Perth Voice Interactive

Give it back
A SMALL discount on tickets to the WA Ballet for City of Perth staff is one thing, but 54 tickets for elected members is ridiculous (“Tickets on themselves,” Voice, August 15, 2015).
If ratepayers are footing the bill then sponsorship deals should be giving back to the local community. How about donating those tickets to a local NGO or community group for a fundraiser instead of providing elected members free outings? In this age of entitlement the City of Vincent’s Mayor Carey’s local government transparency reforms are sorely needed and so much more.
Jonathan Hallett
Stirling St, Perth

Biased agenda
THE absolute bias towards Vincent and one City of Perth councillor is so apparent in your paper it is very clear what the Voice’s agenda is.
Not only is there complete bias, in your most recent article “Tickets on themselves” (August 15, 2015) you actually had the balance of the story, the actual facts, all too neatly presented on page 2.
Why not continue the article with all the facts on Page 1?
It is clear to see why Nick Catania as the former Mayor of Vincent banned your paper in past years and while the City of Perth accepts freedom of speech and no doubt sees through your bias weekly as this reader does.
The reality is you are so out of touch with your views you should aim towards saving paper and run a smaller print run by not delivering any news to city residents because you are clearly not telling them the news as they should justly hear it.
You continue to pander to one councillor and therefore a minority view. Your journalistic ethics are beyond questionable. Ironically the one councillor that voted for the issue in question was actually speaking against it anyway.
Charles Hemmingworth
East Perth
The Ed says: Thanks Charlie. The facts speak for themselves: Perth city councillors are making decisions on sponsorships from which they are directly benefiting (and staff are making recommendations, from which they also stand to directly benefit), with extremely generous freebies and discounts. We’ll leave it to readers to ponder.

Prudence is dear
I WOULD like to answer the question posed in Ms Saunders’ letter in the Voice on Saturday August 8 about whether Vincent council appointing a consultant to conduct the CEO’s performance review represents prudent financial management.
In short, yes, because prudent financial management is about making careful and informed decisions with an eye to the future, and that’s what council has done.
It’s important to understand that a council can only appoint and review the performance of one person in the organisation — the CEO. That position is then responsible for managing the affairs of the local government as a whole, so appointing the right person and effectively reviewing their performance are critical decisions for any council to make.
In considering the size of our budget, our number of staff, the scale and complexity of our business, and the direction we’re trying to head in, spending $9750 on a consultant to assist Council in conducting the CEO’s annual performance review was seen as a sound investment in the future of our organisation.
Typically, expenditure of this amount through a quotation exercise would not even be presented to Council, but in the public interest and for full disclosure a report was presented on 30 June, which included a summary of the offerings from each of the four companies that submitted a quotation to conduct the review, along with commentary on each proposal.
To quote the Voice (July 23, 2015) in referring to Council’s appointed consultant: “While its cost is higher it promised a senior reviewer and provided a massively longer list of what it does for the money: along with a thorough review it’ll develop a personal development plan and performance objectives for the next year”.
John Carey
Mayor of Vincent

Tighten travel
AT the beginning of every financial year, the City of Bayswater just decides to allow any of its councillors, or the mayor to attend whatever conferences they wish to, at the expense of the ratepayers.
This is done out of sight and sound of the public gallery.
The only clue to conference attendance is when councillors file for leave of absence, although this can be for other reasons.
Currently they spend up to $90,000 per year of ratepayers’ money on trips to conferences, including trips interstate and even to New Zealand, and yet never disclose who went where and for what purpose. There is also no mention of the need for such travel, nor of the subsequent benefit to Bayswater of attending the conference.
The ten councillors each have a $7500 per year allowance for these trips, and the mayor has $15,000.
They can take their spouses with them, and often extend their stay to catch up with family and friends, with no justification for the trips made available to ratepayers.
All travel to conferences etc., should be advertised for ratepayers to see.
These advertisements should also state the justification for the travel, and the benefit to the community.  They should also include the total cost of the trip.
In these hard times, and in the light of recent travel rorts by federal politicians, we need, and indeed should demand, transparency from our local government.
Tony Green
Belfast St, Morley