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.
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
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.
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”.
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.
Early 2017 Council approved the introduction of live streaming for Council meetings. The system worked reasonably well and was also extremely cheap to install.
An article in this week’s Sentinel Times (page 7) called “Rate relief Plan Misses the Mark” discusses the two circulating petitions from Matt Sherry calling for a zero rate rise in this year’s budget and a second unrelated petition from Don Hill calling for an $800 refund to all ratepayers for this year.
Do you know of the winki pop president?”
“Yes, I do yeah, I wasn’t working at that council at that time, but I’ve been briefed on it in some detail over the years-but yes I am aware of it”.
South Gippsland Shire Council has been successful in securing a $500,000 grant to extend the Great Southern Rail Trail between Korumburra and Leongatha.
On June 26th, 2019, a Council report in the Agenda papers for the Budget meeting as a result of the s223 process was presented by the officers. The Councillors had been dismissed the previous week and the administrators were in charge.
The report noted the following advice from the officers.
When is the report on the future of our Recreation Reserves coming to Council, and have we already allocated funding in the proposed budget for reserves ahead of the report being considered?
Council is putting through a four-year plan 2020 to 2024 in last week’s budget. Now normally they are started the year after a council election. Can you comment on why this is occurred now and not after the next council election
I asked Kerryn about transparency and the 15-year Capital Works program in the proposed budget
“Are you aware of how the 15 Year Capital Works program is being portrayed in the budget document for the budget this year and the changes from previous ways that it was being produced?”
In the second half of last year the officers briefed the administrators on the Leongatha Community Hub and the Council Offices-site options and costs analysis. The budget approved in July 2019 confirmed the allocated spending for the library at $105,062 for 2019-2020, $1373,036 in 2020-2021, and $1407,362 in 2021-2022.
I asked Kerryn her thoughts on transparency within the organisation.
“How would you describe the changes made by the administrators in the last 12 months changes to Question Time and how do you justify those changes when placed in comparison to Casey council’s administrator’s comments?”
