The advert in The Warrnambool Standard classifieds.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Update:
Well, it’s on.
After the deathly quiet of yesterday, following Monday night’s W’bool City council meeting, this special – and confidential – meeting next Monday is being called for just one reason:
the CEO Peter Schneider’s head is on the chopping block.
Crs Neoh, Gaston, Owen and Cassidy have decided that 18 months is long enough for him to work out the train wreck he inherited after a decade of non-action on bullying, falling staff morale and a string of financial screw ups.
Whatever you think of the new CEO’s performance, he is about to become the fall guy in a big power play. He will take the rap.
When I first wrote about this looming coup in February, I gave the CEO six months.
Bing! Time’s up. Oh my, this is going to be ugly, expensive and a true shit fight.
What a pity it will also happen entirely behind the scenes: some things never change.
Power plays in full force as WCC chief under threat
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Livestream from WCC Meeting: well the meeting appears to be over but they forgot to tell us about it. Tonight is a big night.
If, as suspected, the discussion behind closed doors was about the future of the CEO, then we can expect to hear much more on this very soon.
If, as suspected, 4/7 councillors plan to tell Peter Schneider that he has lost their confidence, then the CEO will pretty much have no choice but to resign.
This, if true, is an act of pure arrogance by four councillors who are just three months out from an election. It is a blatant power grab.
It is not about the competence of the CEO – he has only been there 18 months to clean up a mess that has been years in the making – it’s about keeping control.
How dare they decide who should be the CEO for the next council to work under? If anyone is to be judge and jury, that should be the NEXT set of councillors.
But of course, come the next election, the two power brokers behind this move – Crs Neoh and Gaston – may not have the numbers.
They may not – gasp – even get reelected. Imagine that! (If Cr Neoh wins again, he can notch up 20 years. Nothing like some fresh faces.)
They could scrounge up four because – I have been told – one of the four hopes to be the next Mayor after the next council elections. Side with us, we will give you the crown.
Oh my god, the assumptions! The dirty politics. The game playing.
Bring on October – we need a fresh start with people who care first and foremost about our city, not their personal ambitions.
Good night. Thanks for sticking around.
WCC confidential item raises spectre of CEO demise
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Oohh, there’s nothing like a confidential item on the W’bool City Council meeting agenda to get the terrier nose sniffing the wind.
This juicy little confidential “personnel matter” is right at the end of the thumping agenda for tomorrow night’s meeting which has almost as many pages as “War and Peace“.
Personnel matter? Hmm, who could that person be?
My guess is it’s the CEO.
The worst kept secret in Warrnambool right now is the attempted coup against the CEO earlier this year – aborted just before Covid 19 hit – is being reignited by the two councillor power brokers, Crs Neoh and Gaston.
Cr Neoh has been lighting the fuse on the gelignite via his chest-puffing pieces in the local paper about transparency and accountability – all of which is about 12 years too late.
Both Crs Neoh and Gaston want the CEO out. (He is not Bruce, dammit).
They began working the numbers earlier this year and now, as the election approaches and everyone wants to buddy up, I would not be surprised if they have them.
Our CEO has had 18 months to turn around a legacy of 11 years – a legacy, may I add, that Crs Neoh and Gaston were part of.
Why are they in such a rush to get rid of him? Hmmm.
Politics, even at a local level, can be a dirty game of power and intrigue, and both are on full display at 25 Liebig St right now.
“War and Peace” it is.
[The meeting will be live-streamed on the WCC website from 5.45pm.]
Public confidence in WCC crashes to an all-time low
The appointment of a new W’bool City Council CEO in Peter Schneider came with high hopes, but he has struggled to turn the ship around.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Today (22/6) the Warrnambool City Council fell off a cliff and we need to know, right now, what our CEO Peter Schneider is going to do about it.
The annual WCC community satisfaction survey results released today show the overall performance of the WCC is at its lowest recorded level – ever.
Absorb that for one second.
Its overall score of just 42/100 is lower than the darkest years of the past decade.
It’s far lower than the regional average (56) and the state average (58), despite several councils having been dismissed, exposed or shamed.
Confidence in our council’s direction has crashed to just 32/100.
The ability to make community decisions scored a paltry 38/100.
Of the 28 different areas independently measured – from parking to tourism to traffic – satisfaction was down on every single measure, bar one (the environment, which stayed the same).
This is not just a failure, but a full-blown crisis.
As the survey company warned in its summary, it is going to take a mammoth effort to turn around.
We are looking to you, Mr Schneider, for answers and direction. This is why we pay you more than $320,000 a year.
But what do we get from our chief?
Well, today we got this statement to Katrina Lovell from The Standard:
“While we can look at the challenging issues that were playing out at the time the survey was conducted – horses on beaches, a councillor resignation, the Reid Oval design, The Lookout proposal, free car parking, ongoing investigations into management of credit cards and the start of COVID-19 restrictions – the reality is that many in the community are not happy with our performance and we must address this,” he said.
We get more excuses.
We get “not happy”.
Where is the plan, Mr Schneider? Where is the hope for change and real connection with the community you serve?
The council would have had these survey results for some time, and yet we don’t get even a hint of a plan, but more platitudes.
I, for one, am sick to death of the platitudes.
And where is the statement from our Mayor?
This is why we have a Mayor, to speak on behalf of the six other people elected to represent us.
Are they shocked? Outraged? Saddened? Determined to start working on this from first thing tomorrow morning?
We have silence.
They just don’t get it. Even after a report card littered with metaphorical Fs and Es, they still can’t reach across the divide and say “we hear you”.
In the meantime, there is a second survey that was released about a week ago, that we won’t see. This is the staff survey which, I have a sense, is equally as shocking.
The WCC will not be releasing those results. I wonder why.
Bring on October – and vote for change.
[The community survey report is 163 pages long and buried on the WCC website. I will drill down into it as the week unfolds. You can find it here.]
Lyndoch ignores request to meet MP over bullying claims
South-West MP Roma Britnell decided last month to ask Lyndoch directly about allegations of bullying but has so far had no response. Image: Roma Britnell.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
It’s a month since South-West MP Roma Britnell asked to meet with the Lyndoch CEO and board to discuss explosive allegations of bullying and intimidation that emerged through an anonymous staff survey, but the response so far has been crickets.
Roma, Roma, I know how you feel, but I am not the elected representative for South-West Victoria!
Maybe the yellow sticky note – “Call Roma” – fell off the CEO, Doreen Power’s, desk.
Perhaps the board chair, Kerry Nelson, didn’t pop a reminder – “Call Roma” – into her Google diary.
Whatever the case, Roma is still waiting and I find that extraordinary: to ignore a journalist is one thing, but to ignore an elected official of Parliament, wow.
“A request for a meeting was made in mid-March and to date that request has not been responded to,” Roma said in a written response to my questions today.
Roma, however, is prepared to cut the Lyndoch hierarchy some slack because of C-19.
“Given the current situation with COVID-19 and the various restrictions in place, I understand a meeting would be difficult at this time and I will again seek a meeting with the CEO and Board chair when various coronavirus restrictions are lifted,” she wrote.
So, Roma is not giving up: questions will be asked about the allegations and what is being done in response.
This is the message that all those who have contacted Roma about their concerns around Lyndoch need to hear.
She is not giving up, and neither am I, because the descent of C19 doesn’t mean the allegations of bullying and intimidation just disappear, of course they don’t.
In fact it busts my heart to think that the people who were brave enough to raise these allegations in the survey are most likely still there at Lyndoch, working hard, doing their best, sucking in their own stress, while the Lyndoch board is too busy, it seems, to turn their mind to them.
They are too busy, it appears, to set up a Zoom with Roma.
Far too busy dealing with, I can only guess, the future of the Warrnambool Medical Clinic, where fresh contracts were due to be signed by the end of this month.
We have C19 crickets on that too.
Lyndoch, meanwhile, remains in full lockdown, having decided not to go with the Federal Govt recommendation that up to two visitors per day, per resident, can be allowed in under certain conditions.
According to a statement on its website today, Lyndoch says it’s being extra cautious in case of a second spike of C19 after Easter.
