If it isn’t broke...
LISA Neville thinks it’s time to reconsider the way our local government is constituted. Yes, it’s been a good 10 minutes since the last major overhaul, so it’s probably about time we pulled the thing apart again.
Seriously, Lisa … what are you talking about?
It may be a shock for Spring Street, but the City of Greater Geelong is not a Lego set. The people who live and work in town are not the bobble-headed plastic figures that can be pushed into place with a decent bit of force. No seriously, they’re not.
The current local government structure was instituted by the current State Government because the last council was sacked … Remember Lisa?
It was a drawn out process and produced evidence of serious cultural dysfunction. Incompetence and bullying; yes I seem to remember something like that.
Since the resignation of Mayor Keith Fagg, millions of dollars have been spent on re-elections, investigations, allegations, recriminations, a report to the State Government and the constitution of a citizens jury. The end result was contested relentlessly in the media by the embittered ex-paparazzi mayor.
But nobody was charged, we got rid of the councillors and got a new system in place and then a new council via a fresh election.
The most important part of the process was consultation.
The opportunity for community truth-telling was a key lever that drew the c--p to the surface. Confrontations and case studies backed up the recommendation of the need for more than one councillor for each ward.
But now Lisa seems to be of the opinion that some people are having trouble contacting their councillor. That can be fixed. This is no reason to dismantle the reconstruction.
In fact, it may well be a point that proves the new system is working.
When wards had one councillor each, Geelong was a city of fiefdoms. It’s documented in the reports. The single-councillor model placed individuals in positions of autocratic power that was financially reinforced by the now legendary councillor ward funding.
Under that singularly ridiculous model, Geelong councillors were able to spend about half a million dollars each, in their own ward — at their own discretion. It sounds farcical now, but it’s true. The money was not supervised or signed off by council officers.
This was discretionary investment and you don’t have be Albert Einstein to work out how this was going to work out in the end. This was the high water mark of the single councillor model and it was responsible for a long dark era of backroom agreements and bad behaviour. This was the silo behaviour the State Government told us it was fixing.
The current council has not seen out one term of office. Now is not the time for major structure devolution. Especially without community consultation.
But lack of consultation in Geelong seems to be par for the course.
The big story this week is the all day parking fiasco.
For the last few weeks, councillor Eddy Kontelj has been doing photo-ops next to parking meters, publicising his push for free parking for the CBD. All we will have to do is punch in our car registration number (for some reason) and then there is going to be half an hour free parking, or something. It doesn’t really matter what the Kontelj parking plan is because the city officers are working off a completely different blueprint.
Without warning and without consultation with the community or (more concerningly) the councillors — council installed new allday parking charges and they jumped by 125 per cent.
A mind-boggling self-made communications nightmare.
This increase was outrageously disproportionate and a totally unjustifiable revenue raising ambush of CBD workers.
Within hours, workers abandoned traditional all-day parking spots and Cr Kontelj went into damage control.
He tweeted that councillors were unaware of this Budget projection and would be protesting with the people in charge.
It really does demonstrate that the current councillors are in a tricky spot.
Their structure is determined by their superiors and their revenue base is designed by their officers, so what are they doing?
Free parking is not going to fix the mall and it’s not going to fix the structural inconsistencies that are the foundation of current City Hall.