The Shire Council's "Insight" publication this month provides another insight into its culture of defensiveness and obfuscation in the face of any criticism.
Somebody complained about the geese that hang out near the river park, so the Shire swung into action, sending the Ranger down to Ford house to warn owner Jenny Rotman that she would have to fence them in or have them seized and removed.
Jenny was understandably upset and concerned. She let some people know what was going on. These people let the Council know they thought what it was doing was unfair and ridiculous. These are the people that Council acolyte Lee Steinbacher referred to as "gossips" when she wrote an excuse and cover-up for the Council in the Donnybrook paper.
Now we see the Insight publication offer a full page report headed 'The saga of Bridgetown's geese'. Yet this long, so-called saga fails to mention the actions of the Ranger. Instead, there is a dissertation about why the Council has to act on complaints, vague summaries of lots of discussions and risk assessments, finally leading to the conclusion that no action was required.
Any sensible, reasonably competent person would have reached that conclusion within about two minutes of hearing the complaint.
Shire President John Nicholas also used Insight to justify the Council's ridiculous intervention, dishonestly claiming the Shire "at no time ever contemplated taking action that would see them removed."
He then had the gall to have a whinge and take a veiled shot at someone (presumably Mrs Rotman), saying: "It seems that the CEO and I both spent an inordinate amount of time on such a small issue which could have been avoided with the appropriate dialogue."
Talk about blaming the victim!
