By XAVIER SMERDON
WYNDHAM Council has become embroiled in a public stoush, with the deputy mayor launching an unprecedented attack upon Mayor Kim McAliney.
Following a rowdy council meeting last week in which about 200 angry residents gave the council a piece of their minds, deputy mayor Glenn Goodfellow sent out a media release slamming Mayor McAliney.
The residents, whose rates have risen by 100 to 400 per cent, started shouting and calling for the councillors resignations after they were told questions they submitted would be taken on notice and answered at a later date before police were called in to monitor the situation.
In the media release Cr Goodfellow blames the mayor for the meeting getting out of control.
“The mayor simply lost control of the meeting, and it should never had reached the point as the residents had every right to ask their questions, and the mayor should have advised them immediately of the best forum for this to occur,” Cr Goodfellow said in the media release.
“The escalation of the issue was caused by poor communication to the residents by the mayor at the beginning of meeting, the residents had genuine concerns and were essentially told that these would not be addressed.”
The media release also stated that “the meeting descended into (a) farce, as the mayor lost control of the meeting as tempers rose”.
An original, unedited form of the media release was sent to Star by mistake with comments by Cr Goodfellow to his advisor included at the bottom of an email.
“I have changed it a bit I would like to remove those in RED if we make these changes I will be happy (I still have to work with her),” Cr Goodfellow said in the email.
The edited version of the media release removed some of the direct comments about Cr McAliney.
Cr Goodfellow also revealed that Wyndham Council CEO Kerry Thompson was responsible for calling the police to the meeting and that in his view “the meeting was handled very poorly by council”.
Cr McAliney was not aware of the media release until she was contacted by Star and said she was “completely surprised” by Cr Goodfellow’s comments.
“I am surprised that Cr Goodfellow has criticised the actions taken by the council on Monday night for two reasons,” Cr McAliney said
“Cr Goodfellow is a member of the council and deputy mayor and is therefore part of the council.
“Cr Goodfellow was supportive of these actions as they occurred on the night.”
Cr McAliney said that comments by her deputy that he had been “advocating for years that council should work with the State Government to ensure that ratepayers are protected from these massive increases in their rates at the point of re-zoning” were contradictory to his actions.
“Cr Goodfellow was part of the budget creation and at no time did he raise the issue of rate increases or of the impact of the Urban Growth Boundary on ratepayers,” she said.
“At no time did he (Cr Goodfellow) advocate for change in the legislation governing evaluations, changes to rating or the impact in changes to the Urban Growth Boundary on ratepayers.”
In a late twist, Cr Goodfellow back away from his comments and issued another press release on Friday: “Upon reflection, I have decided to withdraw and retract all comments attributed to me.
“My decision to withdraw these comments is that they were made without proper consultation with the council, and upon this consultation, I have now formed the view that the council, and its representatives, acted appropriately at the public meeting held on 27 August.”
A public meeting was held Monday night in order for residents to receive answers to their questions while council elections will be held in October this year.
