page22

Not so subtle methods were also employed at council meetings. This is an accurate transcript of a part of one particular meeting. It was the last council meeting before Christmas in 2008. It shows an almost contemptuous disregard by Cr Duncan-Strelec to a directive by the mayor.

Cr Duncan Strelec: "Just there is no mistake that I'm asking questions then speaking against the motion through you, just to let Cr Sawyer know."
Cr Sawer: "Point of order."
Cr Gould: (To Cr Duncan-Strelec) "No I think …no that was totally um… just get on with it… anyway please..."
Cr Duncan Strelec: "Well I don't Madam Mayor anyway you can rule on it."
Cr Sawyer: Point of order (asking Cr Duncan-Strelec to withdraw the initial remark)Mayor Gould: "Will you please… you have been asked to withdraw."
Cr Duncan-Strelec: "And I am not going to Madam Mayor…. The questions I have to ask..."
Cr Sawyer: "Point of order."
Cr Gould: "I'm asking you Cr Duncan Strelec …"
Cr Duncan Strelec: "And I have said no Madam Mayor… (LONG PAUSE)Now Madam Mayor if I can get on with the business at hand the questions I have to ask…"Pause
Mayor Gould: "One moment please."
Cr Duncan-Strelec: "Well while you're looking up your code of meeting practice…. With regard to item three the playground upgrade…."

You can imagine if the shoe was on the other foot Cr Duncan-Strelec would have had you before the conduct committee. For such impertinence one would have borne the full wrath of Duncan-Strelec. This was pure unadulterated bullying.

Whether Cr Gould was aware of the prognosis following her surgery when Glachan paid her a visit we don't know. Cr Gould was diagnosed with cancer. It would have been a traumatic experience; chemotherapy is an arduous treatment. However so far Cr Gould has been able to continue on with her job despite side effects that chemotherapy imposes.

It didn't stop Cr Duncan-Strelec from putting the boot in. After her return from Alaska she was reinvigorated and ready to bring their plan to its conclusion. In the space of a few days she was on Steve Block's show on two consecutive days - as well as the front cover, and most of page three of the Xpress. It was all about Mayor Gould's trip to Albury's sister city in Nanping, China , being a waste of $23,000. Obviously the Duncan- Strelec camp thought the Nanping trip had a lot of traction with the ratepayers of Albury, and they would turn on Gould. Indeed Borderline has been critical of the trip also. The trouble is that Duncan-Strelec's tirades against Mayor Gould were exercises in pure hypocrisy.

It's not hard to see why. When you compare the $23,000 with other activities and mismanagement or should we say maladministration, but we won't concern ourselves with that. There have been plenty of snouts in the trough at Albury City Council. The $23,000 could be considered loose change when it comes to all the other dodgy junkets and favours enjoyed by councillors and staff. Duncan-Strelec herself is a recipient of the largesse of Albury City Council owing tens of thousands of dollars that has been accruing over two years. In the following months, a year will have passed since her second deferment. During the last deferment, Dunlec Ltd (The Stelec Family Trust) agreed to pay $14,980 for the first 5 lots already sold. Dunlec only did this as there were other issues around, like Amanda's request for leave of absence to go to Alaska, and the media had got wind of Dunlec's seemingly favoured treatment by Albury City Council with a bank guarantee for the deferred payment of $38,772. Interest free. The bank guarantee that still remains in place till December 17 this year will have to be reconciled sooner or later. Perhaps she has another interest free deferment in mind. With Dunlec's recent parcels of land unsuccessfully going under the auctioneers hammer and now in possession of the mortgagor, the Bank of Queensland, you could probably be forgiven if this guarantee is now null and void.

Cr Duncan-Strelec, we think, is far from being in a position to start throwing stones. Even the amount that she owns dwarfs other amounts that have vanished into the ether and has been hidden in dubious accounting practices. What about the $6 million Albury City Council lost when Grange Securities went bust? At best it seems two cents in the dollar might be recoverable. Cr Duncan-Strelec even props up her argument with a rather dodgy bit of analysis of Chinese foreign affairs, when she told the Xpress that "At the time of global recession even China is cancelling sister city relationships with other countries due to the expense and the fact that they receive very little benefit from these associations in the way of trade or tourism."

Amanda's been getting away with these types of analytical claptrap for years. It's most effective and for the most part goes unchallenged. We don't know where she got that information from. It's not China that goes cap in hand to foreign countries asking for sister city relationships. From Alaska to Africa, they're all going to China trying to fire up sister city arrangements. For Cr Duncan-Strelec to evaluate Chinese sister city's relations in terms of trade and tourism is an extraordinarily naïve understanding of how China operates with the rest of the world.

By this time others had been brought into the plan to oust Gould, although whether they realised they were being drawn into the grand design of ousting Cr Gould once and for all is hard to say. However, wittingly or unwittingly they all had a part in the plan.

Cr Bob Angus's part in the scheme and his public pronouncements are unequalled in treachery and mendacity. Angus was number two on Cr Gould's ticket and there can be no denying that Cr Angus obtained his position on council on the coat tails of Cr Gould. Mr Angus is a Christian Pastor, a midlife career redirection, after he resigned from the council because of health reasons after fifteen or so years in the rates department. Cr Angus must be well versed in acts of betrayal the bible is full of them. That's the trouble with Councillor Angus, it's sometimes difficult to know which side of the counter he's on. It started early when he sought advice from some officers of the council on who would be the best choice 'they could work with' when he was deliberating on who he should vote for to be Deputy Mayor. He was naive enough to boast to another councillor that he had done so. Cr Angus's inability to differentiate between the executive and elected officials must surely question his competence to be on Albury City Council.

What must be particularly galling to Cr Gould are Cr Angus's public statements that indicate his complicity in her intended downfall. The sheer two-faced nature of his public justification for turning on Cr Gould almost makes one cringe. In the Midweek Xpress on September 2, he seemed to be almost making a public justification for his betrayal. It was more a public display Cr Angus's sense of ethical behaviour than anything else. He's very good on public pronouncements on morality. Denunciations of such obvious targets as strip joints are easy when he knows the outcome is out of his hands. Would Cr Angus put his hand into his own pocket if he was so morally outraged against the establishment of the strip joint he railed against? Not likely. The most contemptible quote that Cr Angus offered to the editor David Johnson in the same article was that, amongst other things, Cr Angus considered himself the 'meat in the sandwich' and that 'he made it very clear that once I was elected I would be my own person'. Once I was elected….? Cr Angus got 39 votes. A premature statement if ever there was one. Cr Gould got 1,463 personal votes. Borderline is reliably informed that Cr Angus went and saw Cr Gould to tell her she didn't have the numbers. He was telling people long before this he wasn't going to support Cr Gould anyhow. That's why he said he would like Cr Gould to nominate another candidate, Alice Glachan. Cr Angus doesn't like confrontation, or controversy, and it's obvious why. He said in the same article 'There was no deal done along those lines (supporting Cr Gould) and I would probably vote for Alice if Alice decided to stand.' That's why he doesn't want Cr Gould to stand. If Cr Gould doesn't stand, he will think that his actions were justified.

There's a lot in the bible about telling lies, such as Proverbs 6:19, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. You see in the true sense of the word there wasn't a deal done not with Cr Gould, because he had made a deal with Cr Glachan. All this business was just a subterfuge, a smokescreen, because Cr Angus knew well beforehand that Cr Glachan would be standing for mayor and weeks before he publicly stated "If Alice was to stand".

Perhaps Cr Angus believes there's some spiritual dispensation when you bend the truth a bit in the political process. Perhaps God's view on the matter 'It's only the cut and thrust of the politics," would mean that in the sight of God he can lie through his teeth on all matters because it's politics. Sometimes self justification plays tricks on the mind.

Cr Betteridge really dropped his bundle when he came out in the Border Mail to support Cr Glachan. "My position is to support a person who would be best mayor for Albury and I believe Alice would be that person," he said. "She would be a good leader and a team player who would bring everyone in and not exclude anyone," he told Howard Jones on August 28. I think the good councillor has been nobbled, as he confirmed that Cr Betteridge's philosophy of slow reform is best under a good leader and a team player.

If she was such a good team player and leader, why hasn't she got Liberal pre-selection? She's had enough goes at it. Even with her mother's attempts at persuasion she seems to have made little headway. She even tried to get the seat held by Tilley over Wodonga way. A good leader can only be expressed in this instance in biblical terms (sorry Angus), as a good shepherd leading the flock. Unfortunately the flock of sheep analogy is entirely appropriate. There's only one way of doing things and that's the Glachan way. Why else would Glachan propose at a council meeting on the August 24 that 'this time only' the mayor could make the decision about who went on the numerous junkets being offered to councillors instead of the decision being made in open Council. It meant the mayor could make the decision in private avoiding public scrutiny. Didn't Cr Duncan-Strelec have a motion successfully passed by Council that no councillor could go on a junket before it was agreed by a full meeting of Council? Glachan's 'this time only' will undoubtedly become a more permanent way of solving what has become a bit of an embarrassment.

After all, it's the traditional Albury way. The behind closed doors way. We can expect more of the same once Cr Glachan is mayor. Already decisions made 'this time only' will see representatives of council having winged or winging their way to Kalgoorlie, Darwin, Sydney and Coolum. Coolum, is a beach side resort is in Queensland. Representing Albury City Council at the the Australian Mayoral Aviation Council's 27h Annual Conference and AGM last week (September 2-4) held at Coolum was none other than Cr Duncan-Strelec. The councillor who railed against all these 'junkets' and proposed the motion in the first place!

Now if that's not hypocrisy then what is and the expense. You wouldn't get much change out of $15-20 thousand dollars for all these nice little junkets.

In order to assure Alice Glachan the mayor's job there a deal has had to be done on the position of deputy mayor. Borderline had been reliably informed that Henk van de Ven staked his claim to that position sometime ago, although some councillors apparently find a Glachan /Van de Ven combination unacceptable. Two strident, self-righteous people might not be acceptable to the public either. No doubt Crs Duncan-Strelec and Glachan were mindful of that and so it was decided that Neville Hull would make a suitably compliant deputy mayor. Hull's ability to sit on the fence in the first term of his office is renowned. Occasionally he will have something to say usually something to do with law and order. Law and order is like attacking strip joints: you're on a good thing. Hull came up with a harebrained scheme for the council to offer a couple of thousand to people to dob in a vandal. Like a lot of things, it doesn't seem as if Cr Hull thought this one through. You throw the rock and I'll claim the prize.

It is interesting to note that the Summers/Hull website lists the numerous initiatives he and his team would pursue during their term of office, such as making Albury Australia's first digital city and making Albury a TOP 50 place to live. One can't be sure what they mean, whether Albury was to be one of the top places in the world or one of the top places to live in the southern hemisphere, or whether they have more modest places to compare Albury to… That's the trouble: when you keep up your website you can tick off any attempt by the candidate to work on this wish list. The current project being undertaken by Albury, Shaping Albury another talkfest, costing a bucket of money will apparently guide high-level decision making as Albury moves towards the year 2030. This seems to provide ample opportunity for Cr Hull to submit his ideas for making Albury Australia's first digital city and one of the top 50 places to live. Has he made a submission? We doubt it. That's the thing about promises; once they're made you just forget about them. I expect there might be some editing to the website soon to accommodate a more modest approach. Like deleting their promises entirely.

Hull's election as deputy mayor will be controversial because he has been shown to be rather fond of propagating rumours, then going into denial when the consequences become apparent. We are, of course, referring to the occasion he told Amanda that Philomena Sawyer was the source of a rumour that Amanda was having an extra-marital affair with a fellow councillor. After an enquiry dragging on for three months Cr Sawyer was found to have no case to answer. Cr Hull refused to discuss the matter with Mr Holme. It is in dispute what part Cr Hull's wife, Barbara, played in the scheme of things. It is generally considered she had some part in it, but wouldn't speak to Mr Holme either. She's done well on the gravy train, has Mrs Hull. Not that she's particularly obliged to the Labor Party whom she has prospered under. The elevation to deputy mayor would be a good way to raise the profile of both Hull and Barbara. Barbara apparently joined the Liberal Party eighteen months ago and rumour has it she is positioning herself to take Sussan Ley's seat in parliament should she retire. That's a good career move for Barbara, as she's got about as much as she can out of her Labor connections and can see the wind changing. Hulls and his wife seemed to have come out of the deal relatively unscathed. Or they think they do.

That Hull refused to talk to Mr Holme, Cr Sawyer and Cr Duncan-Strelec levelling a Code of Conduct violation at each other, not to mention Mr Holme's time at $350 an hour; one must seriously consider whether Cr Hull should be serving in any capacity on Albury City Council. For more background on Hull's act of malicious gossip and its aftermath follow this link.
http://borderlinealburywodonga.com/page11.html