20 Sep Mysterious Smells Abound with bad odours of maladministration and the occasional whiff of incompetence – another month in Lane Cove

This week via In The Cove — our shire’s local multimedia, multi-platform news and information website — a story was reported of a ‘Mysterious Smell at The Canopy’. Here are five more ‘mysterious smells’ around Lane Cove that are also in the news or, if not, should be:

Mysterious Smell Number One: Our Council hits the headlines for the wrong reasons

On September 8 in the Sydney Morning Herald, journalist Megan Gorry reported that the NSW Auditor General found Lane Cove Council had gaps in its credit card policy and procedures. Here are the pertinent, malodorous sections of the report:

‘The council’s reconciliation of credit card transactions needs to be enhanced to ensure it can review compliance with policy and detect potential misuse or fraud. Lane Cove Council had six credit cards, held by the most senior staff members, at the time of the audit.

 During our interviews, cardholders advised that they had shared their credit card with reporting staff. Credit card sharing is a violation of the council’s agreement with its credit card issuer, and it also increases the risk of misuse and fraud. The council’s credit card policy lacked clarity in several areas. While the general manager had delegation to authorise the issue of credit cards, the policy did not specify any eligibility criteria.

 The policy and procedures also lacked guidance on the reconciliation of the general manager’s credit card and the management of fuel cards and store cards. The audit identified gaps in the council’s credit card management practices. There was no evidence that credit card limits were monitored in line with financial delegations.

 The credit card register contained inaccurate information, and the council was also unable to provide records of certain transactions requested for review by the audit.

 The council’s credit card reconciliation process needs to be enhanced to enable detection of potential misuse or fraud. The process also did not include compliance checks or reviewing the business-related purpose of transactions.

 Purchases of restricted items such as fuel and fine payments were not accompanied by adequate justification. There was a lack of targeted guidance for approvers in reconciliation, and the council only evidenced the finance team’s involvement in an administrative capacity (i.e. entering data into the journals).

 Senior management oversight of credit card use was lacking. Although the credit card policy referred to management reporting, the council had not been producing such reports at the time of the audit.’ 

NB: This independent report has nailed our Council’s most senior management for lack of monitoring, sharing credit cards, inaccurate information, inability to provide certain records, poor reconciliation processes, lack of compliance checks, and lacking senior management oversight.

How about some movement in our senior management including moving some on?

 Mysterious Smell Number Two: B-Double truck exhaust a portent for Northwood Road chaos

On Friday September 18 at 10.45am, at the critical intersection of River Rd West, Longueville Rd and Northwood, a giant B-Double truck just stops outside the newly empty space where Pathways is building its aged care development. The B-Double then tried to turn around 180 degrees to reverse with the avowed intent to try and reverse into the site.

The problem? There was no assistance from anyone on site to help him. No traffic management, no detour routes or signage, no traffic controllers, no special signs, not even temporary pedestrian diversions or detours. no arranging for large deliveries or removals to happen during off-peak times.

There was bugger all ­— absolutely nothing or no-one to help this monster truck achieve its goal for the morning. So traffic just came to a standstill across 5-6 lanes of surely the busiest intersection away from Epping Rd in the Lane Cove LGA.

It was a deadly, dangerous situation affecting 5-6 lanes of traffic and it took 10-15 sets of traffic lights and kilometres of held up traffic in all four directions before it all cleared. Exhausting for all.

Where is the application of the traffic plan for this troubled site?

The traffic plan should normally include:

• what sort of work is being done
• a plan for how work is going to be done
• existing traffic conditions (pedestrian and road traffic, parking and so forth)
• the maximum number and tonnage of construction vehicles that will come and go from the site at any one time
• where vehicle access exists to and from the site
• the route which construction vehicles will take to get to the site
• queuing locations for construction vehicles entering the site
• where construction work will impose on public grounds (e.g. footpaths), and for how long
• where oversized vehicles will go, and how long they’ll be there
• when construction vehicles will come and go from the site
• whether (and how) loading and unloading materials will affect traffic
• how traffic will be managed where necessary (source build.com.au)

The Longueville Residents Association has long been agitating about the many problems this development poses to the local area. This week they released a flyer outlining the problems. In summary:

Traffic Impacts

The proposed 143 room aged care and commercial development will generate added traffic movements through narrow streets and dangerous intersections in Longueville and Northwood.

The traffic plan will force heavy vehicles and cars into rat-runs along Northwood Road, Arabella Street, Woodford Street, Christina Street, Stuart Street and Kenneth Street.

 Parking

The development proposes some on-site parking for staff and visitors, but assumes the use of public transport and bicycles to reduce parking onsite. Demand for on-road parking will clog streets so the rat-runs will be choked.

 Over-scale Building

A three-storey building wall will loom over Northwood Road. The proposal does not meet the DCP set-back requirement for 3 storey buildings on Northwood Road.

 Make Your Voice Heard

 The DA approval is in the hands of the Sydney North Planning Panel. This key intersection is a critical link in many of our lives on a daily basis. The Longueville Residents Association needs support now.

 Mysterious Smell Number Three: Golf Course Financing Questions Needs Answers

The financial relationship between developers and Council is often puzzling.  Pathways the Aged Care developer at Northwood Rd — on the westerly end of the Golf Course with an entrance where the petrol station used to be on Blaxland’s Corner — has contributed several million dollars to be used to pay for the Lane Cove Golf Course redevelopment despite total opposition to the repurposing of the area as a huge sports precinct. The opposition is unanimous among the locals because of the savage environmental and community costs to the course, the bushland and the social amenity of the clubhouse itself.

it was council executives with Pam Palmer present who revealed the relationship between developers and the golf course fiasco to a public meeting at the Golf Club just a few weeks ago saying it was ‘no secret’. No?

Whether the multi-million dollar budget is made up of Development Control and Administration Fees or is part of a Voluntary Planning Agreement (VPA) is clear to no-one.

Yet the matter is before Council this week Monday September 21.

If the money is purported to be a Voluntary Planning Agreement then this VPA would likely breach the guidelines as set out in the Draft Practice Note published by the NSW Department of Planning (see pp 6-10). More strangely, no arrangement is listed on the Council’s own VPA Register — yet the matter is being still being voted on in Council.

The NSW Government guidelines state:

Planning authorities that are participating in planning agreements should follow the following fundamental principles:

• Planning agreements must be governed by the fundamental principle that planning decisions may not be bought or sold
• Planning authorities should not allow planning agreements to improperly fetter the exercise of statutory functions with which they are charged
• Planning authorities should not use planning agreements as a means of revenue raising, to overcome spending limitations, or for other improper purposes
• Planning authorities should not be party to planning agreements in order to seek public benefits that are unrelated to particular development
• Planning authorities should not, when considering applications to change environmental planning instruments or development applications, take into consideration planning agreements that are wholly unrelated to the subject-matter of the application, or attribute disproportionate weight to a planning agreement
• Planning authorities should not allow the interests of individuals or interest groups to outweigh the public interest when considering planning agreements
• Planning authorities should not improperly rely on their statutory position in order to extract unreasonable public benefits from developers under planning agreements
• Planning authorities should ensure that their bargaining power is not compromised or their decision making freedom is not fettered through a planning agreement
• Planning authorities should avoid, wherever possible, being party to planning agreements where they also have a stake in the development covered by the agreements.

According to these guidelines the Council are dreaming if they think their financial agreement with Pathways can be part of any Voluntary Planning Agreement.

A Breath of Foul Air Number Four: Grumpy the Groundsman creates a dust storm

Tuesday September 15 was one of those Spring days when it was good to be alive. Beautiful weather, a walk around Kingsford Smith Oval, a quick cheerio to local friends, perhaps a coffee or croissant at the popular Copper Drop coffee van parked at the northern end.

It was good day for mowing too, a chance for the groundsman to work on the oval and its surrounds — and a good job he does too: for locals, their dogs, our cricketers and football players. Long may he continue to do so.

But last Tuesday, outside the oval, right next to the coffee van and the northern gate, while many gathered around to meet and greet, he created a dust storm unseen in urban fields for many a day. Back and forth he raced on his ride-on mower over patches of bare dirt, levelling the clay, spraying any stray pebbles, shaving any grass to within a millimetre of its once- green life.

And the dust! Visibility was down to only a metre or so as the dust kept rising, sending trendy coffee drinkers blindly staggering away, dogs flailing on their leads in an attempt to flee the maelstrom of dust and noise and, perhaps worst of all, covering the coffee cart and its marvellous food display with enough grit and dirt to satisfy only a cowboy’s taste in food.

And back he came again and again, Grumpy the Groundsman on the mower, out  for paydirt perhaps: not once, not twice but three times to ensure he got that dirt levelled, got that dust stream hovering for a good few minutes, and if it showed signs of settling then back he came again.

Not much chance of a breath of fresh air last Tuesday in this usually clean and green part of Lane Cove.

 Mysterious Smell Number Five:  ‘Winning one for the GIPA’

Among the many battles with this secretive Council of ours we picked up some talk about another self-bruising stuff-up by this current bunch. It’s all about requests for information called GIPAs.

GIPAs or Government Information Public Access Applications are part and parcel of being in government, but perhaps Lane Cove Council needs another article in the Sydney Morning Herald or another investigation into its processes and practices to realise that its own administration of GIPAs must  provide information about the Council’s structure, functions and policies at the same time as protecting resident and ratepayers’ identities and personal security as per the Privacy & Personal Information Protection Act.

It seems the Council might be getting off lightly on this one. So far.