Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Tonight, two photographs.

The first was taken around 1pm last Thursday 24 June and posted to Instagram by building company Nicholson Construction.

It shows members of the Lyndoch Living executive and board whooping for joy at the turning of the first sod for the $22 million medical clinic to be built on site as of this week.

Nicholson Construction is building the clinic, which as we know, despite being a $22 million project, was not put to tender.

Instead, Nicholson was appointed automatically, having previously built the $13 million Swinton Wing extension.

The second photo captures a message sent from within Lyndoch less than three hours later.

This photo shows Lyndoch’s nursing staff pleading for help to fill shifts.

They needed help to cover not one, but 12 shifts across Swinton Wing and elsewhere. Twelve.

I don’t think Lyndoch’s nursing staff were whooping for joy.

Like them, I find it hard to celebrate the turning of the first sod on a $22 million clinic that has no discernible benefit to the  vulnerable and frail residents.

A $22 million clinic also won’t fill the empty or understaffed shifts.

This is the reality of life for so many staff at Lyndoch who are either run off their feet, or stressed out, and it’s a reality that I have been reporting on for two years.

In that time, I have watched the slow wearing down and silencing of the voices who dare to question or challenge this reality.

But there is only so much you can silence.

The consequences of these staffing issues were made brutally clear by the aged care watchdog in its report which Lyndoch perhaps hoped we would never see.

As was first reported here, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission spoke of residents in pain, a resident chemically constrained without consent, of falls, of wounds, and of the staff mix being “inadequate” to care for residents.

The commission was not whooping for joy.

And yet the horrors within this report have been all but buried under the first sod of the medical clinic.

This clinic will soak up millions and millions of dollars from Lyndoch and make not one squat of difference to the daily lives of residents living just 200m away.

I can’t stop thinking about the residents in that report, just as I can’t stop thinking about the scabies, or the suffering of other residents whose stories are yet to surface publicly.

This is why we must keep pressing on, in the face of mounting pressure to shut up, to stop being a spoil sport and, instead, whoop for joy.

I will whoop for joy one day: when we have all the answers to all the questions and Lyndoch is once again fully accountable to the community it serves.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A short post tonight:

I recently learned that the $24 million medical clinic being built at Lyndoch Living did not go to tender.

I asked Lyndoch for comment on why it did not put the biggest project in its 69 year history out to tender so it could comfortably know it had received the best possible value for money.

There was no response from the Lyndoch chair.

There was no response from the Lyndoch media unit on behalf of the executive.

More than 1000 people are now asking questions about the purpose and financial viability of this medical clinic project, but no answers have been forthcoming.

You know, I used to fear that the Warrnambool community would lose control of Lyndoch, but it already has.

It lost control, without knowing it, almost three years ago to the day – 31 July 2018 – when the board and three other members of Lyndoch voted to tear up the old association rules that had been in place for decades, and become a company.

Lyndoch Living Inc became Lyndoch Living Limited.

It has not advertised publicly to fill a board vacancy since.

Under the new rules, it doesn’t have to. It could, but it chooses not to.

It has also not accepted a single membership application from the general public: even the current Mayor Vicki Jellie AM was rejected.

It has not publicly advertised its AGM since because under the new rules, it doesn’t have to. It could, but it chooses not to.

Snap, just like that, Warrnambool lost control of its aged care home and the right to have any meaningful input into its future.

The new constitution that governs Lyndoch Living Limited is being used to keep you quiet: we are the constrained without consent.

That’s all you need to know.

[I have turned comments off on this post, because Lyndoch Living is sending me lawyers’ letters; this time it’s not about my words, but yours. Lyndoch has access to ongoing and considerable funds to launch legal claims on behalf of individuals. I don’t. Given this, I am turning off all comments on Lyndoch pieces for the time being.]

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Thanks to some great digging by all of the terriers out there, we now know that Warrnambool is the second most expensive place in the whole of Australia to register your desexed dog.

The most expensive place is Bayside Council, the council that covers the multi-million dollar suburbs around Brighton, Melbourne. It charges $78.

Our council will this year charge $70, up from $54 last year, because of a 300% increase in costs passed on by the RSPCA that runs the Warrnambool City Council-owned pound on behalf of the council.

In 2017, the council put out a tender to run the pound for the next three years and got only one response, which was the RSPCA.

Despite the RSPCA jacking up its fees by a whopping 300% this year to $331,918, this monopoly option was still chosen by the council as the best option.

As a result, we are now paying more than just about everyone, including councils the same size as Warrnambool:

Warrnambool: $70

Ballarat City: $40

Greater Bendigo: $45

Greater Geelong: $41.40 

Greater Shepparton: offering discounted fees to encourage registration: fee $32. Normally $40

Horsham Rural: $42

Latrobe City (Traralgon): $43

Mildura Rural: $44

Wangaratta Rural: $43

Wodonga: $50

Now look at how we compare with our neighbouring councils:

Moyne Shire: $39

Glenelg (Portland) Shire: $35

Until last year, Moyne Shire shared the costs of the Warrnambool pound, but decided a 300% increase was off the scale, so it looked elsewhere. It now uses the Southern Grampians Shire pound in Hamilton.

In Port Fairy, it costs $39 to register your desexed dog and in Hamilton, it costs $43.50.

Glenelg Council was similarly cost savvy. In 2016, the RSPCA in Portland told Glenelg Council it would have to increase its pound fees by 400%, The council effectively said “don’t be so ridiculous”, the RSPCA backed down and the council still uses the pound.

In Portland, it costs $35 to register your desexed dog: half of what Warrnambool is expected to pay just 90km down the road.

Let’s now go further afield.

Greater Bendigo Council this year announced it was taking back control of its pound from the RSPCA because of the rising costs over which, of course, it would continue to have no control. Bendigo charges $45 per dog.

There is an RSPCA shelter in Castlemaine, but the council there (Mt Alexander Shire) doesn’t use it and runs its own pound. It costs $46 to register your desexed dog in Castlemaine.

There is also a big RSPCA shelter in Burwood East, but the local council there (City of Whitehorse) switched from the RSPCA to Animal Aid in 2017. It costs $55 to register your desexed dog in Burwood.

There is also an RSPCA shelter in Wangaratta, but the council there uses the pound run by the city of Albury/Wodonga. It costs $43 to register your desexed dog in Wangaratta.

There is also an RSPCA shelter in Ballarat, but in 2017 the Ballarat council moved across to the new, government-run Ballarat Animal Shelter. It costs $43 to register your desexed dog in Ballarat.

There is another RSPCA shelter in the City of Casey, in Melbourne, but that council uses the Cranbourne Animal Shelter and Lost Dogs Home. It costs $54.50 to register your desexed dog in the City of Casey.

Do you see a pattern here? I don’t know what is going on within the RSPCA that has seen it move to a “full cost recovery model” for its pound services, but it hasn’t gone down well.

Except in Warrnambool, where we are sticking with the RSPCA and going solo. We didn’t even try and stare the 300% price hike down, like Glenelg.

The council did, apparently, look at the cost of running the pound again itself, but decided the RSPCA was the better option. Really? At the second highest cost anywhere in Australia?

We have to trust the council on this, because the cost of the alternative – running the pound itself – has not been made public.

This year the cost is $70 per desexed dog, but that will most likely increase in the next two years, when the RSPCA will jack up the price again to $417,146 and then $429,666 in 2020-21.

On a simple measure of equity, it is grossly unfair that pet owners of Warrnambool who do the right thing and register their dogs will pay the second highest fees in Australia.

On a broader level, it exposes an inequity across Victoria, which is yet to follow the lead of  WA, NSW and South Australia, where there is one set government fee, whether you live in Port Pirie or Port Adelaide.

In WA, a desexed dog costs $20. In SA it is $40 and in NSW, $57.

When you look at these fees, you can only conclude that we are paying far too much in Warrnambool and nobody has explained why. (You can sign an online petition via the link above).

There is also now zero incentive for anyone to register their new dog in Warrnambool. Why would you?

What this means is that instead of reducing the problem of unregistered dogs, this fee hike will only add to it, creating even more business for the pound. How ironic.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

How to save $700,000 in seven days, instalment #4:

Today’s instalment is not a revelation, but a reminder.

It’s a reminder of a story I ran last November where developer and former councillor Graeme Rodger revealed the Warrnambool City Council could have saved at least $328,000 on a tender for part of the Simpson St drainage and tunnel project.

That is another $328,000 that could have been shaved and saved off council’s spending in 2018-19.

To recap: Mr Rodger’s company, Rodger Constructions, put in two tenders for the multi-million dollar job last August: one “conforming” and one “non-conforming” which basically means one that stuck to the letter of the tender, and one that suggested a cheaper option.

The council went on to award the tender to another company for a higher price than both options put forward by Rodger Constructions.

The council said the bid by Rodger Constructions, which was short-listed, had a number of flaws.

Mr Rodger said all of these could have been worked out with a simple, face-to-face meeting that was never offered.

The council said such a meeting was optional and it chose not to take up this option for a number of reasons.

You can revisit the full, blow-by-blow detail in the story here.

The end result, however, is the job will cost ratepayers $328,000 more than it could have.

If the council had chosen the non-conforming option, it could have saved $424,630.

So here we are four days into the seven-day search for savings and I think we are close to the $700,000 mark already by taking a closer look at this tender, the cost of the two new toilet blocks, the cost of consultants and the spending on council corporate credit cards.

Nip, tuck, shave, save and suddenly there is no need to cut essential services or push rates up above the 2.5% cap.

But we still have three days to go.

I will be back on Monday – we can all catch our breath for a bit – for the first of the final three instalments.

Thanks for hanging in here.

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