TWO-TERM former mayor, Cr Michael Whelan, seems to be having trouble handing over the reins to his colleague, Cr Clare Le Serve.
On several occasions at last Wednesday’s council meeting, Cr Whelan tried to lay down the law to his fellow councillors, particularly Cr Rochelle Halstead, even though he wasn’t in the chair.
It was a situation, according to avid council watcher, Graham Jolly, who attended the meeting in the expanded public gallery, that not only undermined the authority of Cr Le Serve but also impacted the orderly conduct of the meeting.
“Cr Halstead was clearly entitled to seek clarification during question time and the governance officer should have supported the mayor when Cr Whelan made his incorrect point of order,” said Mr Jolly.
He was speaking about a question from the Bass Coast Ratepayers and Residents Association Secretary, Kevin Griffin, about a letter Cr Halstead said last month she didn’t receive from former Bass Coast councillor John Duscher about the mayor's chains.
“Because of Cr Whelan’s incorrect point of order, I didn’t get the additional information Cr Halstead was seeking and I’ll be following that up,” said Kevin Griffin this week, while also accusing Cr Whelen of trying to bully Cr Halstead and Cr Le Serve.
Mr Griffin’s question to council was as follows: “Last month, Cr Halstead advised that email correspondence addressed to the mayor and councillors was withheld from councillors and queried how many other emails have been withheld from councillors. Will council advise the community how many emails addressed to the mayor and councillors have been withheld from councillors since 2020?”
Response: “All emails sent to the mayor and councillors’ email addresses are received directly by those councillors (Cr Halstead raised her hand and asked to comment but the Mayor Cr Le Serve asked her to hold on until the response was given). Emails that are sent to the general email address for councillors are allocated to the responsible staff members to address and shared with councillors if they have been included in the correspondence. No emails are withheld.”
Cr Halstead took issue with the response, and while she said her interjection was more in the nature of a “correction” than clarification, that’s essentially what it was. The Mayor gave her the call.
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think what Mr Griffin is referring to is the letter that was sent by John Duscher to council in relation to the mayoral chains and that there was a letter that was sent to the mayor and councillors…”
But the former mayor, Cr Michael Whelan raised a point of order:
“Question time isn’t a matter for open discussion among councillors it is to hear questions from the public, and have them answered. It’s not for a councillor to clarify what a questioner is trying to achieve.”
Turns out though, that under Division 8 ‘Public Question Time’ in the Governance Rules of Bass Coast Shire Council 2022, made in accordance with section 60 of the Local Government Act 2020, Cr Halstead is allowed to seek clarification and the mayor should have ruled Cr Whelan out of order and allowed Cr Halstead to continue.
The shire’s governance officer confirmed that after question time but by then the opportunity to find out exactly how Mr Duscher’s letter was dealt with at the time, whether it wasn’t passed on to councillors as requested, was lost.
It’s interesting to note that Cr Whelan was the mayor at the time Mr Duscher wrote his letter in March 2022, addressed to the Mayor and Councillors, querying what had happened to the mayor chains, but that letter was never passed on to councillors according to Cr Halstead.
Under 54.9 of the governance rules: “All questions and answers must be as brief as possible, and no discussion may be allowed other than by Councillors for the purposes of clarification.”.
Mr Griffin asked a follow up question about when the loss of the mayoral chains, allegedly worth up to $100,000, was first reported to police.
The new CEO Greg Box said the loss of the valuable item was reported to police on the 10th of October 2018.
Cr Halstead again tried to clarify what had happened to Mr Duscher’s letter and to generally unlock the secrecy surrounding the mayoral chains saga but she was shut down by Cr Le Serve and instead offered the opportunity to send her request by email.
