Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Oh the battle over the sacking of the Warrnambool City Council boss Peter Schneider is turning into a dog fight.

If Mayor Tony Herbert’s sworn affidavit wasn’t enough to digest yesterday, today’s instalment is the four councillors behind the sacking threatening legal action against Cr Herbert.

The warning relates to a written media statement that was given to the local newspaper by Cr Herbert last month, but not published.

Cr Herbert prepared the 500-word statement with Councillors Peter Sycopoulis and Robert Anderson, setting out what they allege happened when their fellow councillors sought legal advice on the dumping of Mr Schneider.

Having learned of the statement, Crs Kylie Gaston, Mike Neoh, Sue Cassidy and David Owen shot an email to Crs Herbert, Sycopoulis and Anderson, describing the account as “misleading and false” and “a complete distortion of the truth”.

“We will seek legal action if there is any defamation of our characters or false information published anywhere,” the four councillors wrote.

I asked all four councillors yesterday for a comment on this legal threat and why they felt it was necessary.

“It is up to the media to decide what is inflammatory or not and if people are defamed it is their right to take recourse,” was the joint response.

It’s hard to believe that only a year ago, Cr Herbert was elected Mayor for a second term on the votes of Crs Neoh, Gaston and Owen.

At that time, it was Cr Cassidy shooting barbs across the room at Crs Gaston and Owen for switching sides.

What a poisoned pit the chamber has become since then.

The media statement by the three councillors has not seen the light of day, but it referred to an email that, in the name of public interest, you can download here.  (I have removed names irrelevant to the content.)

The email, which is not marked confidential, was sent by Cr Gaston to Cr Owen and cc-ed to all councillors on 12 July – the day before the council held its special meeting to sack Mr Schneider.

Under the ominous subject heading of “imprisonment and $100,000 fine”, Cr Gaston sets out a chronology of events around the seeking of legal advice leading up to the CEO’s dismissal.

In it, Cr Gaston seeks to allay concerns that the four councillors had done anything wrong in obtaining this legal advice which, Cr Gaston confirms, she instigated in February this year – 12 months after Mr Schneider started in the job.

Cr Gaston’s reassuring email was prompted by phone calls from Cr Herbert that seemingly put the heebies into Cr Owen.

Cr Herbert had warned Cr Owen that, according to separate legal advice, the four councillors could face five years jail and a $100,000 fine for alleged misuse of council funds.

That’s enough to cause a restless night.

Cr Gaston’s email dismissed such concerns:

“I cannot believe our documented actions could qualify us for a $100,000 fine – from whom I wonder? Nor that any of this would warrant five years imprisonment.

“We followed every step according to the advice we received and at no time did we think we were breaking any laws,” the email says.

The Local Government Inspectorate has since launched an official investigation into the circumstances surrounding the sacking of Mr Schneider.

This investigation includes the four councillors seeking legal advice without a formal resolution of the full council.

In the meantime, Cr Herbert alleged in his sworn affidavit that Cr Gaston attempted to pass a motion at the 13 July meeting that, if successful, would have seen the public pay for the legal advice.

I asked Cr Gaston yesterday for a comment on that allegation, but have not yet received a response.

The council recently confirmed an invoice was received from law firm Maddocks for the legal advice, but was later withdrawn.

As it sits, we have a Supreme Court challenge, a Local Government Inspectorate investigation, a legal threat, and a whole lot of confusion for the rest of us – outside the tent – who are still trying to piece together exactly what went on inside.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Shrugs, a smirk and a question: when can we go home?

A sworn affidavit by Warrnambool Mayor Tony Herbert sets out what allegedly happened behind closed doors on the night former council CEO Peter Schneider was sacked just 18 months into his job.

And it is not pretty.

In fact, it’s brutal.

The 22-page affidavit was lodged in the Supreme Court on Monday in support of Mr Schneider’s civil action against the Warrnambool City Council, scheduled for a hearing on 1 February next year.

Cr Herbert’s sworn evidence, obtained from the court today, paints a damning picture of how Crs Kylie Gaston, Michael Neoh, David Owen and Sue Cassidy allegedly behaved during the confidential council meeting on 13 July, which saw Mr Schneider lose his head.

According to Cr Herbert, all four councillors point blank refused to discuss the reasons why they wanted Mr Schneider gone and stayed mute during a list of questions put to them by Crs Herbert, Peter Sycopoulis and Robert Anderson.

“Each time (we put a question) we were met with silence.

“That is, Cr Gaston stared back at me, said nothing, shrugged, shook her head and raised her hands in the air with her palms outstretched,” the affidavit says.

“On one occasion, Cr Cassidy simply smirked.

“After about half an hour, Cr Owen asked when the meeting would be finished, as he wanted to go home.

“I, and Crs Anderson and Sycopoulis were appalled and shocked at Councillor Owen’s attitude.”

Cr Herbert said after the motion was passed to sack Mr Schneider, Cr Gaston put forward a motion written on a piece of paper that would see Director of Community Development, Vikki King, appointed as Acting CEO.

“Prior to the meeting, neither I nor Crs Anderson and Sycopoulis had any knowledge of the proposal to appoint Ms King.

“(The four councillors) gave no reasons for, or justification, for selecting Ms King, requiring her to perform two roles, or increasing her remuneration.”

Cr Herbert said after the meeting, when he told Ms King she had been appointed as acting CEO, she “showed no surprise about the decision and did not ask for any details of her role or her remuneration”.

This reaction led him to conclude that Ms King had already been in discussions with at least one of the other four councillors.

The affidavit also claims Cr Gaston attempted to put forward a motion at this 13 July meeting which would have seen the public pay for legal advice received by the four councillors who voted to remove the CEO.

An invoice for this legal advice from Maddocks arrived at the council in June, with no indication of who had asked for the advice.

Cr Herbert’s statement says separate legal advice found the councillors had acted unlawfully in seeking this advice without the approval of the full council.

Cr Gaston’s motion did not eventuate because, Cr Herbert claims, the councillors were advised that they could not retrospectively approve the payment.

This invoice, according to the council, has since been withdrawn.

While Cr Herbert sworn evidence is yet to be tested in court, it underscores a growing sense that Mr Schneider’s management style was met with disapproval by some councillors very early into his contract.

Cr Herbert claims that Mr Schneider had in fact lost the support of Cr Gaston just three months into his job due to his approach in securing funding for the new library project.

“From my observations, Crs Gaston and Neoh were less comfortable working with Mr Schneider than they were with (former CEO Bruce) Anson.

“Because Mr Schneider sought to treat all councillors equally, Crs Gaston and Neoh had less influence than they had previously enjoyed, even after they had ceased being Mayors.”

According to Cr Herbert, he had a conversation with Cr Gaston in June 2019 – just four months after Mr Schneider started as CEO – where Cr Gaston allegedly said she wanted to remove Mr Schneider and replace him with a former CEO from another council.

“(Cr Gaston) suggested that ‘we could get (name removed by The Terrier) in the role for 12 months, settle everything down and then go again, possibly with a woman’.

I told Cr Gaston that I was not interested in her proposal.”

From that point on, according to Cr Herbert’s evidence, there was a series of events aimed at undermining or embarrassing Mr Schneider, who is now suing the council for a lack of natural justice and is seeking to be re-hired.

More tomorrow night.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier
As promised, I am determined to keep unpicking the stories in and around the sacking of the former Warrnambool City Council CEO, Peter Schneider.

One of them is how the acting CEO, Vikki King, kept her other job as a senior council manager.

Let me break it down.

Before becoming acting CEO on 14 July, Ms King was the council’s Director of Community Development and had been since 2015.

But that contract was due to expire in the first week of August.

I have since learned that this position was going to be advertised by Mr Schneider and, of course, Ms King would be able to apply.

(This is not unusual in the public service, where there are no guarantees a contract will be renewed, or – if you re-apply – that you will be reappointed.)

As it came to pass, Ms King did not have to reapply for her job because, as we know, by the first week of August, Mr Schneider was gone and Ms King was named as his replacement for up to 12 months.

It was then revealed that Ms King was not only acting CEO, but would also continue on as Director of Community Development.

How?

Well, it turns out her contract was renewed in August for another five years.

How?

Well, as acting CEO, Ms King can’t hire herself, but it is legal under the Local Government Act for a CEO to delegate this task off to someone else.

So Ms King was able to keep her old job by – as acting CEO – having someone else in council re-hire her.

Just to reiterate, such delegation is legal under the Local Government Act 2020, but does it pass the proverbial “pub test”?

I have been searching for another example of this very same scenario: where a senior council manager who was due to have their contract expire, is appointed acting CEO, and then delegates off the authority to re-hire themselves.

I couldn’t find an example – maybe you will have better luck – but no wonder it feels like Warrnambool has fallen down a rabbit hole and woken up to find a Mad Hatter’s tea party in full swing.

There are other questions:

Did the council use an independent consultant to help assess Ms King’s performance over the past five years?

This would help reassure all of us that this part of the resigning was completely at arm’s length.

Why was the reappointment for another five years and not 12 months or 24 months?

This would have allowed a new CEO to make his or her own decision on the position.

And, lastly, who was the council person delegated to re-hire Ms King?

My understanding is that it was not a senior council manager, as you would perhaps expect, but a part-time staff member.

We shall see if all of the above is made clear in the council’s responses.

As it sits, the council can’t start looking for a new CEO, because the old CEO – Mr Schneider – is taking action in the Supreme Court to try and get his job back.

That case could take several months to resolve.

In the meantime, Ms King has a new job, plus her old job, and the four councillors who got rid of Mr Schneider are seeking re-election.

Imagine if Mr Schneider is successful and resumes his spot as CEO?

More tea? Cake?

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

If everything that dumped Warrnambool City Council CEO Peter Schneider says in his affidavit is true, our council has gone bad.

Mr Schneider’s allegations – which will be put to the Supreme Court on Thursday for a directions hearing – paints a picture of a toxic council, broken by old rivalries and unhealthy, cosy relationships that must end.

And they can only end by a metaphorical deep clean at the next election.

I am hopeful that the full affidavit can be published after Thursday, under the protection of the court, but many of the allegations are out there and they are ugly.

They include the decade-old hate fest between Crs Mike Neoh and Kylie Gaston and their nemesis Peter Hulin which just rolls on.

It includes concerns about the “close relationships” of some councillors to senior council staff, including the Director of Community Development Vikki King, now acting CEO, and former governance manager Anne-Maree Neal.

And it also raises claims that three councillors – Neoh, Gaston and Cr David Owen – allegedly rated Mr Schneider so poorly in a review in May that the consultant, Peter Berry, who was running the review said it could only have been motivated by “vindictiveness” and “spite”.

These are strong words.

And then there is my personal favourite: Cr Neoh allegedly laying the heavy on Mr Schneider for his handling of the credit card saga.

We all know, from the council’s own statements, that it was former CEO Bruce Anson who allowed David McMahon to repay money, to keep his job as a senior manager, and who kept the whole thing under wraps.

Just a blip.

No wonder ratepayers are starting to wonder if Mr Schneider was dumped because he wasn’t up to the job, or dumped because he wasn’t Mr Anson, or dumped because he got along with Cr Hulin.

One thing is certain, the push to get rid of Mr Schneider became dirty, very early.

Here is something you don’t know:

You may recall that Cr Gaston, in a string of questions to Mayor Tony Herbert at this month’s council meeting, asked why he and Cr Sue Cassidy had met at Mr Schneider’s private home for two hours’ on a Sunday in February.

Cr Gaston told the council a number of “red flags” were raised at this gathering.

What I have since learned is that Cr Cassidy had, by that time, received highly confidential documents, anonymously, in the mail, about Mr Schneider’s job application.

From what I understand, these documents related to personality and psychological testing that formed part of the job application.

This is highly personal stuff, and so very few people connected to the council had access to these documents.

Yet they were mailed – anonymously – to Cr Cassidy, and for a reason. Who was behind that move?

No wonder Cr Cassidy was keen to talk to Mr Schneider, face-to-face, in February.

Interestingly, Cr Cassidy was not among the councillors named in Mr Schneider’s affidavit as having acted with “spite” or “vindictiveness” in his May review.

Perhaps, in May, Cr Cassidy still thought he was doing a good job.

Cr Cassidy has declined to comment on this leaked document and Cr Herbert would only say “there were some concerns about confidential information that was sent to Sue.”

On top of all this, Mr Schneider’s affidavit also refers to a particular email written by Cr Gaston.

This email, written in July,Gas allegedly confirms Cr Gaston was seeking legal advice back in February about Mr Schneider’s contract.

In other words, several councillors were starting to seek legal advice on how to get rid of him and how much it would cost.

Who did these councillors expect to pay for this advice? Remind me again?

The Local Government Inspectorate is looking into all this and its findings can’t come soon enough.

Neither, in my view, can the election when ratepayers and residents will decide whether this is the sort of council we want to serve us, or whether it is time for a generational change.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Exclusive

Sacked Warrnambool City Council chief Peter Schneider has launched legal action in the Supreme Court to get his job back.

Lawyers for Mr Schneider today lodged an “originating motion” against the council in the Supreme Court of Victoria, arguing that Mr Schneider be reinstated.

The action argues that the council failed to provide Mr Schneider with procedural fairness and natural justice.

As a result, they argue, Mr Schneider should be reinstated.

There you have it: as predicted, Mr Schneider was never going to just take this lying down, having been unceremoniously dumped on 13 July on the vote of four councillors: Crs Gaston, Cassidy, Owen and Neoh.

A judge will now ultimately decide whether Mr Schneider should return to his post, but many people of Warrnambool have already decided that this sacking has been a public relations disaster for our city.

It is also costing us money.

What a mess: just weeks before an election and in the middle of a global pandemic that is squeezing us all.

We are about to be squeezed even further.

I doubt the council lawyers, Maddocks, will be providing their advice “free” this time around, so you can set the clock on the legal bill that will be funded by ratepayers – your time starts now.

And all of this has been brought upon Warrnambool by four councillors who thought they knew best and could act on behalf of the next council, whoever that might be.

As it sits, we still don’t know what the four councillors considered so awful, so terrible and so unfixable that it warranted the former CEO being dumped after just 18 months and despite passing his performance reviews and saving the council money on its bloated staffing bill.

At least part of those savings will now be gobbled up in payouts and expensive legal bills.

The four councillors involved seemingly want to wish this mess away and “move forward”, but it won’t go away because we have been swept up in a power play that was not of our choosing, or making, but for which we are paying dearly.

“No reason” just doesn’t cut it.

Mr Schneider’s lawyers obviously agree.

I will continue to write more on the back story to this dismissal in coming weeks.

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