Mayor to call for release of documentsLatrobe City Mayor, Councillor Brendan Jenkins, will call for the release of all documents By Latrobe City Council - 3rd December 2001 - Back to News Latrobe City Mayor, Councillor Brendan Jenkins, will call for the release of all documents relating to the sale of the Kernot Hall offices to the TAFE College by the Commissioner run Council.
Councillor Jenkins said the documents should be released so that the community could find out once and for all the circumstances behind the sale. "There have been several claims that all was above board, that normal procedures were followed and the Commissioners had no option but to sell the Kernot Hall offices to TAFE; but let us demonstrate once and for all whether or not this is correct," Cr Jenkins said.
"The Kernot Hall offices were sold to TAFE by the Commissioner run Council without community consultation and without any pre-existing legal necessity for them to sell the complex. The revenue raised from the sale was used for amalgamation, consolidation and relocation expenses incurred in moving staff and service provision to Traralgon.
"I am calling on Council to set the record straight through the release of all the Commissioner run Council documents pertaining to the sale. This will negate a continued campaign of misinformation which some seem keen to peddle," Cr Jenkins said.
"Particularly galling, as will be revealed in the documents, is that the Commissioner run Council appears to have deliberately avoided public consultation. It appears the Commissioner run Council sought through their solicitors to avoid the public notice requirements to advertise the sale, out of concern for ‘public response’. It is obvious to me that they knew the public would be totally opposed and acted anyway.
"Numerous correspondence items also show that some former government and local coalition members either supported or facilitated the sale," Cr Jenkins said.
Councillor Jenkins said the correspondence he would call for to be released included:
- Copies of the lease between the City of Morwell and TAFE which indicate :-
a) That TAFE had been given no option to buy the Kernot Hall Complex.
b) That TAFE paid in excess of $140,000 in rent per annum and not a peppercorn rent as had been claimed.
- Council’s financial reports for 95/96, which prove that far in excess of a half-million dollars of the sale proceeds of the Kernot Hall Complex was spent on refurbishing and upgrading the Traralgon offices, Library and Kath Teychenne Centre, and the rest went in covering "other transitional costs of employee redundancies and expenses of centralising the Council’s activities" in Traralgon.
- Official correspondence from solicitors acting on behalf of the Commissioner run Council sought to obtain advice on whether any section of the Local Government Act applied, which would allow the Commissioner run Council to dispense with the requirement to give public notice to sell the Kernot Hall Complex; and that further the Commissioner run Council sought to dispose with the public notice out of their concern that "public response may ultimately prejudice the sale, and possibly, cause the TAFE to move from the property it is unable to purchase".
- Numerous items of correspondence and media releases which involve local coalition members, Peter Hall and Philip Davis, as well as the then Minister for Planning and Minister for Training & Further Education and the National Party Leader and Deputy Premier Pat McNamara, either in facilitating, or supporting or ‘expediting’ the transfer of the Kernot Hall Complex to TAFE.
- Letters from the Chairman of Commissioners that advised the Government that the Kernot Hall Complex was being sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars "below the original development and current replacement costs".
- A report on future development proposals from TAFE in 1995 which clearly indicates that they had no "long term security of tenure of the existing facilities" and they had "no guarantee of security beyond their lease agreement".
Council will consider Cr Jenkin’s motion at Monday’s Council meeting.
Source: www.gippsland.com Published by: latrobecity@gippslander.com
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