This photo of senior Lyndoch Living staff was taken on the front lawns of Lyndoch in 2017.

Of those in the line-up, only two faces remain.

Three, if I count the CEO, pictured in the centre.

The turnover from those in this photo includes four Nurse Unit Managers, an Occupational Therapist, the Chief Financial Officer, the Director of Hotel Services, the Head of kitchen services, the Human Resources Co-ordinator, the Director of Nursing, and the Director of People and Resilience which is a title dripping with irony, because resilience doesn’t come into this.

They are all gone, regardless of their “resilience”.

Last week I posted a photo of seven experienced clinical staff who have left in the past eight weeks, but this photo dips into an exodus that has been from right across Lyndoch.

Some of those in this photo had only just started in their roles, but were gone within three years.

Why?

We have not been told why.

I have written many times now about the loss of up to 200 staff from Lyndoch Living in the past five years and still nobody has told us why.

The board, it seems, considers such a loss quite acceptable, normal even.

It is this normalisation of the abnormal which has got me thinking – was this staff purge part of the grand plan all along?

Was the idea to get rid of anyone who complained, cost too much, knew too much or who simply didn’t apply the “Lyndoch Way” of saying “yes!” even when their hearts told them to say “no, no, no”?

Maybe it has been a part of Lyndoch’s grand masterplan that, let’s face it, very few people knew much about and still don’t.

The community owns Lyndoch, but in the past five years it has been kept completely in the dark.

Who knew that Tomlinson Wing would be demolished to make way for a $22m medical clinic?

Who knew that Lyndoch had, in 2018, quietly become a Company Limited by Guarantee that would be used to cut the community out?

And who knew that so many hard-working, committed local people who worked at Lyndoch would be forced to leave in a purge that still rolls on?

The impact of these losses is already being felt and my fear is that the full impact is yet to come.

Again, for the sake of the elderly and vulnerable residents, I hope I am wrong.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

What’s happening at Lyndoch Living?

It’s been a long time since I have written about Lyndoch Living – our other high-profile public institution which, in recent years, has become an increasingly closed shop – but with its AGM next week, the time is right to dive back in.

I do so under the tight collar of yet another legal action against The Terrier by Lyndoch Living – my third in 12 months.

This one has been running for some weeks now and I can’t tell you much more than that…for legal reasons.

I often wonder how much money has been spent by Lyndoch on hiring the classy Collins St law firm, K & L Gates, to go after The Terrier?

Perhaps this could be one of the questions at the AGM next Tuesday at 4pm?

Another, more pressing question I planned to ask concerned the $2 million budget blowout for the Swinton Wing upgrade and expansion which had its online, virtual opening in September.

The upgrade was reportedly budgeted at $11 million, but came in at $13 million.

Where did the extra $2 million go?

Another important question I was keen to raise related to the recent fire sale of the Waterfront Living swish apartments which, as long-term readers would know, failed to fully sell since being built in 2014.

This is largely because – according to real estate watchers – those on the south side of the “Rolfanna” apartment complex were in the shade and over-priced.

In 2014, the cheapest apartment in this block was $420,000. 

The last one is now under contract, having been listed at $305,000 – a $115,000 nose dive. Ouch.

A bunch of smaller, less salubrious residential units next to “Rolfanna” are for sale for as little as $185,000.

Did Lyndoch need to liquidate some fast cash to move on to the next part of its $100 million masterplan?

Good question!

Except I won’t be asking questions at the AGM, and neither can you.

That’s because the AGM will be online via Zoom and – unlike the virtual grand opening of Swinton Wing – is strictly invitation only and we haven’t been invited.

I have contacted several families of residents to see if they have been invited and no, they didn’t even know the date of the AGM, which once-upon-a-time was advertised widely and weeks in advance.

[I learned the date just last week, after a couple of emails to the Lyndoch media unit.]

Us mere mortals who have not been invited will have to wait for the video recording to be uploaded to the Lyndoch website, which sounds sort of reasonable….except we are still waiting for the video from the 2019 AGM to be uploaded to the Lyndoch website.

More importantly, we don’t get to ask any questions next Tuesday and – I suspect – that is the whole point.

Those who have been following this Lyndoch story from the beginning (last October), know that Lyndoch – despite being community owned and built on the generosity and support of locals – has changed to a Company Limited by Guarantee and is now a very tight shop.

At last count, it had just 16 members: nine board members, the Lyndoch executive and two life members, so every member is from within Lyndoch itself.

As long-term readers know, everyone from the wider community who has applied to be a member these past 12 months, has been rejected for what we might now call the “Peter Schneider clause“, no reason.

Even Vicki Jellie AM and retired lawyer Lynn Hudson didn’t make the cut.

In this climate of litigation, frustration and obfuscation, I feel we have only one choice and that is to appoint our own Member Of Lyndoch (External) to represent us.

So meet Abbey the Airedale Terrier, also known as a Waterside Terrier (which seems fitting), a breed known for being intelligent, outgoing, alert, confident, friendly and….courageous.

Abbey is just what we need in the kennel and she will be sniffing out some important issues in the lead-up to the Lyndoch AGM that still require answers.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Tonight I want to pause and reflect on this simple fact: the Warrnambool City Council is now the subject of not one, not two, but three investigations.

One of those investigations is the Ombudsman’s inquiry into the misuse of corporate credit cards.

The second is the council’s own internal inquiry into these credit cards.

The third is a Worksafe investigation into alleged bullying.

And the fourth – revealed here on Friday afternoon – is an investigation by the Local Government Inspectorate into the sacking of the former CEO Peter Schneider by Crs Sue Cassidy, Mike Neoh, Kylie Gaston and David Owen.

What a freaking mess.

And all of it – ALL of it – will come at a cost to ratepayers, which is the bottom line of this latest disgraceful manoeuvring, backroom dealing and secrecy.

We are footing the bill.

We will pay for Mr Schneider’s payout, whatever that is, because we still don’t know.

The Four Horsemen involved in lopping off the CEO’s head were happy to swing the sword, but haven’t had the spine to reveal how much it will cost ratepayers, because that information will undoubtedly upset voters as they head toward the October election.

The councillors don’t want that bitter truth spoiling their campaigns.

Best to distract ratepayers with other shiny things, like bike paths and taverns and new grass at Reid Oval.

And the four councillors involved in the coup brought in all the lawyers they needed to get rid of Mr Schneider, and guess who pays for that?

We do.

How much was spent on these lawyers? We don’t know.

And who decided to get that legal advice?

It sure as heck wasn’t supported by all seven councillors, because three of them – Crs Tony Herbert, Peter Sycopoulis and Robert Anderson – were dead set against the whole idea.

This begs another key question: can four councillors rack up a legal bill without the approval of the other councillors?

I am no expert on the finer details of the Local Government Act but the Inspectorate is, and I hope it will pull this question apart during its investigation, because, as a ratepayer, I have a vested interest.

We all have a vested interest, because the four councillors involved have been spending my money – and yours – and we deserve to know the full story.

Rates notices are going out as we speak and blowing people away: I am getting messages every day from people shocked by how much we pay in Warrnambool compared to other cities.

I am also talking to people worried about what lies ahead as the full economic impact of the C19 virus kicks in.

And yet here are four of our councillors, blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers and payouts for reasons which are all secret.

The inspectorate’s investigation will probably take some time, but my hope is that the four councillors who are now part of this investigation will step up themselves and tell the public the full story about this coup and the cost.

They know the truth.

As we inch closer toward the October election, there will be many shiny distractions and photo ops and promises, but the two things that I am hearing voters want the most right now are transparency and integrity.

Transparency and integrity.

Over to you, councillors.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Well this is intriguing – the release of the non-confidential part of the minutes from the Warrnambool City Council meeting where CEO Peter Schneider lost his head.

The minutes prise open, just a little, the tight clam shell around what happened that night of the long knives on 13 July, including the following facts:

Mr Schneider was sacked using a “no reason” clause in his contract;

The motion to sack the CEO was moved by Cr Kylie Gaston and seconded by Cr Sue Cassidy;

This same motion offered the role to the council’s Community Services director, Vikki King, who would start the very next day, 14 July;

Ms King was given a fresh set of “priority” goals or KPIs (key performance indicators);

The recruitment of a new CEO will start after the next council election in October;

The new Mayor – whoever that will be – will start that recruitment process;

The whole meeting lasted less than 90 minutes;

Mr Schneider was in the meeting for three minutes;

The council’s Director of Corporate Strategies, Peter Utri, and former Moyne CEO Graham Shiells, who is now a local government consultant, took the minutes;

Cr Peter Sycopoulis was the sole councillor to vote against the meeting going into confidence.

So we now know the council sacked the CEO without having to give a reason and did so before the next elected council, or Mayor, could have any say in the matter.

[As an aside, if the council elections are postponed because of Covid 19, the Mayoral election will still go ahead when Cr Tony Herbert’s time expires in November.

Given the 4/3 divide, Cr Herbert will not be Mayor again.

Cr Mike Neoh has already said he wants to run for Mayor a sixth time, and Cr Sue Cassidy is champing at the bit, so if the elections are postponed, the new Mayor will be one of the Four Horsemen who lopped off Schneider’s head.].

So what was the motivation behind this coup?

We still don’t know, but there are suspicions and theories, as there always is when there is secrecy.

One theory is the CEO became unpopular while cutting staff to save the council money, because, as our Mayor told us, the council was “unsustainable in its current form”.

The Mayor was quite right.

At least $31 million a year – every single dollar collected in rates – was going toward 730 staff salaries, and the number of people on $100,000-a-year-plus was growing.

In fact figures given by the council to a parliamentary inquiry in 2016 said the council had 21 officers each earning a total salary package of more than $120,000 a year.

That sounds like a top-heavy outfit to me, especially for a city of only 35,000 people. 

Many senior positions remained vacant under Mr Schneider’s rule.

As it happens, Ms King’s own five-year contract was due to expire in early August.

Mr Schneider might have been on to something in terms of removing or blending jobs, because Ms King is now both acting CEO AND head of Community Services.

Wow, talk about multi-tasking.

Another position to keep an eye on is the Governance Officer, a $140,000 a year role created under former CEO Bruce Anson, which has been vacant since December.

The previous person in the job, Anne-Marie Neal, is taking the council to court in a WorkCover claim over a series of events that is also subject to much speculation.

In the meantime, applications to fill that role closed on 24 July.

There is a lot going on, and there is still a lot to uncover – but uncover it, we will.

[For some unexplained reason, the 13 July minutes made available remain “unconfirmed” despite being voted on at the August meeting. I have asked why. The minutes, which must be published under the Local Govt Act, were released after requests from terriers. You can read them here.]

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Lawyers for sacked Warrnambool City Council CEO Peter Schneider have issued defamation proceedings against four councillors.

Those four councillors are Cr Mike Neoh, Cr Kylie Gaston, Cr Sue Cassidy and Cr David Owen.

This partly explains the flurry of confidential business happening behind closed doors at the council meeting last night.

The second matter, according to sources, is believed to relate to lawyers for Mr Schneider arguing that he be reinstated as CEO: in other words, he gets his job back.

There is a precedent for such a thing, with a sacked CEO of Logan City Council, in Queensland, being given her job back after challenging the motives of the seven councillors who deposed her.

Wouldn’t that be a turn up for the books!

With the council elections just two months away and a new council to be elected, it may not be as unthinkable as it sounds.

And the third matter, twisted up in all of the above, is understood to be a heated, ding-dong, hair-pulling (except for Cr Sycopoulis, no offence to him), full-blooded barney over who should pay for the legal expenses racked up so far and those yet to come.

Should it be the individual councillors involved in the coup? Should it be ratepayers?

Discuss.

I emailed all seven councillors today to ask for comment on the legal action, whether ratepayers would be footing the bill, and how much had been spent so far on council lawyers.

Only three replied by deadline and no prizes for guessing who.

Here are their statements in full:

Mayor Tony Herbert:
“Thanks for your email.

As you are aware I am unfortunately unable to confirm most of your queries although some of the info might be able to be sought through channels of FOI. We lost the resolution on the night of the 13th July regarding confidentiality.

It is a very unfortunate situation the council has decided to thrust itself into especially in light of the further and greater impacts of the pandemic on council, staff, council budgets and our community ongoing.

I certainly would have preferred when such significant costs have been incurred, to have spent funds in a more productive and positive way…as a stimulus for our community post COVID for example.

I also implored councillors on a number of occasions to take alternative actions to manage our CEO  through discussion and negotiations rather than this drastic and expensive action as our only management tool!

As far as legal costs questions, I’m unable to comment at this time.

Hopefully things will become clearer.

One thing I will add further, is that personally,  I feel the community has a right to know what happened in the lead up to the sudden termination, reasons for  the termination and also the costs.”

Cr Robert Anderson: 

“Thank you for your email Carol, unfortunately because of the confidentiality on the above subject I am unable to make any comment.”

Cr Peter Sycopoulis:

“Thank you for your enquiry. Due to confidentiality requirements, I am not at liberty to provide an answer to your questions. What I can confirm however, is that I personally have not received correspondence from any law firm in relation to this matter.”

So the council is about to enter a legal shitestorm, to be frank, and – so far – we are officially being told nothing.

Please keep this in mind when we all vote in October.

Think about integrity, transparency, openness, honesty, accountability and the-right-to-know: these, to me, are now the key themes of election 2020.

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