Perth Voice Interactive

VINCENT mayor John Carey has publicly thanked former councillor Dudley Maier for his help bringing the budget deficit problems to light.

Last year the pair were looking like competitors, with Mr Maier considering running for mayor.

But at this week’s council meeting Mr Carey said “I want to thank the former Cr Dudley Maier who raised some of these issues and had done so in a constructive manner, and has assisted me as mayor in clarifying some of the issues.

“It does prove him right and I’m happy to say that on the public record.”

Before the last budget was passed Mr Maier had warned the council of consistently poor financial predictions the administration had given.

He presented a table showing that in each of the past five years, finance director Mike Rootsey had predicted a surplus, but each time they’d ended up millions in deficit.

Despite being warned about the trend the council had unanimously voted for the budget.

Mayor John Carey says he raised the issue with staff and Cr Josh Topelberg queried it at the budget meeting, but Mr Rootsey told them he was confident the council would be in surplus.

“I received that advice and I had to trust it,” Mr Carey says. He’s hoping new CEO Len Kosova will sort out the finances.

“We’ve got a new CEO Len who is driving that cultural change within the organisation, which we need,” Mr Carey says.

Mr Maier says it’s not the only financial problem that has confronted the council, noting a 2011 “mistake” over tipping fees that almost saw ratepayers overcharged $600,000.

“It is not just the director’s problem, although he has to take responsibility for his portfolio,” Mr Maier says.

Mr Rootsey is currently overseas.

The WA local government department picked up on problems during “routine monitoring,” and contacted mayor John Carey directly instead of routing concerns through the CEO, as it had done previously.

by DAVID BELL

AN opportunity to boost tourism in Maylands has backfired because Captain Cook Cruises is not guaranteed access to the jetty next to Tranby House.

Last year Bayswater city council and the WA government spent $247,000 restoring and modifying Tranby Jetty so larger commercial vessels and recreational boats could make regular stops at the 1839-built house on the Swan River foreshore.

At the time of approval, former councillor Sonia Turkington said the National Trust had struggled to attract visitors to Tranby and the cruise visits would be a tourism fillip.

Following WA government funding guidelines, council voted that priority should be given to recreational jetty users, but the Voice discovered Captain Cook is not allowed to moor there at all—its passengers can only embark and disembark.

“If a commercial vessel moors at the jetty it is unfortunately no longer accessible for recreational users, therefore mooring for commercial vessels is prohibited,” mayor Sylvan Albert says.

“The principal intention to replace the Tranby Jetty was to make it accessible for recreational boating users.”

Cooks’ CEO Pauline McAlinden says stops won’t be scheduled at Tranby until the company is guaranteed access.

“When leisure craft are moored at the jetty, there might not be enough space for our vessel,” she says.

“Part of the agreement was that leisure craft would be given priority, so it’s just your luck when you get there.

“We are thinking about a heritage-style cruise, so if that happens we will speak to council and see if we can get priority access for a specific time.”

Captain Cook ran cruises to the house before the jetty became too dilapidated.

The replacement of the Tranby Jetty was jointly funded by the WA government’s recreational boating facilities scheme and Bayswater council.

Tranby House, one of WA’s oldest settlement properties, is an historic farmer’s cottage located on Johnson Road.

It is is associated with a group of devout Wesleyan Methodists, led by Joseph Hardey and other members of his family who’d arrived in WA on the ship Tranby in February 1830.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

FORMER Vincent CEO John Giorgi apparently did not tell the elected council the WA local government department had been issuing him letters warning about finance problems.

The department had sent the council letters three times raising “questions regarding the city’s financial position and reporting discrepancies”.

Problems included a $3.2million deficit wrongly counted as a surplus, along with finance director Mike Rootsey’s consistently wrong predictions the budget would be balanced. For five years they were instead in deficit by millions.

Two of the warning letters were sent during Alannah MacTiernan’s term as mayor, but she says they weren’t passed to her.

“I am having records checked but I would have remembered if such letters had been raised with me,” Ms MacTiernan—now the federal Labor MP for Perth—says.

MacTiernan, Maier say elected council kept in the dark

“I find it astounding that the department did not alert the [elected] council to this problem. I had been seeking the department’s advice on the validity of senior officer contracts so they were aware I had concerns about the quality of advice I was receiving.”

Former councillor Dudley Maier sat on the audit committee and he also says the letters had never been raised.

“The fact that the previous CEO did not inform council of the [department’s] concerns and then did nothing to address the matter in the 2013/14 budget is mind boggling,” he says.

The department sent the council another letter in January this year with John Carey as mayor but, again, elected members weren’t told of the concerns.

The first that elected members heard about the correspondence was in July when the department wrote directly to Mr Carey instead of routing warnings through the executive.

The Voice contacted Mr Giorgi at his new job at Cambridge town council but we didn’t hear back.

by DAVID BELL

Perhaps it was the theme from Love Story, thought Perth Voice photographer Matthew Dwyer as he snapped a couple in a romantic embrace while Antonio Diaz busked. Diaz was in a philharmonic orchestra in Colombia and has only been in Australia for three weeks. While London was more profitable he’ll be sticking around a while to play some regular gigs.

FIRST it was browny orange, then it was grey, now the Beaufort Street sign has a new pastel skin.

The Voice returned to nearby workers Emma Sim and Claire Whitecross from Envy Beautician for an updated opinion on the new paintjob.

They’d called the last design “hideous” and said it had been attracting a lot of talk among locals “but not in a positive way”. This one they give two thumbs up.

Ms Whitecross had said at the time that the sign should be more colourful to fit in with the other bright murals in the area, and she’s happy to see more colour in the work.

Leederville council critic Debbie Saunders again asked the council how much the year-long saga has cost ratepayers, after the council fell out with original contractor Bremick. Mayor John Carey says with the work being finished the final figures will soon be available.

Artist Drew Straker beside his laneway art in Highgate, in between St Michael’s restaurant and Orno Interiors on Beaufort Street. The laneway-pimping is part of a series of initiatives by the Beaufort Street Network and Vincent city council to jazz up the area.