WHITTLESEA: Unconvincing attempt by Councillors to deflect
OPINION
By Local Paper Editor, Aash Long
he dysfunctional Council at the City of Whittlesea was at its least convincing about govcernance and transparency last week after it locked out the public from its monthly meeting.
Ten of the 11 Councillors met online, as dozens of fuming excluded ratepayers watched a video of proceedings from outside the grand municipal buildings at South Morang.
The public members had come to watch local government in action, but they were instead literally left on the streets.
The Mayor, Cr Aidan McLindon, did not attend the Council meeting. McLindon has been banned from the Council premises by $400,000-a-year Council CEO Craig Lloyd.
Cr McLindon did address the members of the public in person. He called for CEO Lloyd, and State Government-appointed Monitors Peita Duncan and Jude Munro to stand aside.
Inside the building, the Councillors were claiming that they were the victims.
In a ham-fisted performance, the mostly new and inexperienced Councillors read (badly) from prepared scripts, claiming that ‘misinformation’ had been fed to the public.
Time after time, they had to be directed by CEO Lloyd on what to do next.
Their claim of ‘misinformation’ was met largely with disbelief. Here were Councillors claiming that social media and major media outlets had misinformed the public about controversy-after-controver-sary at the troubled municipality which has had six CEOs in a handful of years. A number of the CEOs had been sacked.
And yet throughout this entire sorry chapter, the public has not heard a word from the Council.
There has been no statement about how the elected Mayor has been banned from doing his job.
There has been no reply (not even an acknowledgement of recipt) of this newspaper’s invitation for the Council and the Councillors to have their say.
If they are too timid to report to their stakeholders, the Councillors deserve to be thrown out. Local Government Minister Nick Staikos has also remained silent.