WODONGA Council has gone into full-blown damage control by writing to Premier Daniel Andrews about the Ombudsman finding into over-charging ratepayers $18 million for a decade.
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Mayor Anna Speedie and chief executive Patience Harrington co-signed a letter to Mr Andrews last Thursday claiming the Ombudsman had got it wrong with a probe into the contentious waste management levy.
“Council found the language used by the Ombudsman in the media release as unbalanced and misleading and insinuating that Wodonga ratepayers had been ‘ripped off’ to the amount of $18 million,” the letter states.
“Council’s reputation with the community has been seriously damaged.
“While council will rectify the problem by reducing its waste management charge the community should not be misled by inaccurate comments about what occurred and why it occurred.”
The letter, which was also sent to every Victorian MP, all mayors and council chief executives in the state and Indi MP Cathy McGowan, was written two days after the Ombudsman report was released.
But Mr Andrews is standing by the Ombudsman report into the council waste charge.
“The Ombudsman has found monies were charged not only for waste management purposes, but for other purposes to get around rate-capping,” he said.
“Rate-capping is here to stay.”
Ms Harrington said the letter was written to Mr Andrews in the context of the Ombudsman recommendation that the Local Government Act be amended.
“The council believes that the Ombudsman’s recommendations potentially impacts all councils across Victoria and the state government itself,” she said.
“It was important that in accepting the recommendation, that Wodonga’s response was also part of any consideration by the government in assessing the Act and that our fellow councils had that information.”
Ms Harrington didn’t address questions relating to who authorised the letter be written and why does she and the mayor maintain the Ombudsman findings were wrong.
Cr Libby Hall and Cr Ron Mildren, who have publicly supported the Ombudsman findings, raised concerns the letter’s contents was the position of the entire council.
“The Ombudsman is an independent body away from government and it should be respected,” she said.
“I would have liked to see the tone (of the letter) acknowledge that.”
Cr Mildren said he disagreed with aspects of the letter.
“My views are well known. We need to take a level of ownership of this issue and not deflect blame,” he said.
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