Pearls of wisdom?

This afternoon's 'meet the candidates' was an interesting affair for many reasons. First, it should be noted that Cr. Spaulding, and Lipshutz were no show and did not tender their apologies. Cr. Esakoff did, as well as Donna Elliott.

Some of the 'highlights' or 'lowlights' are as follows:

1. Norman Kennedy proclaimed that Glen Eira is basically a very good council because it runs at a cheaper per capita cost than other councils. Of course, it can be improved, he said - but the overall impression he gave was that Glen Eira is terrific and that it just requires some minor tinkering around the edges. (of course if glen eira provided the same services as others in areas of health, child care, etc. etc. - then it couldn't claim that it was so 'cost effective and efficient' could it Mr. Kennedy?)

2. Perhaps more disheartening, is that Tang also praised glen eira and basically repeated his little spiel that he presented at the recent 'forums' for the community plan - ie. what major strides this council has taken in terms of 'consultation', traffic management (which he equated with drains!!!!! and footpaths). Basically, Tang presented the audience with nothing more than hot air!!!

3. Questions were raised about the Bentleigh Pool, Caulfield Racetrack, planning, governance, etc. Very, very few of the candidates had anything definite to offer, or suggestions to make. Traffic management for Mr. Henry was reduced to bike lanes; questions of how can any organisation end up with nearly $6 million over budget, was not answered by Staikos, except to ask the audience to believe that sale of land had not gone through, so therefore it couldn't be noted in the budet. Hey, Cr. Staikos, shouldn't the same therefore apply to rates? Now that the money's there, why not reduce rates with this surplus? another example of deliberate misinterpration and hence nonanswering of a question! You've learnt well over the past 3 years Staikos!

There was plenty more and I'll give a breakdown in the next couple of posts. The above are rapidly written impressions. The very, very sad result, is that apart from a few, most candidates adopted a 'wait and see' approach with the usual rationalisation of 'we'll have to wait to see costs, budgets, infrastructure, etc. etc. etc.'. Not answers at all. When candidates are asked 'will you commit to ensuring that advisory and special committee meetings are advertised, open to the public, and that representatives have voting rights' and only Jim Magee and Theo Giantsis openly supported this - then my conclusion is that WE ARE IN TROUBLE!!!!!!!

Unless candidates realise that governance is at the root of all that is wrong with this council then nothing will change. Tang and his ilk can spruke as much as they like about 'consultation' and 'transparency' - but unless the mechanisms are there to implement real change, then we will have the same 'newtonism' that we have had for the past decade. The real losers will be the community again and again.