So here we are in the planning stages for this year's event and suddenly the Council wants to look at changing the way the event is managed, and in the process possibly damaging the ability of the Blues to make the event viable financially.

The CEO and the councillors will tell you there is nothing improper or untoward going on.  "We have only asked for a report," they will say.  "Tony Pratico declared his financial interest and left the room when we discussed the Item," they will say.  But there is more to it, and as always, the devil is in the detail.

 For instance; Q: how is it that I can predict that the CEO's report will recommend no stalls in or around Memorial Park (which is where Mr Pratico's chicken shop is located)? A: Because it is right there at the bottom of the motion passed by Council calling for the report.

 That Council request the CEO to present a report tothe May 2014 meeting of the Standing Committee reviewing its “Trading in Public Places – Blues Festival” Policy addressing but not limited to the following matters:
• The Shire is to have input and final approval for the location of stallholders
and mobile traders within and adjacent to public places.
• The operation of stallholder and mobile trading on private property adjacent to
public places to the Saturday only (being the road closure period) of the
Festival.
• That the placement of stalls within the public portions of Memorial Park (not
venue area) be limited and no mobile traders be permitted in this area.

Q: How did this Motion come to be put before the Council meeting?

A: It came out of an informal discussion, behind closed doors, between the councillors and the CEO prior to the Standing Committee meeting on April 10 and Mr Pratico took part in this discussion.

Q: How did the dot points, particularly the third one come about? Was Mr Pratico involved?

A: Good question! I put it to CEO Tim Clynch and this was his answer...

The issues of stallholders (commercial vs community, location of stalls, etc) was discussed.  I raised the issues initially as I was reporting on issues that I had discussed previously with Caroline from the Blues.  These issues including the operation of the “food court”, whether stalls/traders could operate out of Memorial Park and an idea that Caroline had about reserving the space immediately in front of each shop for that business to extend trading out into the street.

 Mr Clynch’s reply does not make sense and does not answer the question, but that was his response.

 I also asked Mr Pratico's fellow councillors if they thought that, given he declared a financial interest when the issue came to Council, it was improper for Mr Pratico to take part in the informal discussion which led to the creation of the Motion voted on by Council.

 Councillors Julia Boyle and Doreen Mackman chose to completely ignore my email, despite my request that they at least let me know if they did not want to answer my questions.  So much for the "listening and responding to the concerns of residents" rubbish they trot out at election time.

Councillor Steve Hodson chose to take a swipe at me for being so impertinent as to ask questions. 

 "I dont understand why you seem to have an issue with the president but I feel that it does you no justice to continue this line," he retorted.

Crs  Nicholas and Quinby were not at the informal meeting.

Cr Moore said it was just general discussion at the informal meeting, no specifics and Cr Scallan agreed, but added that he recalled Cr Pratico declaring his financial interest at the informal meeting.

The upshot is that we do not know how dot point three about keeping street traders away from Memorial Park came into existence.  The CEO said it came out of the discussion at the informal meeting, but those who attended and responded to my questions did not recall any specifics being identified, only the need for a general policy on the issue.  It is quite possible that it arose from general informal discussions between the CEO and the President, which of course take place on a regular basis.

It is important to understand how dot point three came into existence because if it becomes Council policy, this policy will provide a direct financial benefit to a business owned and operated by the Shire President, which will not on the face of it apply to all other businesses in Bridgetown, and which may harm the viability of the Blues festival.

If Mr Pratico's colleagues on Council want to do this, they had better have a very good reason.