Carol Altmann – The Terrier

You would think after a whopping 16 years as a Warrnambool City councillor that Cr Michael Neoh would know local rules and regulations inside and out, but it seems he has had something of a brain fade around his own family business.

That business is the Penang Alley restaurant at the back of Cr Neoh’s property on lower Liebig St, which opened on Boxing Day and has since operated without a mandatory grease trap, and an illegal back deck that fails to meet building standards.

Whoops!

How did that happen?

Well, part of it seems to be that Penang Alley mysteriously morphed from a ‘pop up’ to ‘permanent’.

When the fake grass and house brick pillars were being installed for the ‘pop up’ last November, I was contacted by competitors who were mightily miffed that a city councillor would set up a temporary cafe to catch the summer trade, when they had slogged it out all winter.

Would Cr Neoh need to install an expensive Wannon Water compliant grease trap like the rest of them, they asked?

And did all of the furnishings meet safety standards?

And how about the wooden deck tacked on to the back? Was it legal?

 

So many questions and, at the time, so few answers, in fact Cr Neoh – at that time – was also mightily miffed…at being asked to explain:

“The business will meet all the necessary requirements for the classified business,” was his only comment to me, via email.

That was in November.

Penang Alley is still there and, as it turns out, it has not met “all the necessary requirements”.

Finding this out has not been easy and has taken months of questions to the council by myself and the Warrnambool Ratepayers’ Association who, I discovered earlier this year, was also on the case.

The WRA finally got some answers, where I got none.

After two months of waiting, I was pretty much told by the council to contact the WRA and ask them for the responses.

(Around and around we go…)

The upshot to all of this pesky persistence, however, is that it was finally confirmed that a 600mm grease trap to catch all the crap was compulsory  – there wasn’t one – and the timber back deck – used by the public all summer – didn’t meet building standards.

In a word, it was illegal.

(Furnishings, surprisingly, don’t have to meet any health guidelines, other than being clean.)

The council told the WRA that these issues are being fixed.

But how did Cr Neoh, who has been on council since George W Bush was President of the United States, not know he was cutting corners?

And more the point, how did he get away with it?

Penang Alley is within a shoe toss of the council headquarters and fellow councillors (and most likely council staff) have hung out there.

I wouldn’t get away with it – I get WCC notices in the mail saying that I have 10 days to trim my garden bushes that have crept over the fence or the council will come and do it for me at my expense! Take that, daisy bush!

And you, most likely, wouldn’t get away with it either.

And this, let’s be honest, is what grates the most: the double standards, the two sets of rules, the sense that who you are determines what action is taken, or how fast it happens.

Nobody has an issue with a councillor opening a funky little eatery – go for it – but no wonder it has upset those who were forced to spend time and money doing the right thing from day one.

Yep, that’s enough to give anyone a bad case of entitlement indigestion.

I offered Cr Neoh another right of reply before running this piece. He has not taken it up.

I am tip toeing back into the Tip Jar. If you would like to see The Terrier keep digging, please throw what is affordable into the tip jar below. 

The Tip Jar

 

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Why, oh why? Why would our Mayor Tony Herbert sit out in Liebig St on Tuesday night (7/4) with three other people, drinking a beer, breaking the Covid-19 laws now in place?

And why would he do so on the very same day that he recorded a video to the WCC Facebook page urging people to stay at home and “up” their efforts to stop the spread of the virus?

Why, oh why?

This photo was taken last Tuesday night around 9pm and that, by the way, is the official mayoral car parked facing the wrong way, but we will leave that to one side, because the bigger issue here is a complete lack of judgment and, I hate to say it, a sense that what rules apply to some, don’t apply to others.

I didn’t want to ruin our Mayor’s Easter – I had plans for a quiet day today – but our civic leaders need to be accountable.

So I asked Cr Herbert why he was out drinking a beer on what I initially thought was a Wednesday night, after the WCC emergency meeting. He said he wasn’t out, but went home straight after the meeting, feeling unwell.

I then learned the photo was from Tues night, not Wed. I contacted the Mayor again. This time Cr Herbert agreed that yes, he was out, and below is his reply in full. I read it, digested it, and could only come back around to the same conclusion: this is so wrong.

Other leaders both in Australia (NSW Arts Minister Don Harwin resigned 5 minutes ago) and internationally have fallen on their swords for failing to follow the Covid-19 laws.

I have no idea what, if anything, will happen to Cr Herbert but boy, I am still staggered by his thinking that this was okay. It is not okay.

Cr Herbert’s reply in full:

“On Tuesday night, I left home to buy some items at the supermarket.

On the way, I drove along Liebig Street to see how businesses still open in the southern block, the dining precinct, were faring.

There, I had a chance, unplanned encounter with two business owners.

We had an emotional and refreshingly optimistic conversation. We stood metres apart from each other with the exception of a brief moment when one of the business owners passed me a beer. After a short time I left for the supermarket.

The job of being mayor doesn’t ever stop. I considered it part of my role to see for myself how our city is faring in difficult times. This is something I do regularly.

The decision to drive along Liebig Street I viewed as mayoral duty, so too the conversations I had with the business owners.

I can’t rely on social media alone for insights into how our city is travelling. It is important for any mayor, where reasonable and safe to do so, to find out first-hand about the state of the city.

Of course with the threat of COVID-19 ever-present, we need to be vigilant as we go about our work and my work has changed accordingly.

But, we also need to be mindful that our focus on safe behaviour does not morph into an ugly vigilantism.

In our conversations and online commentary I believe we need to be encouraging and supportive, not vindictive or constantly seeking to blame and shame.

After my purchase at the supermarket, I returned home to continue a board game with my family.

If you wish, I can provide a bank statement of the supermarket purchase.

Regards, Tony. “