Heat is on over fridge stocks

ONE of 11 City of Casey councillors is being accused of nicking drinks from the councillors’ room.
This room is set aside as a place for councillors to go to work, meet or relax, and has a fridge, television, and easy chairs.
I think it is a great place and much needed. It is a place where, over the years, I have received conviviality.
I have also been in the room for serious discussion with councillors.
The place is, to date, unregulated and the fridge is stocked, from memory, I would say mostly with soft drinks and this situation should remain.
Apparently, the stocks have been getting light on.
Because of this, someone has accused Edrington Ward councillor Mick Morland of helping to diminish the stock, but he says that’s not so.
He said he did not take drink from the fridge except that which he drank himself and was entitled to.
The problem here is that no one should know that the councillor alluded to in several press reports is Cr Morland.
The matter was in camera, but two councillors have slipped the choice ‘tidbit’ on to the grapevine.
The grapevine is fairly extensive and effective so the matter is no longer in camera.
This also means that Casey now has three of its councillors, Morland, Richardson and Wilson, under investigation by their peers.
Residents can at least be thankful that the council is not a closed shop and riddled with mateship that leads to cover ups.
Four Oaks Ward councillor Paul Richardson is in hot water for releasing confidential council information to a journalist, and Rob Wilson has had an alleged conflict of interest referred to the Local Government Department.
Now, Cr Morland, who is recognised as a teetotaller except for a few light lagers, is having a tough time over the drinks issue and two or three of his contemporaries are thirsting for his blood.
Cr Morland is the subject of a council review committee, but the council inexplicably voted to defer plans to investigate the issue until after it had dealt with the Richardson matter.
The council committee was to look at ‘matters of council property’ because of the ‘missing’ drinks.
Members of the review committee are Casey mayor Kevin Bradford, deputy mayor Rob Wilson, chief executive Mike Tyler and director of corporate services Steve Dalton.
However, Cr Richardson moved a rescission motion and the matter, until last night, was in limbo.
The council decided to hold off on the drinks matter until after Cr Richardson’s investigation was dealt with.
I’m with Cr Richardson on this one, especially because Cr Morland’s name was leaked to the ‘grapevine’.
We have one councillor being investigated for leaking in camera information and two others doing the same thing over vacant space in the fridge.
Cr Bradford has been reported in the press as saying the investigation involved an amount of unaccounted for refreshments that included both soft drinks and alcohol.
The committee has a brief to decide whether or not the Act has been breached and whether the police should be notified.
Had councillors not leaked the in camera information and let the committee take its time, it would have been an ‘inhouse’ bun fight.
But the matter is no longer in camera and must be dealt with immediately.
This matter goes a little further than the councillors’ room and involves members of the press gallery, including myself.
Cr Morland has on several occasions placed a can of soft drink on the press table in front of each journalist.
Some were disposed of in the way drinks usually are and I would take my cans home to put in the fridge for my grandchildren’s visits.
One other councillor in those days brought me a cuppa occasionally.
Bearing in mind that we were sitting at the press table from 6.30pm to sometimes after 11pm without a break, drinks were welcome.
But during the last year or so the council has been taking fiveminute breaks and we could then go to the kitchenette for a cup of tea or coffee.
Because of the drinks issue, I raised this with Mr Tyler and was told outright that no one had the right to use the kitchenette during council meetings.
“It is not meant for that,” he said.
“That applies to councillors and press,” I was told.
There goes my cuppa on a long night.
Unfortunately, Cr Morland cannot come out of this issue unscathed.