Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Warrnambool has spoken and oh boy, it is being heard.

Like you, I went to bed last night in one Warrnambool and woke up to another one.

In what is an unprecedented election result, we saw one candidate, Vicki Jellie, finish with an astronomical 6526 first preference votes: almost one third of the total counted.

We saw a Sudanese man, a former refugee who has made Warrnambool his home, Otha Akoch, elected with 2771 first preference votes.

We saw a record number of women elected in Vicki, Angie Paspaliaris and Debbie Arnott.

And we saw a record turnout of 86 per cent of voters who, between them, voted in seven new faces for seven vacancies.

I doubt there has been any 2020 council election result across Victoria like this one, where not one sitting councillor was re-elected.

Warrnambool has done it: it has found its voice and turned the page on what has been more than a decade of division within the council and councillors, a toxic culture that enabled entitlement, and a growing disconnect from the community.

For all of the good work done by our elected councillors these past four years, so much had gone wrong.

The community, quite simply, had had enough.

It had had enough of being cut out of the conversation, of being told lies and fed spin, of being treated like a cash cow, of being left wondering why another year would pass and the same problems were still not solved, while fresh problems lined up behind them.

This time around, Warrnambool has really thought about its vote and taken a risk on not the same names – backed by the same power brokers –  but a completely fresh start.

It is scary, but my word, Warrnambool is ready to take the chance, because we are exhausted from the battle of just trying to keep on top of the latest scandal which was not of our making.

No more.

There are fears that a new council would not support the environment in the same way as the old one.

I am not sure how this computes when you had a 6/1 majority of the past councillors vote to destroy Levy’s Beach by handing it over to Darren Weir and his racehorse training.

And has done nothing to lobby Wannon Water on its sewerage plant upgrade.

And ignored the disgraceful environmental damage by hoons at Levy’s Beach.

And took years longer than our neighbouring councils to introduce a green waste bin and then applauded itself for being ground breaking.

It is a patchy track record, at best, and one that can only improve and must.

With this election, ethics and integrity are making a comeback and they are making a comeback not just in words, but in actions.

But it is not about passing the burden of change to a new council, walking away and watching on comfortably from the sidelines.

We need to stay involved, and take the energy from this election and turn it into a driving force for the next four years.

This is the message from this election and it is the message behind the enormous vote for Vicki Jellie.

Because 6526 votes was far more than a vote for Vicki the person: it was a statement of what our community can achieve when we all work together.

We want that feeling back.

Vicki’s work with Peter’s Project started from a place of personal grief and grew into a movement that saw Warrnambool achieve what many thought would be impossible: a first-class cancer treatment centre, run by Epworth Hospital, in a regional city miles from Melbourne.

Warrnambool wants more of this.

It wants THAT relationship with its councillors and council – the one where we unite, with empathy, respect, honesty and determination, to do the best for our city.

If we work in this way, we can get things done: we can improve the harbour, we can recreate Flagstaff Hill, we can care for our stunning environment, we can find ways to keep rates down under the cap, we can help traders get back on their feet from Covid-19, we can resolve the endless argument about CBD parking, we can get a grip on the 2040 plan, and, through it all, we can bring integrity back to the council process.

This is our chance for true change – Warrnambool has voted for it – and it starts today.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

I have been crunching the numbers from the VEC on the clean sweep at the Warrnambool City Council today and here is how the full 24 candidates landed in order after preferences.

A candidate needed to reach 2677 to win.

1. Vicki Jellie.
2. Otha Akoch.
3. Angie Paspaliaris
4. Debbie Arnott
5. Ben Blain
6. Max Taylor
7. Richard Ziegeler
—-
8. Peter Sycopoulis (2403 – 337 votes short of a spot)
9. Lynn Hudson (1791)
10. Michael Neoh (1535)
11. Jim Burke (1320)
12. Tracey Togni (1140)
13. Matt Walsh (970)
14. Bruce Campbell (887)
15. Sue Cassidy (808)
16. Kylie Gaston (636)
17. Michael McCluskey (542)
18. David Owen (492)
19. Thomas Campbell (378)
20. Steve Moore (369)
21. Anthony Earnshaw (336)
22. Cassandra Prigg (263)
23. Andrew Squires (185)
24. Jacinta Anderson (182)

I will be back later this afternoon with a piece once I digest this unprecedented result.

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.

And yet…

And yet the CEO still travels out of Warrnambool each weekend, including over the Easter period, and returns to Lyndoch.

We can only assume that the board is content with that situation too, perhaps we could ask them.

Oh, wait…..

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

I always suspected it was the case, but now it’s been confirmed – for almost three years, the Warrnambool City Council did virtually nothing about racehorse trainers breaking the rules at Lady Bay.

Early last year I lodged a Freedom of Information application for all of the correspondence between the council and Warrnambool Racing Club about breaches and alleged breaches of the training rules at Lady Bay.

I asked for everything from 1 December 2016 – which is when the new rules began – right through to 14 March 2019: all letters, emails, the whole lot.

The application took nine months, with the council making me jump through multiple, mind-screwing hoops to narrow down such things as what I meant by “members” of the WRC, what email addresses they should search for, what names they should search for, what keywords they should search for….

On and on it went, at an eventual cost of $216.75 (funded, thankfully, by a grant from the Walkley Foundation Public Fund which supports investigative journalism).

And at the end of all that searching and all that money, the result was just two letters:

Two, brief letters from the WCC to the WRC in 27 months: one written in March last year and one from November 2018.

This was the total sum of all written correspondence between those in charge, despite the steady stream of complaints (and videos and photographs) from the public during this time showing near misses, a racehorse that had thrown its rider, trainers riding fast past walkers, and numerous other safety issues. (See footage below from 2017.)

Apparently none of this warranted even a single email from the WCC to the WRC.

Perhaps they rang or texted each other, leaving no paper trail, I don’t know.

What I do know, however, is that when it comes to cracking down on errant trainers, the council has been extraordinarily weak. 

Let’s be super clear here: asking for the rules to be enforced does not mean we are instantly “anti-horse racing” or that all trainers are running amok. #notalltrainers

Instead, it’s a reminder that a public beach is just that – public –  and members of the public have every right to be asking the council what happens when things go wrong, especially when it comes to racehorses on Warrnambool’s main swimming beach.

Until last November, not one trainer had been suspended or fined.

The council says it has since cancelled the permit of one trainer for breaches, although we don’t know who, or for how long, or why, or whether – to be frank – if this actually happened, as some within the industry are unaware of it.

Professional racehorse training at Lady Bay is now the new normal and despite claims that it has “always” been this way, it hasn’t.

A second FOI, which I will write more about soon, revealed there were regularly more than 1000 horse workouts a month at Lady Bay until disgraced trainer Darren Weir fell off his perch.

This is not how it used to be, but this is what our council happily signed up for: up to 96 horses running each morning until 10am, seven days a week, from the first day of Autumn to the first day of Summer, including public holidays.

And they did this with a promise that officers would keep an eye on things – the FOI results show that they didn’t.

In fact Mayor Tony Herbert has recently taken things one step further and suggested that people who are worried by the racehorses at Lady Bay should go to another beach.

Good grief.

This is an excerpt of what Cr Herbert recently wrote in an email to one resident:

“I have spoken to many people over the past few years and some of them avoid the said beach when training of horses is occurring.  Some find that unacceptable, others find that ok.  WCC approach is trying to achieve a balanced approach.

We are so lucky in our city and region that we have a number of alternatives, if sharing the beach with horses is unacceptable to you in the mornings. During the winter months if I’m walking my dog, I choose to use other beaches and there is a number of them.”

In other words, if push comes to shove with “sharing” our main beach, it is the general public that gets shoved.

More on the results of these FOIs soon.

The FOI would not have been possible without a grant from the Walkley Foundation Public Fund which supports investigative journalism.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Here’s a little figure that slipped by without too many people noticing: last year Lyndoch Living aged care recorded a deficit of $1.772 million – its largest loss in recent years.

You won’t find this figure in the Lyndoch 2018 annual report online, nor will you find it any media reports, but it can be sifted from a federal website that collects the financial records of charities. Such is my reading list.

It was here I learned that Lyndoch went from an $846,563 surplus in 2017, to a $1.772 million deficit in 2018. It is the third deficit in the past four years under CEO Doreen Power and her board. 

To be clear, Lyndoch Living is a not-for-profit, publicly funded body that is not designed – thankfully – to record fat surpluses on the back of caring for our infirm and elderly.

But nor is it intended to run at a loss without a detailed explanation.

As it happens, the 2019 Lyndoch AGM is next Tuesday (Oct 29), so I wanted to dive into last year’s figures before we find out how Lyndoch is faring this year.

And before I go any further, I also want to make it super clear that Lyndoch Living is full of terrific, hard-working staff who are devoted to making the lives of residents the best they can be. (Hello to you, staff! I know many of you read The Terrier, but are unable to comment. That’s okay, I see you.)

Lots of great stuff happens at Lyndoch.

But it is also blindingly obvious that Lyndoch Living is changing, and Ms Power has, since taking over in January 2015, had her foot to the pedal with big-buck projects and a very different management style.

In the past 12 months in particular, Lyndoch Living has been on a buying spree.

It bought the May Noonan Hostel in Terang, and the Warrnambool Medical Clinic practice, and the Health Spot practice in Warrnambool, and in the next couple of years, plans to build a new “super clinic” on Hopkins Rd as part of a full-blown, $100 million masterplan to be rolled out over the next eight years.

(Ms Power has a liking for “super clinics”, having overseen an $8 million one in her last job, at Plenty Valley.)

I’m all for a spruce up, but $100 million is serious money.

Lyndoch’s corporate area was first in line for an upgrade – funny how that happens – and now work on Swinton Wing is in full swing, at an expected cost of $11 million.

The simple question behind this head-spinning, full-throttle expansion is: where is the money coming from?

I want to be reassured, as I am sure others do, that this is not yet another case of corporate grandstanding, with big-ticket, capital works projects blitzing the basics like having enough qualified staff looking after our old folk.

(Watch the short Lyndoch Living video below for the full masterplan shebang.)

The Lyndoch Waterfront Living apartments, which are now five years old, are proof of where glamorous projects can stall.

Stage two of that multi-million dollar project has been put on ice after stage one failed to sell out and several apartments on the south side, facing Marfell Rd, remain empty.

Which brings me back to the deficit.

The deficit is just one part of Lyndoch’s big financial picture, but it is also a keyhole for us to peek through, to see what else is happening to our much-loved Lyndoch that has been a part of the local landscape for more than 60 years.

Here is some of what I have been able to unpick so far:

One of the reasons behind the $1.77 million deficit was the cost of “community based client services” going up by almost a third, or $1.2 million.

I emailed Ms Power and the Lyndoch board president, Kerry Nelson, last Wednesday for more detail about these services and the reason for the cost increase. I didn’t get a response.

It begs the question though, with growing demand for home-based care, why spend a fortune on a “super-clinic” and not these services?

Another reason for the deficit was a drop in the value of a Lyndoch building by $1.75 million.

I asked Ms Power and Ms Nelson more about this too, but there was no response.

Overall, Lyndoch last year had assets valued at a whopping $99.7 million – including $6.6 million in cash – and its liabilities were $36.9 million, leaving its overall position at $62.7 million.

That is a nice, fat cushion, but it is also the lowest bottom line in the past five years – in 2014, the total equity was $4 million higher at $68.9 million.

Sorry for so many figures, but it is the only way to pull this apart.

Here is one more interesting stat: the amount spent by Lyndoch each year on food for clients and residents.

In 2014, Lyndoch spent $1.021 million on food and in 2015 and 2016 it fell below the $1 million mark.

Last year, it spent $1.003 million on food, which is still less than it was five years ago in 2014. Why?

Has a contract changed? The cost of bulk groceries gone down? Are they being bought from elsewhere? Are chia seeds cheaper than homemade chicken soup?

(I was going to put these questions to Ms Power and Ms Nelson as well, but after not receiving any answers thus far, it seemed pointless.)

I will leave aside staffing figures, staff changes and staff morale for now – that is a whole separate story to come shortly – but having pored over a swag of Lyndoch financial reports and deficits, I still don’t know the answer to my simple question:

Where is the money for the $100 million masterplan coming from?

I did ask Ms Power and Ms Nelson this question, but there was no response.

Unfortunately I am going to be away on Terrier duties and unable to attend the Lyndoch AGM at 4pm next Tuesday, but perhaps someone will throw up their hand and ask this question because remember, Lyndoch belongs to us, the south-west community.

In the meantime, I am going to take a punt and say “the bank”, which means “loans”, which means “debt”.

If so, is wading into deep debt a good idea and will it vastly improve the daily lives of those in Lyndoch’s care? That, Terrier readers, is the $100 million question.

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