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

Ding! Ding! It’s last drinks at the Warrnambool City Council as we have known it for the past decade, with fresh faces stepping up for the election and the old crew failing to fire.

We may see, at last, a permanent end to what I will call the Anson era (aka, the dark, old days).

In this past fortnight we have seen a flurry of exciting new candidates – Jim Burke, Otha Akoch, Tracey Togni, Ben Blain, Cassandra Prigg – with more names yet to come before the 22 September deadline.

By sharp contrast, the announcement by veteran councillors Kylie Gaston (8 years/twice Mayor) and Mike Neoh (16 years/ five times Mayor) that that they will both run again went down like a lead balloon.

(Strangely, Cr Neoh also announced he would run for Mayor, for a sixth time, before that part of the newspaper story online suddenly disappeared.)

That’s because the ratepayers and residents of Warrnambool have wised up.

To put it bluntly, they no longer fall for spin, gas lighting, or the lack of taking any responsibility whatsoever for poor decisions and costly mistakes.

For while Crs Neoh, Gaston and the other five sitting councillors have all made a contribution to public life, they have also overseen a period where the councillors have completely lost the trust of the people – and for good reason.

You can’t talk about being open and upfront and then have four councillors knife a CEO behind closed doors just three months before an election, with no evidence or explanation as to why, and install a person from within whose five-year contract was about to expire.

All of this was done, of course, without telling ratepayers how much the coup will cost them in legal fees and payouts.

And who could possibly describe the rorting of ratepayers’ money through the abuse of council corporate credit cards as a “blip”?

Who does that?

Cr Gaston did and, in my mind, it is both unforgivable and so telling, because it reveals a mindset among councillors where public image is more important than public accountability.

It’s this mindset that has plagued our council for at least 10 years, at enormous expense to ratepayers and residents.

The current batch of councillors, except, perhaps, for Cr Sycopoulis who spent years challenging the dominant forces, have been part of this.

We know, for example, that the Liebig St upgrade – trumpeted as a huge success – blew out by almost $5 million.

And poor old Flagstaff Hill has cost more than $10 million to keep afloat since it began to die in 2009, including $3 million for a sound and light show that was doomed from the start.

Instead of telling us the truth, the council reports on Flagstaff Hill told us fibs, before they stopped telling us anything at all.

Ratepayers also spent more than $6 million propping up the Fun4Kids festival because the council had nothing else in the wings to replace it.

And just last year, there was no money to spend on repairing and maintaining basic things like footpaths and bridges, yet the councillors agreed to spend $775,000 on two toilet blocks and almost $500,000 on a single roundabout in Kepler St.

Many of the current councillors were part of all this.

Rates had to be increased by double the state cap, because we were so broke, yet Crs Neoh, Gaston and Anderson, as Mayors, kept reassuring us that the budget was strong.

It wasn’t. It was weak, and it’s going to get much weaker.

This year’s budget already has a $10 million hole from the impact of Covid-19, which is far from over, and the blowout will most likely get worse before it gets better.

We are potentially facing a devastating financial and social crisis in the next 12 months and yet what do we get from most of our councillors? We get more fairytales.

First we are told the council is considering selling Flagstaff Hill, but it’s prime Crown land and it can’t be sold – nor should it be sold – without good reason and special permission from the state.

The ink had barely dried on that fairytale before Cr Gaston, in announcing her candidacy, said she wanted to keep Flagstaff Hill, reopen the pub and…drumroll… link the whole place to Lake Pertobe.

This “new idea” has been around since 2013, when it was raised as one of the ways to stop Flagstaff Hill from bleeding to death.

At that time, the majority of councillors  – including Cr Gaston and with Cr Neoh as Mayor – pushed for the sound and light show…. and blew another few million dollars.

Cr Neoh, meanwhile, recently announced as his big new idea a walking/bike path from Lake Gillear to Childer’s Cove.

As candidate Jim Burke discovered in his research, this “new idea”  has been around since 2005,  a year after Cr Neoh was first elected – 16 years ago. (See above)

Nothing happened.

It’s all just more spin, more puff and more distraction from a legacy littered with waste.

Even if we wanted to believe in these fairytales, we can’t afford them, and the people of Warrnambool know it.

We are wide awake to what is going on.

Despite the attempts to keep us in the dark, we have been turning on the lights and we can see an entirely different future to one that is just more of the same.

That future, if Warrnambool really wants it, starts with choosing an entirely fresh council in October.

I’ll drink to that.

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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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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Tight knit: I had plans to write today about the W’bool City Council election campaign being in full swing – it started with the knifing of the CEO and has gathered full strength now that Cr Mike “The Real Chief” Neoh starts popping up in the paper with all manner of either un-costed, outlandish or recycled ideas from years ago…..BUT…..

BUT this is too good not to share.

It’s a visual map put together by a reader showing a tiny corner of the spider web that operates in Warrnambool between our public boards, public institutions and authorities.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Oooh Warrnambool can be a tight-knit little place and the knit between two of our biggest public institutions – Warrnambool City Council and Lyndoch Living – just got a little tighter with the unexpected elevation of Vikki King to council CEO.

While the seven councillors continue to rip each other’s heads off and try to justify why they treat the public like numbskulls (#whitenoise), I thought I would briefly turn the channel to another station and unpick at least one row in the roll-neck sweater of the Warrnambool club.

As we know, the crucial vote for Ms King being hand-picked for the top role by four of the seven councillors came from Councillor Sue Cassidy (or as someone accidentally, but prophetically, said as a spoonerism the other day, Coup Sassidy), so let’s start there.

(Needles up! Cast on…)

Cr Cassidy is a member of the Lyndoch Living board.

Cr Cassidy, owner of Unisexcuts hair salon, is close to the Lyndoch CEO Doreen Power and, together with Ms Power, is one of three directors of Lyndoch Healthcare Pty Ltd that was set up to oversee the Warrnambool Medical Clinic which was bought by Lyndoch last year.

The Warrnambool Medical Clinic is set to relocate at some point into a new, multi-million dollar “super clinic” being planned for Lyndoch.

The third director of Lyndoch Healthcare Pty Ltd is Andrew Paton. Mr Paton is the Director of City Growth – the head of planning – at the Warrnambool City Council.

He is also on the Lyndoch board.

Mr Paton is also part of the council’s Economic Development Advisory Committee, where Ms Power is one of the nine committee members.

Another Lyndoch board member is former Deakin academic and former Wannon Water deputy chair Professor Rob Wallis.

Prof Wallis is also the independent chair of the council’s Audit and Risk Committee.

Cr Cassidy also sits on that committee.

Prof Wallis, as it happens, was also until recently one of two independent people on the council’s Chief Executive Employment Matters Advisory Committee, which advised on matters to do with the CEO.

That was until last week when, according to the Standard, he resigned in the wake of the unprecedented coup against CEO Peter Schneider.

Cr Cassidy was part of that coup, which loops us right back around and up and down to the new council CEO, Ms King.

Prior to being anointed CEO, Ms King already had connections to her Lyndoch counterpart, Ms Power.

They were both members of Beyond the Bell – a local network to encourage and support children in education – around 2016-17 when the program went through a period of transition on the back of receiving significant government funding.

As a result of that transition, Brophy CEO Francis Broekman became chair.

As an aside, Mr Broekman is the husband of former Mayor and long-term councillor Jacinta Ermacora who is now chair of Wannon Water. The CEO of Wannon Water, Andrew Jeffers, is on the board of Beyond the Bell.

Up and over and around we go….knit one, pearl one….but I digress.

Ms King and Ms Power are also on the executive committee of the South West Primary Care Partnership which is a collective of health service agencies.

Ms Power is chair and Ms King is deputy chair of this network.

The partnership itself, as of last year, is now included in the financial statements of Lyndoch Living.

Some of the SWPHP members have also been involved in the transition of the Warrnambool Medical Clinic over to Lyndoch’s control and ownership.

(Needles down. Cast off…)

This little knitting exercise is not only interesting for the links between these WCC and Lyndoch – but also for where they sit in terms of public accountability.

Both Lyndoch Living and WCC are arguably in the middle of unprecedented change and will face ongoing questions from us, the public, whom they serve, about their operations, direction, expenditure and staff morale.

It will be fascinating to watch how these questions are handled in coming months, as we enter annual general report time, annual general meeting time, and council elections.

Will we see greater transparency and openness, or will the wool be once again pulled over our eyes?

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