It is said that the belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions. Moreover, only 'the public', can force its representatives to reverse their abdication of authority that the law gives to democratically elected governance. It is alarming that people become so convinced they're the best at anything when none of us are.... adequate possibly but never best.
Over the jurisdiction Launceston's past three mayors local governance research has been served well enough by the ongoing evolution administrative excesses spiked as is seems to be by growing sense of self-importance and adequacy of management. From the constituency’s perspective and the Community of Ownership and Interest’s(COI) too, the people who were employed to serve, have serially and somewhat surreally demonstrated that increasingly had no interest in the residents and ratepayers’ aspirations.
More to the point increasingly the disinclination of management to listen to the 'constituency' compounded. As a GM with the community front and centre residents and ratepayers might have expected, that within election results, 'management' might have actually gleaned something that might tell you something, but it seems not as they had another agenda. It seems that given the cohort of sycophants they gathered around them they were there to maintain the status quo against whatever might prove to be any kind of stumbling block.
To be plain:
• Almost invariably senior management did not harbour any idea about the actual purpose of local governance and representational democracy or direct democracy or indeed ‘democracy’ given your autocratic aspirations whenever community consultation is called for.
• On the evidence, the had no respect whatsoever for the Community of Ownership and Interest or the ratepayers
• On the evidence, the just did/do not appreciate contrary views and they have built a cohort of sycophantic brow tappers and representatives around them to agree with their status quo vision in order that mutual comfortability is delivered and reinforced.
• On the evidence, the 'unelected executive management' has always been working on another job that pays even more than their current excessive salary rather that meeting their salaried obligations .
• On the evidence, self-interest is front and centre and surrounding themselves self-interested like-minded functionaries and underlings much is a paramount concern much to the chagrin of people with placemaking and cultural landscaping aspirations for Launceston.
Whatever, and despite all this Launceston is as good a place as anyone might aspire live in. On the evidence it is not believable that senior executive management has shared that view, nor have they been inclined to be a transparent, proactive, and accountable placemakers. Typically, they aspire to live elsewhere and do.
Management's modus operandi is one that refuses to listen to any proposition that they are unfamiliar with. It has turned out to be the case that they have avoided a liberal education that involves critical inquiry and consequently arguably there has been credibility gaps in performance outcomes.
Clearly the word ‘democracy’ is irrelevant and abhorrent and thus it is a word to be mouthed but not anything to be aspired to. On the evidence, management hold the line that the ‘elected 12’ are elected to listen to the one voice, theirs, and that the voiceless should be shunned at every turn as they are but milch cows.
History will no doubt prove that this class of management that bends, blands and blends governance’s role with management’s is flawed. Arguably it is spiked with corruption all too often.
Sadly, there are residents, ratepayer and businesspeople who despair in the light of the hubris emanating out Launceston's Town Hall.
Nonetheless, on the cusp of appointing yet another GM/CEO for Launceston's Town Hall, those who have funded ‘Council's' fiscal follies and performance failure need be reminded of the failures of recent years.
• Firstly, the Birchalls fiscal fiasco and the loss of millions upon millions of dollars of ratepayers hard earned dollars lands in the current 'regime's' lap. One day the loss’s cause will be known, and eventually it will be known how it came to be and just how big despite the best efforts to obscure it/them via obfuscation. There is a catalogue of names that as likely as not will be attached and the ‘loss’ and equated with multiples of executive managements and or their successor’s annual salaries. The truth will always be outed.
• Then there is our iconic Albert Hall where this council without a city architect found itself committed to an enormous budget blowout, arguably management driven, and then the loss of access to the facility for four years. This too falls largely in the executive managements lap!
• Then there is executive management's disinclination to allow the QVMAG to have meaningful governance enabling it to be the kind of ‘musingplace’ it has the potential to be rather than an underperforming council cost centre in service to justify a cohort of management's salary level despite its undetectable cultural wherewithal.
• Then there is executive management's willingness to allow council administration to stand back and let vandals do what the community wouldn’t countenance whilst denying the community a voice as to how a large rural property might be reimagined and used to deliver a social and fiscal dividend.
• Then there is executive management’s disinclination to transform the city’s Waste Management Centre into a 21st C resource Recovery Centre without an expensive landfill dependence.
• Then there is the city’s largely undealt with flooding problem with an approved budget but no discernible work in progress save for council officers asking a cohort of flood prone residents how often they could tolerate being flooded out while the flood risk goes largely unmitigated relative to risk.
• Then there is the city’s parking fiasco where council has been found liable for all costs the extent of which is unknown as is the ensuing liability to be borne by ratepayers. The city’s longstanding parking problems have been front and centre for a long time but was never likely to be resolved in time of the executive management given that parking fines and fees are a ‘nice little earner’ to fund managerial follies and salaries. However, as they say the buck does not land lightly in passing on a desk before it lands somewhere else.
• Then there is executive management's disposition to use SECTION 62/2 of the Local Govt Act to circumvent accountability and transparency.
Sadly, the current fear is that, yet another self-satisfied ill equipped managerial appointment will be made to fill the GM/CEO hole. Yes, yet another CEO with no respect for local government democracy and those elected to make sure it operates in the best interest of the community. Time will tell!
Is it any wonder that there are 'concerned citizens' who wish to kick back or that people in Launceston want somebody 'civic management' who is prepared to tell them how the council really operates and how it might be improved.
The Apple Inc. motto goes ... "Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." But for this to mean anything the status quo needs to be insufficient!
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