ACCUSATIONS of unlawful dealings in the Brimbank Council leadership faction and a lack of transparency within the council concluded a long and heated discussion at Tuesday’s ordinary council meeting.
Councillors Costas Socratous, Troy Atanasovski and Margaret Giudice have scoffed at former mayor Natalie Suleyman’s claims of transparency of process and called on the community to support the Sydenham Soccer Club in its bid to keep its home.
Cr Socratous has made a public plea for sporting groups and clubs not to submit expressions of interest for allocation of the Keilor Lodge Reserve.
“I intend to put a notice of motion, asking to abolish the advisory assessment group for the reserves policy,” Cr Socratous said.
“This policy, and this committee, hasn’t gone in consultation with the people, it is affecting the clubs, it will affect all the clubs, it is making them fight. The council is bringing the community in conflict, just like they wanted. Right now, I am asking all the clubs not to apply for the Sydenham club ground, to respect the club because the policy is affecting all of them and what happens to Sydenham is going to happen to all of them.
“Please respect this club, respect them and all the hard work they’ve done.”
Cr Socratous said he believed the advisory committee and subsequent policies adopted by the council were unlawful.
“The committee that assessed that (expression of interest by clubs for Balmoral Park), how can you say that is right – Kelly was on apologies, so you have three councillors and two officers,” he said.
“This committee, they appointed themselves.
“When they come into council (Tuesday night), they have already made a decision about the park.
“This decision is made before we voted about the policy. I believe for sure, that these councillors affected the two officers on their decision and if they acted before the policy went through, then this is illegal. I did not vote for the Balmoral Park; I see the report about the allocation at four o’clock that afternoon, before we vote.”
Asked why he did not participate in the nomination of the advisory committee at the in-camera meeting the previous week, Cr Socratous said: “I did not think this is right, to go behind closed doors; to me everything was set up, it was not how it should be done.”
Crs Giudice and Atanasovski agreed with Cr Socratous’ assessment of the policy adoption and his plea to other clubs to leave Keilor Lodge Park alone. “As far as I am concerned, the policy did not get adopted officially until the other night, after my rescission was heard,” Cr Giudice said.
“So I believe that council has used the policy before being adopted.
“Therefore, if they wanted to apply the policy for the EOI to Balmoral Park, they should have waited until the policy was adopted, or not refer to the policy in the resolution.”
