Melbourne (Australia)
Lord Mayor Caught red-handed lying. Mayor also guilty of using ratepayer's
funds for personal vendettas. It's not often that a highly regarded Lord Mayor can be caught out
red-handed for dishonesty, but this is exactly what's happened in the Melbourne
municipality of Manningham.
For several years, bureaucrats at the council have been waging a war
of attrition against local resident and corruption whistleblower Raymond
Hoser. It started after Hoser wrote about a corrupt bureaucrat at
the council in his best selling book "Victoria
Police Corruption - 2".
The bureaucrat, Mike Clark was forced out of legal proceedings way
back in 1995 when it was shown by another witness for the same side in
the same case (Sergeant Michael Porteglou) that Clark had committed perjury
in a sined statement made in 1994.
To cut a long story short, the Mayor of Manningham and several others
at the council wrongly charged Hoser for several dog-related offences (as
in wandering and attacking).
The charges were fabricated and it appears (in the first instance)
to be a case of mistaken identity (at best) or deliberate mistaken identity
at worst.
Anyway, the charges were laid long after the relevant dog had died,
although Mayor Pat Young and the others at the council didn't know this
at the time.
They simply wanted to inflict pain and suffering on the Hoser family
and the children and so wanted to launch proceedings with the inevitable
end result being a court order to have the dog killed.
The summonses were issued on 26 July this year (2004). The next
day, Hoser phoned Lord Mayor Pat Young and she undertook (several times)
to drop the charges if the dog was dead.
Hoser sent through the vet certificate.
That Hoser thought was the end of the matter.
It wasn't so.
Seeking to pursue the vendetta further, Pat Young instead got one of
her paid army of bureaucrats to send Hoser's family a letter saying that
she'd never made such an undertaking and that Hoser had lied by claiming
she had. She went on to say that the charges would be pursued.
This was clearly with the aim of inflicting maximum damage to the Hoser
family.
Obviously she was hoping that her word as a Lord Mayor would carry
more credibility than that of Hoser, whom she could denounce as a disgruntled
and "accused" ratepayer.
However, having been victim of such capers before, Hoser had pre-emptively
taped the phone call, hoping that for a change, Pat Young would have stuck
to her word and told the truth.
As Pat Young has held herself up as a person of honesty to be trusted
as Lord Mayor, it is a serious breach of public trust for her to lie both
to a ratepayer and about that ratepayer to other persons including several
important staff members at the council.
The ratepayer (Hoser) has therefore been seriously defamed as a result
of Pat Young's false denials.
Council's own documents (e.g. a letter sent on 26 August) shows that
since Pat Young made the false denial of the undertaking made in the phone
conversation, she has blown nearly $2000 of ratepayer's money pursuing
the charges as a vendetta against the Hoser family.
So that there is no doubt as to the fact that Pat Young has lied, we
have placed a copy of the sound file of the phone conversation on the internet
at:
http://www.smuggled.com/Pyoung1.wav and other servers,
and the letter denying the undertaking to drop the charges at:
http://www.smuggled.com/PatYou1.htm and other servers.
It is suggested that these both be archived by people keen to have
clear-cut examples of malfeasance in public office by senior public officials.
Hopefully such dishonest behaviour by elected Lord Mayors won't be so common
place in the future if it becomes known that such dishonesty may be publicly
exposed.
(Disclosure: in 2003, the Manningham Council refused to issue a permit
to allow Hoser to clear overgrown weeds from their property. The
matter went to VCAT (a court/tribunal) where the presiding judge directed
that weeds be removed as originally sought by Hoser. Manningham cost
both Hoser and ratepayers many thousands of dollars in their efforts to
destroy the amenity of the local environment through legal costs incurred
by both sides).
Stop press: Update 2007 - Manningham Council people have recently stopped the following: a $5000 environmental education project for all schools in the municipality, a $5000 illegal drugs prevention program for all local schools, $5000 towards removing environmental weeds from the region (Municipality), $5,000 to stop mortality of Koalas in local parks, council staff citing "lack of funds" and said they'd also close down a Warrandyte Child Care centre, due to a $5000 shortfall, total amount of the preceding amounts being $25,000. Meanwhile the Barrister representing council in the Hoser matter, Terry Brabham, of Macquarie Lawyers, claimed in late 2005 in the Ringwood magistrate's court his own legal costs of $30,000, none of which was ever recovered, and noted higher council costs to pursue the prosecution. One of the alleged victims of the Hoser dog (a white Akita) said that he'd been badgered to pursue the matter against Hoser, even though the dog that attacked him was a brown German Sheppard ... a totally different breed. The dog matter/s is in the County Court and the Council's Barrister, Mr Terry Brabham says the council expects to spend at least $80,000 prosecuting Hoser, most of which all will never be recoverable. As the hearing in the County Court is a Hearing denovo, the money spent in the magistrate's cost is irrevocably lost (over $30,000 of ratepayer's funds spent on Pat Young's private vendetta). In a letter to a constituent (Meg Downie), CEO John Bennie said he had no regard for the money being spent to pursue Hoser and that he said council was entitled to spend the money to teach Hoser a lesson (words to that effect). The new mayor Ron Kitchingham was elected into council only as a result of illegal actions by Pat Young and/or others in the lead up to the last council election, including illegal media releses by council that defamed rival candidate Raymond Hoser. Kitchingham is an ally of Pat Young, also having needed her preferences to be voted onto council in the first instance.
As he is beholden to Pat Young for his place in the council, he supports his immediate predecessor Pat Young in their illegal spending of what at this stage will end up being up to $110,000 of ratepayers funds to fund their ongoing vendetta against the coruption whistleblower Raymond Hoser.
This release is posted at:
http://www.smuggled.com/medre160.htm and mirror sites in the interests of honesty in government in Australia.
Further inquiries can be made to Whistleblowers Australia, Victorian
Media Unit at:
0412 777 211 or to
XXX SEE NEW ADDRESS AT FOOT OF THIS PAGE XXX
(e-mails not answered within a week should be deemed not received).