See also
Storm in a cup of tea – Ombudsman’s contribution to a saga involving Cr Walkom — Bittar 2014.07.05
Misleading CEO report against councillor — Cr Walkom, 2014.04.04
The Islander of 2014.02.06 has published a front-page article, “Councillor ordered to apologise over email“, by journalist Shauna Black.
My objective here is not to discuss the correctness or the fairness of this article, but to clarify where Kipolis.net stands on a matter of principle, while referencing parts of the particular story.
On 2013.09.22 Cr Walkom submitted to KIpolis.net a post, “Council opts for handouts rather than fixing roads“. It was a response to an article by Ms Black (The Islander of 2013.09.19), where she gave coverage to organisations pleading for continuance of council’s grants to them, as opposed to council redirecting the moneys to fixing dirt roads which had been severely damaged by winter rains, causing havoc to residents and businesses situated along these.
It was not surprising that those organisations in question, rather than the unorganised constituents suffering from damaged and unserviceable roads, won the resources allocation game.
But then the game took on a new twist, taking all the appearance of a political weapon used by the council majority in an attempt to censure and silence Cr Walkom.
At the end of her latest article reporting the outcome of this matter, Ms Shauna mentions that “(…) the council resolved that Cr Walkom issue a public apology within two months of the meeting and remove all postings on social media relevant to the offence and replace them with an apology.”
It should be noticed that, contrary to this article in The Islander, the post published on KIpolis did not name any individual or organisation. It was a short societal analysis of a problematic situation in the community, with serious social and economic impact for those affected. Cr Walkom wrote in his vernacular, but he did not go over the top. He was and still is entitled to his opinion, and many on the island share it. Accordingly it was worth of being published on Kipolis.
It should also be noted that, unlike The Islander with Ms Black’s front-page story, KIpolis made no financial benefit from publishing Mr Walkom’s contribution.
Considering that the KIpolis post satisfies this site’s basic rules and is of interest to the community, it remains uploaded. Council’s request that Mr Walkom remove his comments on social media, if it does really include KIpolis, is an abuse of power and not in the interests of community discussion and debate. It is beneficiary to a healthy Kangaroo Island community that KIpolis remains what it is: a very modest yet complementary tool for circulating valuable information.
Dr Gabriel Bittar, webmaster Kipolis.net
PS By the way, journalist Shauna Black is ALSO a Council employee, in charge of… roads repairs and improvements. I don’t know of her qualifications for the job, but that makes a curious mix, particularly considering that she loves to create negative stories about the opposition in Council ! The Council CEO is playing a dubious game here.
Dear Webmaster,
The manner in which this article was reported in the Islander is both disappointing and inaccurate as to my role to cause XXX XXX to write to the Council.
In fact, I was surprised to receive an email from Mr XXX on Friday, 6 September 2013 (5 days before the scheduled Council meeting) urging Councillors not to support my ‘Notice of Motion’ contained in the meeting agenda, even though it was not available to the public at that time. Councillors under the Local Government Act are required to remain open minded on matters before the Council and act at all times in the interest of the community, and not provide favour to any individuals and groups.
My motion moved at the September, 2013 Council meeting was to defer the decisions on committing Council expenditure on further Community Infrastructure Grants pending a report on the costs of repairing the damaged roads, in order for Council to make an informed and responsible decision in the best interests of our community, and it was never intended to take away the funding for community projects as reported in the Islander.
Cr Ken Liu
Gabriel, I believe this letter to The Islander, published 26th Sept. 2013, is relevant to your message on KIpolis. Regards. Shirley Knight
I read with dismay the article in The Islander this week [2013.09.19] written by former editor Shauna Black which highlights the dysfunction of our council and it is time we took this dysfunction seriously. Shauna did not attend the meeting so with whom was she relying upon for her sources? Shauna appears not to have checked out or understood thoroughly the difference between the words diverted and suspend. In the interest of balance, a chat with Cr Liu would have provided her with the intentions and objectives of Cr walkom’s letter which underpinned Cr Liu’s putting of the motion to suspend the grants.
Cr Liu’s motion [was] that the council should consider suspending (suspending not diverting), [that] the council should consider deferring (temporarily – not diverting) the $150,000 grant money, in order to use it for purposes of getting those affected by flooding out of trouble.
Were the CEO, and Councillors putting the interests of those people receiving the grants before the interest of those affected by the flooding?
The two councillors Liu and Walkom were not diminishing the total grant programme at that time and this should have been acknowledged by the CEO and those councillors who voted against the motion of Cr Liu.
As I see it this whole article was concocted to put Crs Walkom and Liu in a bad light. Fortunately, as far as most in the community and those affected would see it, the benefit of beginning the task of making good the damage to roads would, I believe, outweigh the temporary inconvenience of the grantees.
I thoroughly support Crs. Walkom and Liu in this matter, as well as the very important points made by Gabriel Bittar and Shirley Knight.
Could it be that Shauna Black has biased opinions? Surely not. Would she not consider that the role of a journalist is to ethically report events and information in a balanced manner? Or am I too much in the “old school” of journalistic standards?
I do not feel Cr. Walkom should have to publicly apologize for the alleged demeaning email. It was apparently a personal letter not public, expressing in a non-sugarcoated way that Cr Walkom wasn’t unaware island groups were inconsiderate of dire needs of others.
Mr XXX, himself, must have forgotten about “the monkey who peed in
the sea” adage when he cited that $150K would be of little help for road repairs.
What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
Why do people grumble about Council debts and poor roads, and then
seek these grants from the overdrawn council? What does that say ?
This debacle arose because two councillors appealed to groups to
consider the flood damaged road repairs.
To me this is yet another orchestrated witch-hunt to discredit Cr.Walkom.
I believe we need more councilors like Crs Liu and Walkom who
represent all ratepayers and do not favor certain groups.
Linda Davis
Cygnet River
(published in The Islander 2014.02.13]
Letter to Barbara Sibley, editor of The Islander, for publication on 2014.02.13
I respond to the editorial written by Shauna Black in last week’s [2014.02.06] Islander.
My letter on this subject was published by The Islander 26th September, 2013. In the interests of space read it on the community website at http://www.kangaroo-island.org [webmaster: it’s on this very page, as 2nd comment].
As Shauna [Black] is persisting with not providing your readers with the facts:
1. Your editorial this week was somewhat cryptic; why Shauna do you persist in ignoring the content in my past letter showing the facts as I observed them at the council meeting in question, at which you were not present ? Was it in order to placate the Council with whom you have or had a working relationship? What is the value of an editorial if you do not name the people of whom you are describing? You have the skills to do this in a politically correct manner. The community needs to know these things.
2. As an aging member of the community I wonder what all the fuss is about and wonder why we are spending ratepayer’s money seeking LGA Governance Panel to put Graham Walkom down. With respect Mr and Mrs May I believe we should all move with the times and the offending words to you are simply the current vernacular for the acceptable “pee” in my strict upbringing. Just change the spelling from “pee” to “piss”. I wonder if you were at the Parndana meeting last April when the whole council including CEO Boardman utterly insulted me blackening my name with an outrageous “blatantly scurrilous” and a “scaremonger.” Before I got up to leave Cr Denholm, Cr Clements and Wilson repeated the accusations. Please look up the Council code of conduct for ratepayers and see how many codes the council breached. The Mayor who should have shown the councillors and CEO how to behave sat silent whilst I tried to make myself as present. She would have none of it. See the community website noted above for the full story. So far the council has got off scot free.
Graham Walkom only quoted what somebody else said. I rest my case.
Shirley Knight PO Box 658 Penneshaw.
The attempts by members of the KI Council to curtail freedom of speech and political opinion, indirectly guaranteed in the Australian constitution, must be of concern to every member of the Island community, and more broadly across South Australia.
The use of codes of conducts to try to censure an elected member’s opinions and representations of constituents beliefs and opinions is a clear abuse of public office and Criminal Law Consolidation Act.
It’s probably time that the Council stopped and asked itself a few relevant questions. Most specifically how does moving code of conduct motions against elected members improve in any way whatsoever the well-being of its constituents, and the processes of a free and open democracy. Surely the council, in the limited time available to it, has more important things to discuss than how best to continue the factional hatred and warfare against Cr Walcom.
My best advice to the residents of KI is to call up and tell your elected members to pull their heads in and get on with managing the rapidly deteriorating financial circumstances of the Council and most specifically the development of a debt repayment plan. Clearly the KI Council can not keep running up an endless debt with no plan for its repayment. If they have time for anything else might I suggest that they grab a shovel and start filling in the pot holes, particularly if they are intending to continue pork barrelling the electorate in advance of the November election.
Jim Jacobsen
Former Mayor of Burnside [South Australia]
Thank you Jim Jacobsen for the voice of sanity and reason in this latest attempt to destroy the reputation of the 2 most worthy Councillors, Graham Walkom & Ken Liu. Should these 2 highly skilled and suitably qualified men ever leave K I Council, one can only fear for the future of the island and its residents.
Well done Jim Jacobsen and Barbara Ewens! Without Graham Walkom and Ken Liu on this Council the residents and ratepayers of KI would be in serious trouble. The financial mismanagement gets worse and worse and the roads continue to fall apart while the Council does nothing but hire more office staff and pay a journalist to manage the flooded roads of MacGillivray.
The Council needs to wake up and listen to the former Mayor of Burnside and start behaving like adults. The ratepayers of KI deserve much better.
Right on, Graham and Ken!