Are Council Staff Inappropriately Involving Themselves in Recruiting Candidates for Council Elections?

Rumours have been flying around for a while that Council staff were hunting around for “suitable” candidates to run for Council at the next elections in Oct 2021. In line with this newspaper’s policy, this report needed facts, so I decided to investigate the issue further.

I wrote to the Council Administrators and asked them the following three questions on May 21st, 2020 whilst beginning work on writing up an article about the Council Leadership Program. 

1. Can Council confirm that the administrators have approached select individuals in the community and encouraged them to stand as a candidate in the next council election?

2. Is Council aware of Council staff who are “hunting around” for candidates to run for Council at the next election?

3. Does Council consider that it is appropriate for staff to seek out those whom they, (the staff), consider would make good Councillors and presumably would be more willing to go along with the staff than different potential candidates?

I received the following response which seemed perfectly acceptable if concentrating solely on the recommended action as given in the Commission of Inquiry, but the response did ignore any reference to the questions around the possibility of inappropriate involvement from Council staff. 

This response took 4 days to arrive on May 25th, 2020.

The following is from Council’s Chair Administrator, Julie Eisenbise.

“Last year’s Commission of Inquiry into South Gippsland Shire Council recommended that Council deliver an extensive community leadership development programme and encourage widespread participation in community and civic life in the municipality.

With that in mind both Administrators and officers have been actively encouraging people to participate in the Community Leadership Program that is currently advertising for expressions of interest”

This is what was written in the Commission of Inquiry “executive Summary”.

“Whilst we are of the view that internal council training is, and has been, sufficient we recommend a community leadership training program accessible to all in the municipality, including Councillors, be undertaken to enhance understanding of the role of council and the roles and responsibilities of Councillors”.

Not satisfied with the evaded parts of the questions, I resent them and highlighted the relevant sections I required answers on, on May 26th, 2020.

1. Can Council confirm that the administrators have approached select individuals in the community and encouraged them to stand as a candidate in the next council election?

2. Is Council aware of Council staff who are “hunting around” for candidates to run for Council at the next election?

3. Does Council consider that it is appropriate for staff to seek out those whom they, (the staff), consider would make good Councillors and presumably would be more willing to go along with the staff than different potential candidates?

Later the same day I received the following response again from Administrator Eisenbise.

“Due to not having evidence of the behaviour you allude to in your question, Council is not in a position to comment.

If you can provide evidence of such behaviour, Council will endeavour to respond to any questions you have”.

I then sent a further email with specific “evidence” as requested.

“I would appreciate a comment from Julie Eisenbise on the following:

At a Council Community Cluster meeting at Toora earlier this year, Julie suggested to the Citizen of the Year (Anna Hopkins) that Anna should consider running for Council at the next elections”.

Next day the following was received from Administrator Eisenbise:

“Of course, I encouraged our Citizen of the Year to consider running for Council! It was in a public forum with dozens of community leaders and I was encouraging everyone to consider whether it was something they would be interested in, particularly given that I know that the Minister is expecting us to encourage people to consider applying for our Community Leadership Program.

There is nothing underhand in this and nothing prohibiting Administrators from encouraging people to consider running for Council: in fact I would go as far as suggesting that it is an inherent part of our roles”.

I received no further response to the question on whether staff had been attempting to recruit candidates for the next election and it is of concern that memory only came back to the Administrator when prompted with a specific event that the day before she had no evidence of having occurred.

This newspaper agrees with the statement from Administrator Eisenbise where she states it is an inherent part of their roles. (Administrators, and the organisation as a whole). 

Putting information about being a candidate/Councillor as recommended by the Victorian Electoral Commission is perfectly acceptable.

But are the staff going one step too far by “cherry picking” their preferred candidates. That would be quite different to calling for anyone to consider taking on the role for example.

Going back to the Commission of Inquiry recommendation. The Commissioner in his Executive Summary was quite clear when he stated “recommend a community leadership training program accessible to all in the municipality, including Councillors, be undertaken to enhance understanding of the role of council and the roles and responsibilities of Councillors”

The key words here would be accessible to all, including Councillors, to enhance role of Council and Councillors, and we note that Administrator Eisenbise stated the Commission recommendation was “that Council deliver an extensive community leadership development programme” 

What has Council done to fulfil this recommendation?

Council approved a Community Leadership Program at the Feb 26th, 2020 Council meeting.

The approved motion appeared to have altered the original intent of the Commission of Inquiry recommendation in the Executive Summary by limiting the number of participants to 20, and NOT enabling widespread participation accessible to all in the community.

Further, they instigated a selection process so they could choose who was successful in the process. Further limitations were placed on applicants such as only one from any particular community group could be selected. 

Expressions of interest were invited up to May 29th, 2020 after which the selection panel would review the applications and select the lucky winners.

Just before the closing date, Council extended the date to June 12th to allow for more applicants.

At the closing date on May 29th 23 applicants had applied. 

Apparently the focus has changed from “to enhance understanding of the role of council and the roles and responsibilities of Councillors” (Commission Executive Summary recommendation), to “contributing to a local group or representing them to Council” (Council Leadership Program Document)

Are the powers that be wanting Councillors to be more Community Group advocates rather than a group that directs the staff through the CEO?

For full disclosure this editor did apply for the program.