What do they all actually DO!!

We Bridgetown and Greenbushes ratepayers pay higher and higher rates every year, but seem to get less and less output or progress from our local government.

This bloated, out-of-control organisation we call 'the Shire' has become an industry in itself, continually employing more and more people.

If you can believe it, this bunch now pays itself in excess of $3 million a year in wages and entitlements!  Three million dollars a year in wages alone, to organise the roads, rubbish and rates in a small community.

It gets even more ludicrous when you realise that this extraordinary amount of money doesn't even get the standard Council jobs done.  Much of the actual work is being outsourced, costing us even more money!

A quick browse of the monthly accounts payable, which are presented to Council, is quite revealing...

The April accounts show in that month a total of $1,960 was paid to Antony Ballard for labour on some small maintenance jobs.  Adam Jenkins was paid $2,420 to cut down and lop trees. Dion Steven got $1,963 for some "environmental works".  An outside consultant was brought in to do some Building Surveyor work for $5,178.  Even the street sweeping is outsourced, at a cost of $1,716 a month. These, I would have thought, are all tasks within the capacity of a $3milion dollar a year workforce.

So what on earth are all the Shire staff doing, while they are paying all this additional money to get the basic jobs done by others????

The complacency of the councillors who (hopefully) read these accounts every month is astonishing.  |It doesn't seem to occur to them they have a responsibility to ratepayers to question what is going on, rather than simply patting the CEO on the back.

Them and Us

More evidence that the dozens of people who work at our Shire see themselves as a privileged and protected elite, somehow above the rest of us ratepaying rabble.

Our gullible councillors have just agreed to a proposal from CEO Tim Clynch that he and his staff  should only have to pay half as much as everyone else for use of the town's pool, recreation centre and gym.

That's right, if you are one of the chosen many who work for the Shire, you now get an automatic half-price pool or gym membership.

Why?  One of the reasons given to the compliant Council members was that this would result in an increased number of people signing up for memberships and using the facilities.  Surely the same would apply if a 50% discount was offered to all citizens.

No, the rest of us suckers have to pay for these extravagant new facilities with fees and rates which go higher and higher every year because the pool and recreation centre are massively unsustainable.  They run at a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Against this background, surely the Councillors would not give the staff this needless perk, which simply makes the facilities more financially unsustainable.

Yes they would. The following was the justification given to Council by CEO Clynch;

 The definition of fiscal equity is “no social group within the community is taxed or
allocated benefits inequitably without a demonstrated reason”. Therefore Council
will have to determine that a “demonstrated reason” exists to provide employees with
a discounted rate for leisure centre membership that isn’t available to other members
of the community.
Demonstrated reasons are to offer the benefit to aid in staff attraction and retention
and also to encourage employees to use the facilities at the Bridgetown Leisure
Centre in order to promote physical activities which will contribute to productivity in
the workplace and a healthy work/life balance for all staff. Improved health and
fitness for employees will also potentially improve manual handling work practices,
lessen stress, improve resilience to minor illnesses and improve self-confidence. In
addition to productivity improvements provided by a healthier and fitter workforce a
consequent reduction in absenteeism and workplace injuries can be expected.

Productivity, healthy work/life balance, improved health and fitness, improved resilience and self-confidence, a reduction in absenteeism... aren't these things the Council should be encouraging across the whole community, not just for its own coterie?  Surely our councillors could see the fatal flaw in this argument that everything Clynch says about the benefits for the staff would also apply to everyone in the community?

Clynch failed to make a case for why he and his staff should pay less to use the facility than everyone else, yet his compliant councillors voted 6/1 in favour without any debate.

What a disgrace.

What a goose!

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!

Shhhh... don't tell tourists about that hotel

Its almost a year now since I brought to the attention of Council and councillors the atrocious state of the Shire's Visitor Information Bays at each end of town.

Faded, dated and crumpled maps give visitors the first impression of a town which doesn't care and has very low standards.  The other odd thing was that the Freemasons Hotel which I part-own and which has stood in its current location for 112 years was somehow missing from all the maps and lists.

I got a letter from the CEO at the time, saying it was another "oversight" and would be fixed pronto.

Nothing happened.

I recently raised the matter with the Visitor Centre boss Dariel Hodgins and she said she would get right onto it.  Then she came back with an email saying she had contacted the CEO and the reason nothing had been done was there was no provision in the 2015/16 Shire budget for a new map/lists, but plans were now afoot for a  digital map to be produced.

However, she added, it had been decided in order to ensure "equity" among businesses in the Shire, the new map would have not identify any commercial premises, only Shire  and community services.

So my bid to have the Freemasons Hotel listed on the information for tourists seems to have resulted in complete removal of all references to accommodation, food and hospitality providers - all the things a visitor might want information about, especially when the Visitor Centre is closed.

I asked Ms Hodgins if this 'equity' policy would be extended to the Visitor's Centre and received no reply. But consistency would seem to demand that, henceforth, no information on any commercial premises be given out by Visitor Centre staff.  Visitors to Bridgetown will be advised they are "on their own" when seeking out a place to stay or a place to eat and drink.

If they ask why, they could simply be told it was to prevent anyone or anything associated with the Shire from possibly assisting a business in which I have a stake.

What you get if you dare to question the local Shire Council...

 

This is Blackwood Park road, just 5km north of town, last weekend.  Its just under 2km long and is one of the oldest roads in the district.  My home is on this road. It has been left to deteriorate to the point where it is now almost impassable by a normal 2-wheel drive vehicle.

Our councillors are very proud of the millions of dollars of ratepayers money they have spent to improve the pool and improve the library. They have also spent lots of money to improve the Shire office facilities, including putting in a lift to go up one floor. But they ignore basic infrastructure like roads because they all now live on good ones. The road was supposed to be sealed four years ago, but since I started this blog it has been ''bumped" down the list of priorities every year. I understand it must give them some satisfaction to keep postponing the sealing of the road that 'Southwell' lives on, but it is grossly unfair on my family and the other residents and users of this road. 

There are ten houses and four farming operations which can only be accessed via this road. It is not even a gravel road, it is a dirt track.  For people in a first world country in 2016 to have to traverse a goat track like this to get to their homes and businesses, is a disgrace.  Further down the road from where this picture is taken, the road is only wide enough for one vehicle.

The councillors need to understand that until all ratepayers can at least get to their homes on a reasonable road, it is wrong to spend their money tarting up all the facilities used by Shire employees.

Third world road

While our Council staff and councillors congratulate each other for spending millions of dollars of ratepayers money on a flash new library and pool, the provision of basic services is ignored.

I am one of about 20 people who live on Blackwood Park Road, north of Bridgetown at the bottom of Hester Hill.  Although it was one of the first roads in the district, this can now hardly be called a road. It is a bumpy, pot-holed, muddy goat track.

It has been on the list of roads which the Shire plans to upgrade, but due to my activities in trying to hold the Shire and councillors accountable, the work keeps on getting postponed.  It is their way of punishing me for daring to question their actions.  The problem is my family and others who live on the road are also being punished, and put at risk. The road is dangerous.

Other roads on which councillors live have jumped the queue in front of Blackwood Park Road.

I ask you, is it fair that most citizens of Bridgetown-Greenbushes can drive to and from their homes on sealed or properly made roads and we residents of Blackwood Park Road have to traverse this...?

It's got me stumped...

Question: When does examination of a felled tree's stump provide evidence of how healthy the tree was?
Answer: Only when it helps CEO Tim Clynch to concoct a story.


At the recent Annual Meeting of Electors, we the people, asked the Council to refer to authorities two cases of illegal cutting down of native (jarrah) trees; one by Shire employees, another by a resident.

Clynch told the councillors there was nothing untoward about the staff cutting down a tree because it was diseased and in danger of falling on someone.

'Ecological Equity:  The condition of the tree, being diseased (rotten) removed any ecological values that tree may have had.' he told councillors.  No action taken in regard to this incident.

But in the case of the tree chopped down by a citizen, under the same (strange) heading of Ecological Equity, Clynch told them: 'Inspection of the stump and trunk of the subject tree has occurred and the tree appears to have been a reasonably healthy specimen.'  This incident was reported to authorities.

Well, here are photos of the stumps of both trees.  Both look very similar to me.  See if you can guess which tree was supposed to be "diseased (rotten)" and which one was declared healthy..

Councillors should ask themselves why the appearance of the stump was reported to them in one case to support a view about the health of the tree in question, but not referred to in the other case.
Sooner or later you would hope at least some of them might realise they are being sold snake-oil.