SOMETIME overnight on Wednesday-Thursday this week, October 16-17 the South Gippsland Council’s archive of meeting agendas, attachments and reports went offline.
Before the shire could respond to a request for an explanation from the South Gippsland Sentinel-Times, conspiracy theories were gaining a head of steam as voting continued at-a-pace in the council elections.
Was the council responding to an online probe into the Korumburra Senior Citizens centre debacle?
Were there details to be uncovered about allegations that the shire council was secretly planning to resurrect the ‘Taj Mahal’ shire office project?
Was there something buried in the shire’s financial documents that might impact the re-election prospect of councillors?
None of that, if you can believe a statement released by the shire this morning (no reason not to) was true.
Here’s what the shire had to say about an unprecedented event for the meeting archive to go missing:
“Council has experienced a website malfunction which has resulted in a problem with the minutes/agenda section of the website. A manual fix is being explored this morning whilst a rollback of the website to recover the minutes is undertaken,” said a spokesperson for the shire.
“We apologise for the glitch and hope to have it rectified very soon.”
Council watchers will be waiting to see that all agendas, minutes, attachments and reports are reloaded.
There’s no reason why all of the meeting papers available in digital format couldn’t be available on the website – it’s on the public record, is a valuable resource for those interested in council’s activities and there should be nothing to hide.
Any storage costs is money well spent, say council watchers who contacted the Sentinel-Times this morning.
Senior Citizens probe
A seemingly innocuous question posted on the Korumburra Community Noticeboard’s Facebook page last Tuesday, October 15 has raised plenty of eyebrows and also attracted more than 100 comments, attachments of documents and letters and even an interview with the Mayor Cr Clare Williams and apparently irate members of the cits’ club.
“Where can I read an unbiased and factual account of what happened with the senior citizens centre here in Korumburra?”
The question included a media release quoting former shire administrator Christian Zahra (September 26, 2019) about the decision to put the new hub in its present location and not on railway land as initially planned:
“The location for the Korumburra Community Hub was confirmed at yesterday’s Council meeting. The Hub will be built at 4 Victoria Street, the site of the former Korumburra Kindergarten and will house a modernised library service together with a number of local community groups and services,” said the statement.
It goes on to claim that “extensive consultation” was entered into.
“A great deal of work with many different parties has gone into getting us to this point. It has taken a significant community effort and extensive consultation. Assessments on three alternative sites were conducted by external advisers FJMT before the old kinder site was selected…”
But the senior citizens representatives say they were never consulted with before the site decision was taken and never agreed to go into the new hub.
The issue remains unresolved as candidates go to the election, many of them with agendas to at least revisit the process that disenfranchised Korumburra’s elderly if not come up with a new plan and a new home for the Korumburra Senior Citizens Club.
‘Taj Mahal’ office claims
During the week, at an online forum for South Gippsland Shire Council candidates (Tarwin Valley ward), the allegations that the council is secretly planning to resurrect its $25 million Leongatha office project were aired again.
Tarwin Valley candidates Don Hill and Kathleen Murray both claimed the council had a secret agenda to relaunch the project.
However the claims have been comprehensively scotched by the shire’s administration on its “misleading information” page ahead of the election.
“Council recently completed a refurbishment of its main municipal office located in Leongatha. The refurbishment was required to modernise the office space and improve accessibility.
“External cladding works were also undertaken to remove asbestos-containing materials and update the façade. The total project cost was approximately $4M.
“There is no other Municipal Office Project either planned or occurring.”
