Administrator Brown speaking on the 4 Year Council Plan adopted in Budget Meeting June 24th, 2020
Perhaps the Budget Documents lost their cover page? With the amount of hidden detail and missing data one does wonder.
PROPOSAL-Every Rate Notice issued for the 2020-2021 year to receive a $800 refund subject to the following conditions.
a. Rate Notices with less than $800 due are to receive a maximum of the Rates Notice amount less the FSL charges.
b. Rates Notices will receive the full $800 refund when the Rates component paid to Council is at least $800.
These appear to be a means of pulling extra rates form the residents. In the past year Council had a substantial capital works budget. Some 6 months into the 2019-2020 year Council scrapped $1.8M of works. These were not just deferred but deleted altogether.
That is $1.8M that found its way into Council reserves without the approval of the ratepayers.
Council have changed the way that s233 submissions are treated if the following is anything to go on. It appears that if the project you wish to discus is not in the next 12 months works they will refuse to even discuss or consider the proposal unless of course, they do entertain the discussion. So one can only think that they will now only consider submissions under the local government act if they agree with them or are happy to have them discussed in open and transparent style.
The Justice Legislation Miscellaneous Amendments Act 2019 paves the way for class actions – including cases of silicosis and wage theft – by ensuring claimants don’t face the burden of legal costs if unsuccessful.
The State of Emergency in Victoria will be extended for another four weeks to continue the measures designed to slow the spread of coronavirus and keep Victorians safe.
The State of Emergency will be extended until 11.59pm on 19 July 2020, which allows the Victorian Government to continue to enforce physical distancing and isolation requirements, as well as other directions from the Chief Health Officer.
During the Bald Hills Wind Farm trial on June 10th, 2020, in the Supreme Court of Victoria the director of the wind farm under cross examination admitted to not submitting two letters relevant to the case.
When your neighbour has a noisy dog that disturbs your enjoyment of sleep the first step might be to ask him to deal with the problem. The second step would be for you to complain to Council for them to deal with it under the Public Health and Nuisance Act.
Council acts on all such complaints by using a section of the Act that gives them 4 choices.
A two-day hearing in the Supreme court began today and under the coronavirus pandemic rules, it was conducted from Court 2 using zoom remote conferencing technology. Around 21 individuals “attended” the zoom trial.
Next up was the cross examination of Mr Whalen by Georgia Costello SC, Council for the 5 residents in South Gippsland. Some facts that came out of this examination are that the Wind Farm was granted a permit in 2004 under the planning and environment act. Originally established by Mitzui it was later sold to Bald Hill Wind Farm in February 2017. Bald Hill Windfarm contract out the maintenance needs as well as the daily operations of the Windfarm to a group called Vestas.
Bald Hills Windfarm has 52 turbines scattered around South Gippsland in the Walkerville area. The permit was issued under the planning and environment act and the South Gippsland Planning Scheme. Permit was actually issued by the State Government Minister for Planning.
Mr Pizor QC then made reference to four of the planning conditions.
The first hour of day two was spent with lawyers for each side putting their final submissions and arguing various points of law and interpretations and what if scenarios repeating much of what was said on day one in various forms. For a non-legal person, this bit was dull although from a legal point of view quite necessary as each side tried to show the Justice towards their preferred interpretation of the law as it applied in this case.
After the Wind Farm Legal Team completed their summation it was the turn of the defence side to make their case.
First up was the lawyer for Council Mr Horan QC. After his submission, the legal team representing the 5 residents had their say. This was put to the Court by Mr Fetter QC
Marlene Kairouz has been named by the Age Investigation into branch stacking as complicit in the same operations that the disgraced Somyurek has been sacked over.
The Age newspaper quotes from secretly recorded tapes from the joint conference room she shares (shared) with Somyurek which shows her encouraging her staff to take part in the operation led by Somyurek.
Sunday Night on 60 minutes Accusations were made of the most serious nature about Minister for Local Government, the Honourable Minister Adem Somyurek.
Minister Somyurek has been surveilled in an undercover investigation launched 12 months ago around the time that he dismissed the South Gippsland Shire Council. BREAKING BREAKING NEWS-Somyurek has been sacked from Governmentv and will be expelled from the Labour Party.
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.
Based on advice from Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, learner permit and licence testing including drive tests will progressively resume from Monday 15 June.
The first priority under the staged resumption will be to re-book tests for those whose appointments were postponed due to coronavirus restrictions.
This policy was approved of by Council on August 28th, 2019 by the Administrators. Within the Planning Panel report on recommendation 13, it is stated:
“Council consider undertaking a fulsome review of Clauses 22.05 and 22.06 of the South Gippsland Planning Scheme pertaining to Rural dwellings and Rural subdivision to ensure their consistency with the Planning Policy Framework and established principles (including Planning Practice Notes) relating to the form and scope of a local planning policy. Agreed”.
This week the Administrators have asked me to write a CEO Message in order to reflect on my time
An army of public hygiene and land maintenance workers employed to help slow the spread of coronavirus has been bolstered in a major push backed by the Victorian Government’s Working for Victoria fund.
Dear fellow residents and supporters,
I hope my letter finds you and your loved ones well and coping with the new conditions as best you can, as we all are.
Although some of our leaders talk of “snapping back” and otherwise returning to normal – no one has any idea of what the ”new” normal will, in fact, be like.
Neither Administrator Brown or Zahra actually made any commentary on what was in the current proposed budget. Both claimed that Council was in a strong financial position, a claim that is not in dispute.
We have had no local government representation in South Gippsland since the State Labour government sacked the elected shire council in June last year.