W’bool Mayor Herbert stays put, but council still wobbling
Warrnambool Mayor Tony Herbert has avoided the chop, despite breaking C19 laws, traffic and local bylaws.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Sooo, as has been reported by the ABC and The Standard earlier today, our Mayor Tony Herbert will remain Mayor, having not offered his resignation, despite his recently breaking one, two, three…no, four, laws, and taking a hit for the biggest fine, which was breaching the C19 distancing rules.
Cr Herbert was also not officially challenged to step down by Cr Sue Cassidy despite some tub thumping at the weekend.
There are no real surprises here, because:
1. the Mayor was never going to step aside (having come up with a palatable reason for his brain fade);
2. he was never going to be asked to resign (as the majority of his fellow councillors were happy to let this one slide) and;
3. his only challenger – Cr Cassidy – had two votes at best in herself and maybe Cr Robert Anderson.
(Crs Gaston, Neoh and Owen were never on board and Cr Sycopoulis and Cr Herbert are politically close as a part of the same faction in the Liberal Party.)
The W’bool City Council also craves at least some modicum of stability, in what are unstable and uncertain times and not just because of the C19.
As was drawn to my attention today – by a reader who runs a forensic eye over such things – there are FIVE senior management positions on the council that are either vacant or have ‘acting’ staff in the role, starting with the Manager of Governance, that reports directly to the CEO.
The head of tourism – remember him? – has seemingly not been replaced since he resigned last July.
The Manager of Community Planning and Policy, who resigned last year, is still listed as being in that role.
So is the Manager of Economic Development and Investment, who resigned in January.
As the reader pointed out, how does this affect the council’s ability to do its day-to-day business?
Well one area, I can tell you, is updating its policies, some of which are years out of date.
One example, again offered by this astute reader, is the council’s whistleblower policy, you know, that little thing that should have protected people like Dr Bernadette Northeast from speaking up about bullying within council.
The document was supposed to be updated in 2016.
The anti-corruption guidelines from IBAC posted on the WCC website are from 2013.
Jeeps. As we know, it is the small stuff that affects the big stuff. You let one thing go, then the next thing falls over, and then the next.
It’s a bit like how one coffee on the council credit card morphs into eye fillet and bottles of cab sav.
Or stuffing up the way people have to pay their pet registrations, which I hear is still causing grief for pensioners who now have to go to great lengths involving forms and Centrelink (two things that are enough to make me want to take to the couch) to prove they’re eligible for a discount.
Let’s not forget that it’s only a couple of months since Cr Mike Neoh went rogue and declared to The Standard that he had “had a gutful of raising issues and not seeing any progress.”
What this means in plain speak is that certain councillors wanted the CEO gone.
Before the C19 descended, I doubt the CEO would have survived a no confidence vote.
So the Mayor will stay on as the figurehead, but the wheels were wobbling within the council itself well before this detour.
The real work starts once the virus lifts and we have to get back out onto the highway. Strap yourselves in.
With the Mayor on thin ice, could Cr Sycopoulis pull off a “Bradbury?
Cr Peter Sycopoulis has had a dream run since rejoining the W’bool City Council in March and is now positioned to do a “Bradbury” if the mayoralty becomes vacant. Original image: Getty Images.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Is this our next Mayor? Could Cr Peter Sycopoulis be on the brink of doing a Bradbury?*
Since rejoining the W’bool City Council in March on the back of preferences redistributed after the resignation of Cr Peter Hulin, Cr Sycopoulis is having something of a dream run.
He was among those who argued for years to have council meetings live-streamed.
“Too hard!” they cried.
He was also among those who argued for extended free parking in the CBD.
“No way!” they cried.
Both were considered unthinkable, until the unthinkable happened with the C-19 virus. The last (special) council meeting was live-streamed, without incident, at which free parking in the CBD until the end of June was agreed to unanimously.
Cr Sycopoulis was shaking his head at the irony.
And now Cr Sycopoulis is, in my view, the only person left standing for the role of Mayor, should it become vacant in the very near future – as it should – due to the mounting pressure on Mayor Tony Herbert to step aside.
Cr Sycopoulis and I, politically, are miles apart, but I admire his community spirit and his working class roots and there is no doubt he has a deep care for Warrnambool.
Cr Sue Cassidy is champing at the bit for the role, of course, having been subjected to what Cr Herbert so eloquently described as a “c..t act” last year when she thought she had the numbers, then didn’t.
She still doesn’t, in fact with Cr Hulin’s departure, Cr Cassidy has one less.
I once thought Cr Cassidy would be a reasonable choice for the job, but having watched closely what has unfolded at Lyndoch Living – where Cr Cassidy is on the board – in response to ongoing claims of terrible bullying and intimidation against staff, and the shutting out of the community, I no longer hold that view.
Crs Mike Neoh, Kylie Gaston and Robert Anderson….recycle, recycle…
Cr David Owen would be in contention, but for health issues that are far more important, which leaves Cr Peter “Bradbury” Sycopoulis, skating past the finish line.
Who would have thought? But then nothing is unthinkable in these times and with Cr Herbert now on thin ice, Cr Sycopoulis could well be leading our city for the next six months until the election.
* Australian speed skater Steven Bradbury won an unlikely gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics after all of the other competitors fell before the finish line.
The smoking gun: WCC credit card scandal blows right open
One glass of wine too many: the WCC credit card scandal has blown right open around an unauthorised meal at Bojangles passed off as a meeting. Generic image: Shutterstock.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
This is the smoking gun.
I was going to publish this piece tomorrow night to give the Warrnambool City Council and its tourism chief David McMahon time to respond to questions I sent this morning, but given the events of this afternoon – Mr McMahon’s resignation – I am bringing it forward.
Tonight is when all the pieces of the credit card scandal around Mr McMahon come together and it explains why Mr McMahon’s position became untenable.
Because what follows is not a story about mistakes or misunderstandings, but deliberate concealment.
And it worked because, until right now, the truth was concealed.
Here is what happened:
On the night of Thursday, 31 May last year, Mr McMahon and a group of four people, including two other council staff, ate and drank at Bojangles restaurant in Liebig St.
There was a couple of pizzas, there was plenty of wine, there was even one or two shots, and lots of laughs.
At the end of the night, the waiter brought the bill and Mr McMahon pulled out his council corporate card, as he had done so many times before, and whacked the $172.50 on the WCC account.
The crew then made their way home, but neither the original bill nor the receipt from that night made it to the council.
Instead, someone returned to Bojangles later and secured a hand-written, unitemised receipt dated 4 June 2018 – four days after the meal.
It showed nothing but a Bojangles stamp, Mr McMahon’s name, the word “Meals” and the total of $172.50.
In his record to council, Mr McMahon submitted this receipt and put the meal down to “VEAC meeting” – the council’s tourism advisory group – but this knees-up was nothing to do with VEAC.
The two members of the public at the table had nothing to do with VEAC. The two other council staff had nothing to do with VEAC.
This was not a VEAC meeting, but a little private party held after “Beers and Ideas” finished across the road at The Loft, which is where they had wandered from.
Did the two members of the public in the group know they were being shouted by ratepayers? Probably not. Did either of the two other council staff know? Maybe.
But Mr McMahon knew.
Such was the slack scrutiny of his spending, the hand-written, unitemised receipt made it through. No questions asked.
The replacement, hand-written receipt, showing “Meals” and the total bill of $172.50, was submitted by Mr McMahon for a dinner and drinks that he claimed was a council committee event.
At the time, Mr McMahon, from Ballarat, had worked for the Warrnambool City Council for about two years and had held a council corporate credit card for around 15 months.
Because people like this – I have reported on them before – always go a step too far: there is always one receipt, or maybe two, that sets the red light flashing.
As a journalist, you then pull this thread, using Freedom of Information, solid, brave sources and hours and hours of mind-bending slog, and it all unravels: the dirty tricks are exposed and the game is up.
Except to hard-working ratepayers, this is far from a game.
And for all of the ethical, hard-working staff at the Warrnambool City Council, this is not a game. They are as angry as we are.
It is shocking and painful and infuriating to learn that the very systems we believed would protect us from this sort of excess and breach of trust, have failed us.
A boys’ club culture developed within the WCC over the past decade and has contributed to the environment that has seen misuse of some corporate credit cards.
Mr McMahon has failed us. His superiors in upper level management have failed us. The boys’ club culture of the WCC has failed us.
Those councillors who have still not asked one question or raised one concern about the potential misuse of council funds including this credit card – and that is every current councillor apart from Cr Peter Hulin – have failed us.
Even the new CEO, Mr Peter B Schneider, has not said one word publicly about this scandal which has now moved into the red zone. Indeed at his briefing of staff today about Mr McMahon’s resignation, he spoke glowingly of Mr McMahon and dismissed the credit card scandal as one contained to “social media”.
Nobody in charge has been on our side.
And so it has been up to The Terrier, with limited resources but multiple, brave sources, to expose the fatal combination of a long-standing toxic culture and weak systems of accountability within the WCC that allowed this rot to happen.
Remember, we were not supposed to know about any of this. We still don’t know it all, but I am sticking with what I can prove.
We were not supposed to know about the dodgy receipts, or about the thousands of dollars that had been repaid, or that Mr McMahon’s credit card was suspended, and then reinstated soon after.
Despite this huge number of cards, it was only in November last year, after the Cape Schanck booze up in July and my lodging an FOI in October, that the WCC updated its credit card policy and travel policy to exclude alcohol.
We are still not allowed to see these policies.
While the council says it is now- finally – reviewing its credit card rules in light of the recent report by the Victorian Auditor General into fraud and corruption control, it is clear that the bunker mentality that developed around former CEO Bruce Anson remains firmly in place.
If we ask too many questions – whether we are journalists, ratepayers, councillors, or council employees – we are dismissed as irritating troublemakers and, it is hoped, intimidated into silence.
In my case, the council spent more time and energy trying to uncover my sources than it did investigating the issues.
And in this case, the council charged almost $200 for the FOI application and it took nine exhausting months of wrangling, by which time a lot of Mr McMahon’s unauthorised spending had been repaid (although not the Bojangles bill from May).
When the receipts were finally released under FOI in June, these repayments had been removed as “irrelevant”.
This is how deep coverups work, and they happen when image management is considered far more important than transparency.
In that world, ratepayers sit at the very bottom of the pile.
This has to change.
Even Mayor Tony Herbert, elected to represent the people, took to Facebook in February to attack my wasting of council time and resources on FOI applications that, he raged, had exposed no “foul play”.
“All you seem to want to do is tear people down, with unresearched accusations,” he thundered.
“Can I ask which investigations and stories have uncovered foul play? Which ones?”
What happens next? Well, I have now written five stories and have sent them all off to IBAC (Independent Broad-based Anti Corruption Commission). Who knows if anything will come of that.
Mr McMahon as of today no longer works for the council.
I am just glad that you now know the truth.
Thankyou to the many courageous souls who were a part of this long investigation and who trusted me and helped me to turn over rocks to see what crawled out. It has been mind-blowing.
But it doesn’t end here. In fact, it is just the beginning.
If you want to see greater accountability and true transparency at WCC, write to the six silent councillors below, write to Mr Schneider (PSchneider@warrnambool.vic.gov.au), and remember all of this when the council elections roll around in November next year.
We deserve so much better and it is time to demand it.
(Neither the WCC spokesman or Mr McMahon responded to my questions from this morning).
Thankyou so very much to those who have supported The Terrier with a contribution to the Tip Jar:this investigation would not have happened without the Tip Jar. You can be part of it by clicking below.
The late Robert Ulmann was one of Warrnambool’s best known artists – and one of the city’s great characters – after making the south-west his home in 1969. Image: Visit Warrnambool.
[dropcap style=”color: #abccab;”] O[/dropcap]ur campaign to restore the Robert Ulmann whale mural in Warrnambool has provided an opportunity to remember one of south-west Victoria’s most prolific artists, who died 15 years ago this November.
Despite Robert’s enormous contribution to the local art scene as a painter and sculptor during the 30 years that he lived in and around Warrnambool, it is quite difficult to find any formal, public recognition of his work, beyond that which he created himself.
This includes his studio and gallery overlooking the ocean on Hopkins Point Road, Warrnambool, which is still managed by his wife, Helen and daughter Justine, and was built after their Naringal property (and Robert’s studio) was completely destroyed in the devastating Ash Wednesday fires of 1983.
It also includes Robert’s contribution to Warrnambool’s public artworks, which is arguably greater than any other single artist.
There are four Ulmann sculptures dotted in high-profile locations around Warrnambool and two privately commissioned murals that are also in very public spaces, but a search of the Warrnambool Art Gallery website reveals very little about the man or his work.
As an aside, do you know where to find the Ulmann sculptures and murals in Warrnambool?
[learn_more caption=”Click here to find an Ulmann work:”] 1. Fletcher Jones Gardens, basalt sculpture, Memorial to Sir David Fletcher Jones.
2. Warrnambool breakwater, basalt sculpture, The Breakwater Centenary Sculpture.
3. Flagstaff Hill, lake side, The Lady in the Wind, Mt Gambier stone.
4. Warrnambool Art Gallery, exterior, The Australian Fur Seal, basalt sculpture
5. Bojangles Restaurant, Warrnambool, mural
6. Flaxman St milk bar, Warrnambool, mural [/learn_more]
The Breakwater Centenary Sculpture, Warrnambool, created by Ulmann in 1990.
[dropcap style=”color: #abccab;”] R [/dropcap]obert, who was born in Switzerland, was a larger-than-life character who created an impression on all those he met, even if it was one of slight terror at the sight of what has been described as his “fierce” beard which would bob up and down during his highly animated way of talking.
His arrival in south-west Victoria in 1969 made the local news at the time and Warrnambool historian, Jenny Fawcett, has kept a copy of the clipping from The Warrnambool Standard in which it was reported that “an interesting personality” was visiting the district with his locally born wife, Helen (Goldstraw).
Robert, it said, “has had an adventurous life, painting and drawing his way through 21 countries,” that included Canada, where he first met Helen, who was working as a school teacher at Coppermine in the Canadian Arctic. It was here that Robert worked closely with the Canadian first peoples, the Inuit.
The Ulmann’s spent two years criss-crossing North and South America and then wended their way down through the Pacific Islands before finally reaching Australia. They settled in Naringal in 1972, having first spent a couple of years working in indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.
With all of that experience, and all of that adventure, no wonder Warrnambool – at times – would have struggled to contain a personality as large and dynamic as Robert’s, but he came to call the seaside town his home.
The basalt “Memorial to Sir David Fletcher Jones”, created by Ulmann in 1978 and part of the Fletcher Jones Gardens in Warrnambool.
[dropcap style=”color: #abccab;”] A [/dropcap]uthor Penny Olsen dedicated her 2001 book, Feather and Brush: Three Centuries of Australia Bird Art (2001), to Robert Ulmann, who passed away during its production. In it, she describes how Robert worked “from nature, fast and with gusto”.
Robert loved to capture the energy of both animals and people as he saw them in the moment, not after the fact. It was not unusual to be talking to Robert and find that, halfway through a conversation, he would start sketching a portrait of you.
It was Robert’s passion for Australian wildlife, however, that won the hearts of so many of his followers.
He not only painted, sketched and photographed the beautiful creatures around him, he often invited them into his home which became a refuge for homeless and abandoned birds, mammals and marsupials.
In 1980, The Age newspaper ran a page 3 story about the Ulmann’s being the first people in Australia – and most likely the world – to hand-raise a baby echidna that developed a fondness for crawling up Robert’s trouser leg.
When asked why he loved to work on Australian animals, Robert told the reporter in typical style:
“You know why? They’re bloody hard to get hold of, specially the marsupials. They’re all nocturnal. That’s what makes the challenge…and people love furry things – specially the ladies.”
Robert died suddenly at the age of 71 on November 1, 1999.
A portion of the colourful – and cheeky – Mr Bojangles murals in the Bojangles restaurant, Warrnambool, painted by Ulmann in the 1980s.
[box type=”bio”] The Robert Ulmann studio is at 440 Hopkins Point Rd, Warrnambool ph: 03 5565 1444 or email: eubalena@westvic.com.au. Free entry.[/box]
[button link=”http://the-terrier.com.au/subscribe-2/” type=”icon” icon=”heart” newwindow=”yes”] Did you enjoy this story? Please subscribe here to help Bluestone thrive.[/button]
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