Sending mixed signals

CASEY Council has hit the headlines in the wider press ‘again’ with a call by one of its own councillors that it be sacked.
Just how serious is this?
The situation at Casey is bad, but not so bad that the council should be sacked, at this stage.
Probably the really serious issue here is that a councillor wants to run off to the minister to have his own council sacked, rather than show some leadership and maturity in working to reduce the bickering going on within.
A fairly highranking official, who would not normally talk to the press in such a way, said last week: “Someone should get in there and clean them out.”
My view is that the councillors themselves should straighten out their differences and do it quickly.
What is happening is the price we pay for democracy, but please don’t let us revert to any of the other systems of government. The two tyro councillors who claim that they want the council to become more efficient, persistently disrupt meetings and create more costs with ongoing questions and calls for reports that slow the administrative process.
What’s their point?
Four councillors are under some kind of investigation when none of the matters of investigation would have occurred had a little thought and less ego been involved.
Mayor Kevin Bradford has an issue now going through the court that appears to be serious, but has nothing to do with council business.
The problem there is that if it goes worse for the mayor it may reflect badly on the City of Casey.
Cr Steve Beardon was reported as saying that the council was ‘mired in sleaze’ and that it should be sacked immediately.
This sort of thing caused Cr Beardon lots of trouble when he first became a councillor so he must know that it leads nowhere.
Calling for commissioners could mean that he is looking for a second ‘out’ from this rough and tumble.
The same ‘costsaving’ councillor dropped a clanger after his first entry into local government when he resigned, to ultimately cost the council more than $60,000 for a byelection.
Is that about to happen again?