Carol Altmann – The Terrier

I have been thinking about consequences and wondering if there will be any for what unfolded in the last 12 months of the last Warrnambool City Council.

Because while we wait to see if sacked CEO Peter Schneider wins his court case, there are some other potentially illegal dealings that also require attention.

The first is alleged fraud or alleged theft (take your pick) of public money as part of the corporate credit card scandal.

The council confirmed that the credit card misuse involving former tourism manager David McMahon was referred to the police, as recommended by the Ombudsman in her report tabled six months ago.

The police, I can only assume, are now investigating Mr McMahon’s repayment of more than $6000, the doctoring of receipts, and writing fake invoices that saw staff parties at the Lady Bay put down as “room hire” so they would be picked up by the public purse.

Despite leaving messages, I have been unable to get an official update from the detectives involved.

I wonder if charges will be laid, or if there are two sets of rules for so-called white collar and so-called blue collar crime?

Under that form of justice, if you pinch a mixed grill from Woolies, you are charged, but if you misuse thousands of dollars in public funds, you get to pay it back and that’s the end of it.

We shall see.

Second, we have confirmation that four former councillors sought detailed legal advice from the council lawyers, Maddocks, in Melbourne, to work out how to sack Mr Schneider.

This legal advice, as the Supreme Court heard last month, was not approved by the full council.

This is against the law.

Such legal advice normally costs money and is paid for from public funds.

Maddocks sent the council an invoice, but it was withdrawn and never paid.

These are the simple facts, so the question is: does an illegal act by four councillors become legal if the bill is torn up?

Can the former councillors involved – knowing the public was expected to pay the bill – just get away with it?

And, if so, who decided that the invoice would be withdrawn and why?

All of this was referred to the Local Government Inspectorate last year as part of a request for a broader investigation into the sacking of Mr Schneider.

Another spurious decision was also referred to the Inspectorate, which was the re-appointment of acting CEO Vikki King for another five years to her position as manager of Community Services.

Ms King’s contract was due to expire in August last year.

Ms King was appointed acting CEO the night Mr Schneider was sacked on 13 July.

As Acting CEO, Ms King delegated off the authority to re-appoint herself for another five years.

We still don’t know exactly who signed off on Ms King’s reappointment, but I understand it was a casual staff member.

These are the simple facts, so the question is: can a casual worker sign off on a $240,000 a year position and why didn’t a senior manager put their name to it?

The Local Government Inspectorate confirmed last August it has launched an investigation into Mr Schneider’s dismissal, and that investigation is ongoing.

Any details on the scope of the investigation, however, and how it is coming along, are strictly under wraps.

I recently contacted the LGI and the latest update is this:

“The Local Government Inspectorate is investigating a complaint in relation to Warrnambool City Council. This investigation is ongoing.

“The Inspectorate deals with complaints or requests for investigation in strict confidence and does not provide comment on investigations that are yet to be finalised.”

The passing of time does not diminish the importance of these ongoing investigations and the need for either closure or consequences.

Only then will this sorry chapter in our civic history be fully laid to rest.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

As the count goes on to decide who will sit alongside frontrunner Vicki Jellie on the new Warrnambool City Council, we must remember that there is important, unfinished business from the last go round.

The first is whether the WCC has referred a crime to the police – the abuse and misuse of a council corporate credit card.

It is now almost four weeks since the Ombudsman recommended it consider doing so: we still don’t know if it has.

The latest statement from Acting CEO Vikki King is “at this stage there is no update in relation to the referral of the credit card findings to the Warrnambool Police”.

A former senior council manager lied and covered up his spending on a council credit card and yet, four weeks on from this confirmation, the council is apparently no further forward on pursuing any criminal charges.

For a council that allegedly couldn’t wait to throw a CEO out the door for pressing pause on a fishing pontoon, this is disturbing.

And for our local paper to argue that the stolen money was “paid back”…if only such justice was served to the poor bastards thrown into court for pinching a packet of chops.

Just as disturbing is the second item of unfinished business: the leaking of highly sensitive, highly personal documents from within council to at least two councillors, in the mail.

Three sworn affidavits from Tony Herbert, Sue Cassidy and Kylie Gaston all revealed that psychometric test results for those who applied for the position of CEO were leaked.

Senior council staff have known about this leak since at least April this year, when Robert Anderson asked for an investigation.

Has it been investigated? Did it turn the joint upside down? Did it run a full IT audit to see who had access to these highly personal documents? (I would guess, not many people.)

Has it contacted the Inspectorate or the anti-corruption body IBAC?

We don’t know, because the Acting CEO – as of today – has declined to comment.

“It would be inappropriate to comment on matters currently before the Supreme Court,” is the statement.

But this leak is not being challenged in the Supreme Court. It happened. And nothing, it seems, has been done to track down the person/s responsible.

As it happens, IBAC just today issued a newsletter on this very topic of misuse of private and personal information held by councils.

IBAC warns that such misuse “may constitute corrupt conduct”.

There is that c word again.

I am as invigorated as you are by the wave of change that is poised to roll through our council and the above just underscores – yet again – why such a change can’t come soon enough.

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. “

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Here’s something I have been wanting to tell you for a while.

Warrnambool Mayor Tony Herbert was alerted to the big spending by former council tourism manager David McMahon months before he says he was – not in November, but August last year.

How do I know? Because I told him. And he did nothing.

Here’s how things unfolded:

This time almost a year ago – on 22 August 2018 – I asked to meet with Cr Herbert to talk about two very serious things.

The first was an alleged spend-up on a lunch by Mr McMahon using his corporate credit card, and the second was allegations of bullying behaviour by this same person.

The reason I remember this meeting so clearly is that Cr Herbert confirmed he had heard “something about” the big spend up and that it “had been repaid, or was going to be repaid”.

This, to a journalist, is a chunk of gold.

I realised I was on to an important story and so my digging began and it would last almost a year.

Why am I raising this now?

Because the now Mayor Herbert recently made a formal, public statement that he first heard about the credit card mis-use in November as part of mayoral briefing with former CEO Bruce Anson.

The briefing, he said, followed Mr McMahon’s unauthorised spending being picked up by the council in September.

I was somewhat stunned by this version of events and have been waiting to see if Cr Herbert moved to correct the record, maybe even at last Monday’s council meeting, but that hasn’t happened.

Instead, Cr Herbert says he has no recollection of this part of our conversation.

 

(By the way, I will cover the bullying allegations in a later story, because that deserves an entire piece on its own.)

I now consider the 22 August meeting a critical part of the puzzle as to who knew what, when, and most importantly, what was done about it.

Cr Herbert’s version of events is that he called the meeting with me, not the other way around, so we could talk about my writing “more positive stories”. (You can read his response in full at the end of this piece).

The crux of the issue is that last August I raised a serious concern about Mr McMahon’s spending and Cr Herbert – it appears – did nothing about it.

He didn’t raise it with the CEO. He didn’t alert other councillors or the council’s Audit and Risk Committee.

For whatever reason, Cr Herbert didn’t consider this big, red alarm bell worth following up.

 

Mr McMahon’s unauthorised spending was apparently uncovered internally by the council a few weeks later, just by sheer chance.

This whole thing reeks.

And it reeks even more when you consider that once Cr Herbert was told in November – officially – about the credit card misuse, he was dead against my investigating it further.

Readers may remember Cr Herbert’s long Facebook post on Valentine’s Day, February 14, berating me for wasting council’s time and resources:

“All you seem to want to do is tear people down, with unresearched accusations,” he raged.

No, Cr Herbert, I was doing what you were supposed to be doing as an elected official of the people of Warrnambool.

A fortnight ago I notified the other six councillors of my August conversation with Cr Herbert.

There has been not one word in response. Nobody seems to care that Cr Herbert’s public statement is wrong.

A few weeks ago I dropped the f-bomb here: fraud.

Tonight I am going to use the c word: cover up.

Because from go to woah, this whole credit card mess reeks of a cover up.

 

It is now up to the powers-that-be to decide what happens next, because I have done all that I can to open up this particular box of bullshite around Mr McMahon’s credit card use.

Today I submitted a report to the Warrnambool Police. I have already submitted a report to the anti-corruption body, IBAC.

Who knows where those two reports will go?

But the wider credit card scandal doesn’t finish here, because I believe there is more to be exposed, beyond Mr McMahon, even though –  I have to stress – the majority of council staff work hard at saving ratepayers’ money.

What needs to be exposed is the excessive or unjustifiable spending that was signed off by those in charge.

The new CEO Peter Schneider says he is looking at this. The Terrier is too.

It will be a slow burn, but it’s the only way to well and truly clean out the trough.

---

Mayor Herbert’s response to my questions about our 22 August 2018 meeting:

Dear Carol,

Thanks for your email.

I remember the meeting too, which I arranged. 

I had hoped during our meeting to plant the seed/notion, as it were, that “positive leaders can create a positive community and positive communities can accomplish anything”.  I was hoping to encourage you to be that leader.  That was my single aim of the meeting.    

I recall suggesting that people in Warrnambool would prefer more positive stories and those of a community-building nature.  I discussed the relatively negative prior decade on Council and that I was now trying to be part of a team building a more positive council.   

We chatted about what was good, what was coming up with some major projects – since announced in the Reid Oval and the library/learning hub at TAFE. 

As we talked it became clear you were not interested in considering my feedback. 

As the meeting concluded, we laughed and you said that the type of writing I was referring to was best left to The Standard and others and that you had a niche market writing in your particular style and to a particular audience.

Then you left.  

On the matter of the council officer, I don’t recall this being part of our discussions. At that time I would not have had any information about money that had been paid or was to be repaid. Even though I attended the VTIC seminar, I did not know any information on officer spending, councillor spending or spending by others.  I believe that the council credit card statements for August would have come through in September.   You and I met on August 22. 

For your further information, I have checked with the Finance Department today: Councillors/Mayors have never had credit cards at WCC.    

I was unaware of the said officer either having a credit card or not having a credit card at the VTIC seminar.  As Councillors, we have not been presented with a list of all credit cards in the organisation. 

I trust this answers your questions and I look forward to you moving onto more positive stories for our community.

Regards,

Tony Herbert

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[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] H [/dropcap]ow do two former police officers from Melbourne wind up running holiday accommodation near an ancient volcano in South-West Victoria? The same way as so many other seachangers who move to the area – via a holiday to Port Fairy.

It is 11 years since Mick and Amanda Fennessy made the decision to relocate from inner-suburban Richmond to a five-acre property at Tower Hill after visiting relatives in Port Fairy and – you guessed it – seeing a property for sale on their way home.

“We did a bit of a drive-by, had a look, and dismissed it, but then shortly after we returned home, we opened The Age newspaper and there it was, rural property of the week. It was like it was telling us something,” says Mick.

The timing was right, Mick explains, for the couple to try something different with their lives, having worked for many years in the police force (which is where they met) and financial investigative work. They bought what he affectionately describes as “five-and-a-half nuisance acres”: too small to generate an income, but too large not to require significant maintenance and mowing.

 

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] P [/dropcap]art of the property is taken up by rolling lawns and native gardens, while another portion is devoted to a couple of hundred fruit trees, including a splendid fig, that provide ample produce for Amanda’s home-made preserves that she sells through local markets under the Tower Hill Farm Produce label.

That left about two acres overlooking Lakeview Road, with southern views to the ocean and eastern views across to the night lights of Warrnambool.

“Right from the get-go we thought about how we could use the two acres for accommodation, but we weren’t entirely sure exactly which path to take,” Mick says.

The pair knew they wanted something unusual, so initially explored using up-styled shipping containers – “self-contained, containers” – before settling on recycled school classrooms.

The six school portables come from mostly tiny hamlets – Coolaroo South, Nilmah, Merrijig, Bendigo South East, Syndal South, Manchester, Newtown and Goornong – and were bought through a supplier who trades in such things.

“They are quite incredible structures with solid hardwood floors and everything hand-nailed. Even though they are called portables, they aren’t going anywhere,” Mick says with a laugh.

 

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] A [/dropcap]manda, who during this interview is busy cooking figs on the stove, overseeing wood chopping by two visiting friends, and checking on the progress of a builder, dips in and out of the conversation, but has a moment to show off one of the five portables that have so far been converted.

As Amanda hauls back the sliding door (remember those?), I feel for a split second as if I am about to revisit Grade Two with Miss Fitzgerald at Warrnambool East Primary School circa 1972, but these portables are nothing like a classroom. The transformation from a utilitarian space into sleek, modern accommodation is remarkable.

“We always had a mental picture in our head of what it would look like, and we have not only reached that, but I think we have exceeded it,” Mick says.

Harmony at Tower Hill, as it is known, has been open since last December and, because of its dog-friendly status, recently accommodated some of the Maremma dogs (and their handlers!) during the filming of the Oddball movie in Warrnambool.

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] T [/dropcap]he Fennessy’s complete change in lifestyle has coincided with Mick having the ultimate wake-up call that life can, quite literally, shift in a heart beat.

When we meet, he is three weeks into his recovery from a quadruple bypass on a damaged heart that, if left untreated, would have failed him.

“It was like the warning light coming on, on your dashboard and you know that the rollercoaster is taking a dip downhill. You don’t want to see that too many times in your life before you start making changes,” he says.

Fortunately the only lights coming on for Mick now are those twinkling in the distance from Warrnambool.

[box type=”bio”] You can find out more about Harmony at Tower Hill on the web here. [/box]

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