How ICT Savvy is Monash Council?

In 2012, when Cr Lake thought the world is at his feet, he wasn’t joking about his narcissism. He seriously continues to think the Monash community should share his same dream and have a new library in his ward, Glen Waverley, since he got re-elected in 2012.

Narcissists seldom listen to others. That is exactly how the Monash Community, especially Glen Waverley residents, feel about their local Councillor who doesn’t want to know his constituents do NOT WANT a new indoor library in Glen Waverley. Furthermore, nobody quite understand Cr Lake’s dreamworld of what the state of a library is? It is only in the Expression of Interest (EoI) to sell the central car park (section 3.2.2 pages 3-6) that describes his dream – that the new library functions as a modern community hub space that promotes community learning for the young and old, fosters multi-cultural activities, even serves as an ICT innovation incubation centre that incorporates “technologies that have not yet been developed” (whatever that means) and provides  auditorium/conference facilities that cater for 600 people.  Realistically and with a logical mind, one would say that even NASA personnel would never claim their facilities would incorporate “technologies that have not yet been developed” into their infrastructure.  Competing with Monash University’s real state of the art incubation and startup facilities and expertise appears to be a very ambitious given in this EoI description of the new library / community hub development.

The development specs, even in its conceptual form, is the (most embarrassing) professional standard of how Cr Lake’s dream translate to a procurement criteria for potential investors buying the central car park and developing his dream library. Also fancy imagining Silicon Valley calibre innovators and high flying investors mingling with young kids and the elderly in hallways and sharing the learning/work spaces. Is this an “innovative” Monash perculiar architecture model of mixed human activity and architecture form interfaces?

What Monash want is a virtual library service, and yet their understanding and capacity to implement such forms of library virtualism is very much constrained by their collective level of ICT literacy, and being technology savvy is unfortunately about being mediocre users of today’s technology who have no idea of technology research advancement and innovation development. Conceiving that 3D printers constitute part of future library services without understanding their demand of technical CAD/CAM knowledge and support, and high total cost of ownership is also poor governance in council’s decision making and new service development – cost shifting cannot be the blame for future cost inflation and rate rises because of today’s leadership incompetency. Not long ago, Cr Klisaris thought a social media provider is a language communication specialist who can help improve council’s English language capacity to communicate its city planning proposals to the community (Herald Sun, 17 Nov 2015).

Narcissism is becoming the new black in Monash Council leadership and decision making culture, because of the GWAC plan to redevelop the central car park. 2016 is the time such narcissists should ride into the sunset and disappear forever, banished into exile, if needed.

Glen Wavereley’s Feng Shui Causes & Effects

Feng shui dragons symbolically represent areas of good energy or chi. People living in such areas prosper in terms of wealth, health and well being. The Indian community also shares similar beliefs through their Vastu knowledge. Hence this feng shui analysis would also present interests to both Chinese and Indian ratepayers and residents in Glen Waverley.

Regionally, Glen Waverley (GW) represents the tail of a feng shui dragon that spans across Box Hill (as its body) and Doncaster (its head).

This is a common knowledge among Chinese locals and investors, as real estate agents often use this in their overseas marketing and client targeting.

GW city , specially the central car park area is the primary “mouth” of this dragon chi gathering and distribution into GW city (there is a smaller chi entry at The Glen’s car park next to Sullivan Road, which will disappear when The Glen high rise developments occur). This dragon chi flows from Springvale Road (metaphorically a river) and Kingsway is an important channel for pulling the dragon chi into GW city.

Therefore, the central car park is a very important site for Feng Shui and is what is called the “ming tang” – the mouth of chi entry.

Keeping it open and green, and moving sustains the chi flows in GW. Hence for the GW Chinese community, there are 2 options for the central car park redevelopment – (a) do nothing (continues to remain an open space car park), or (b) advocate for a green open space with outdoor recreation activities ( see the community’s John Monash Multicultural Square (JMMS) Proposal 16 Dec 2015)

The worst option is like Council’s proposal, to increase high rise and compact buildings in the area, and blocking part of Kingsway in front of the Ikon Building.

This Council proposal will destroy GW’s ming tang, hence cut off good feng shui in the area. The consequences affect the future wealth, health and well being prosperity of those living and owning businesses in the area. For shoppers & customers, they would reduce their visits, because of potential future inconveniences, such as traffic and car parking problems, and other ill social activities in the area.

For Ikon residents and investors, the worst is yet to come. Presently, the Ikon building is considered a bad feng shui dwelling, because of its back facing the end of the GW railway line. It is a building whose back is constantly charged with and stores attacking sha (bad) feng shui energy every time a train terminates there. The feng shui consequences translate to residents, tenants and owners constantly exposed to life challenges, especially renting and investment issues. As such, to the Chinese community, it is not surprising that low occupancy and difficulty in reselling apartments currently prevail, including brewing risks of pop up brothels and drug parties / trafficking activities as many of its apartments are being rented out to short term tenants such as Airbnb.

The council’s proposal redevelops the central car park with high rise and compact developments, together with Cr Lake’s 2012 election wish of having a new library in front of the Ikon building. The proposal also recommends closing Kingsway in front of the Icon building.

This road closure potentially brings the worst feng shui to Ikon inhabitants and traders.

Because road systems represent waterways, the Kingsway road closure will result in decaying or dying “water” energy (called shi chi) in the area. For Ikon residents, they would be sandwiched with constant bad feng shui from the back, and dying feng shui in the front. For other people in GW, the good dragon chi flowing along Springvale Road is blocked from entering into GW. Shi chi effects can potentially translate to unethical or criminal human activities such as pop up brothels in high rise apartments, increase in local drug trafficking and other dark activities, such as money laundering. Airbnb being a major tenant in Ikon is perhaps linked to this Feng Shui implication. Future popularity of the new library/community hub would be compromised by this potentially permanent bad feng shui prevalence.

Other coming high rise developments, without Council identifying and preparing for services that would mitigate future infrastructure and amenity issues, let alone ill socio-economic impacts (eg brothels, etc), are part of the future effects of bad feng shui arising from the blockage of GW’s primary ming tang, which currently pulls in and contributes to the good dragon energy in GW.

The Underpinning City Planning and Governance Issues:

Good or bad feng shui of city developments correlate and translate to the quality of city planning and implementation management performance.

This GW feng shui analysis shows a first symptom of the reactive and lack of a holistic system thinking approach in council’s city planning and even implementation decision making:

1. All the structural plans lack liveability impact analysis details, from socio, economic and environment perspectives, missing in clarity and outcome-measures of future infrastructure and amenity requirements that would assure GW residents and businesses high quality liveability.

2. The planning information is solely from a conceptual architecture/design perspective, which are being translated into ad hoc specifications for inserts in planning schemes. There is no clear and detailed design implementation planning and risk management details, already allowing Councillors to make piecemeal and ill-informed decisions in 2015 that often breach some the specifics of these structural plans and before these structural plans’ specifications are officially incorporated into the next update of Council’s planning scheme (which has not been approved by state planners).

3. The lack of socio, economic and environmental risk management in council’s city planning and even in past council’s decisions also demonstrates the prevalence of poor social responsibility and governance accountability in city planning and implementation.

These matters can readily open up the opportunities for fostering poor governance and compliance consequences.

Monash Activity Centres- the Future Pop up brothels, drug party & play city

Click Picture to see ABC reporting that high rise apartments are attracting pop up brothels and all night parties in Melbourne

When Monash Councillors keep advocating for high density development in Glen Waverley and Oakleigh, our city will be part of this new growing social trend in Melbourne.

The New York Post reported in 2014 that :

“Hookers are using the controversial Airbnb home-sharing Web site to turn prime Manhattan apartments into temporary brothels….One escort service is even saving a bundle by renting Airbnb apartments instead of hotel rooms for clients’ quickies, says a 21-year-old call girl who works for the illicit business.

“It’s more discreet and much cheaper than The Waldorf,” said the sex worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Hotels have doormen and cameras. They ask questions. Apartments are usually buzz-in.””

In 2015, the Daily Telegraph and International Business Times reported and confirmed Airbnb apartments in Australia are already turning into pop up brothels.Our real estate network says Airbnb is a major tenant in the Ikon building, Glen Waverley.

The underdog rumor is that Glen Waverley would be the new place for Asian pop up brothels and karaoke all lit up PnP (slang for drug party and play) and Oakleigh second in queue, if Monash Councillors continue to sell our public lands to enable more and more high density development in the city.

Decision making without risk management accountability is bad governance!

Update #1 : Glen Waverley Central Car Park Redevelopment

A week later after the 16 Dec 2015 community meeting with about 60 Monash residents and ratepayers, Cr Lake denied saying he supported the JMMS proposal.

He defended his position, saying that Council does not have limitless funds and requires to examine cost effective outcomes for redeveloping the central car park, which would involve selling the land to fund building a new library, a personal wish that he made into an election promise in 2012, which today, majority of his constituents do not or no longer want nor support.

While Cr Lake is almost personally obsessed to build a new library in Glen Waverley, Monash constituents are also making clear to him and other Monash Councillors that they want to participate and have a fair and balanced say in the final decision making on the development of the Central Car Park Land. This means that Council has to effectively engage with its constituents to:

• Identify all possible solution and funding options for redeveloping the central car park, not just proposing one set of  solution and funding options as is now;
• Develop unbiased decision criteria and matrix for choosing the “best value” set of solution and funding options.

Until these governance issues are resolved, the Monash community continues to view their engagement with council as highly controlled, in order to allow biased decision making to go through.

To all Monash Ratepayers & Residents

Governance Issues in the Glen Waverley Central Car Park Redevelopment

Monash Council does consult their communities about their decisions, but they provide poor disclosure of information that do not evidently show how they arrive at best value choices. Politicised, groupthink, disrespecting and bullying behaviours among councillors do not help either, but exasperate the undermining of community confidence and trust in their decisions, and worsen the decision making transparency problem.

The Case Story in Development

The decision focus is about redeveloping the Glen Waverley central car-park, as part of a bigger Glen Waverley Activity Centre planning program.

The complications:

Over the last 3 to 4 years, a councillor, captivated with his 2012 campaign goal of building a state of the art, 21st century library in his ward, has been convincing decision making directions in determining the redevelopment of the Glen Waverley central car park.

Despite the council’s presentations of its 2013 Glen Waverley Activity Centre Masterplan (PDF, 21MB) and 2104 Glen Waverley Activity Centre Structure Plan (PDF, 8MB) to the community, via a number of communication methods (including community consultations), the community at large do not understand the underpinning liveability impacts and with information overload, were least focused on what is being planned for the central car park redevelopment.

Late Community Awareness:

Only during the last few weeks, through two public consultation sessions, that the most affected Monash community better understood there is only one council choice for the car park. And it involves selling part or all the car park, to allow high density developments and result in a council owned new library/community hub.

Monash Council’s public consultations to date referred to the Geelong library concepts as a showcase benchmark for designing the new library and a small area of building front open space “town square” that spills into a closed section of Kingsway. However, such a design concept squashed in a smaller area and surrounded by taller buildings (over 10 stories) do not paint a pretty visual as below, nor the one Council has used in its new library marketing collateral (which also has a Chinese version, helping to attract overseas and local Chinese investors for potential developers). There is already much advertising in China which promotes the Glen Waverley School as a draw card, as well as the Feng Shui dragon’s tail being in Glen Waverley, where the pinnacle area is the central car park.

Between November and December 2015, the Monash community developed their view of appropriate redevelopment of the central car park, which proposes to retain the central car park as a green / public open space amenity, with underground car parks. Design concepts like those used in Singapore Gardens and Monash University’s new outdoor learning and recreation spaces were considered. They ball-parked financial estimates and several funding options with market pricing, all feasible with future revenue raising potentials. They also understood from a 2011 VEAC report (page 37) that Monash is one of 6 municipals with the least open public space allocation for its community.

Outdoor Learning & Recreation Space @ Monash University, Clayton

Outdoor Learning & Recreation Space @ Monash University, Caulfield

Community Concerns:

On 16 December 2015, the community presented their proposal (which is referred as the John Monash Multicultural Square (JMMS)) to the new library captivated councillor, CEO and 2 planning officers. They also raised governance issues in council decision making and community consultation, which have implications of breaching the LG Act.

The business case for a new library has not been disclosed clearly as Monash has 6 libraries in its 81sq km let alone the libraries of the most exclusive schools in the state and the Monash University.

Many Chinese and other CALD residents and community leaders also participated, expressing grave concerns about the future bad feng shui implications of the council’s plan to redevelop the central car-park. The central car park is the mouth of chi / energy entry or ming tang and is the most important space in Feng Shui topology design. According to Chinese beliefs, blocking it with high density developments and the whole future prosperity, health and happiness of residents and businesses will likely destroyed. There is an official Feng Shui report to confirm this important Feng Shui space. The best landscape design is green open space, to represent a lively, agile and unrestricted moving dragon tail of a Feng Shui dragon that has its head in Doncaster and body in Box Hill.

Glen Waverley Feng Shui Ming Tang is the Central Car Park

A Chinese resident also indicated that three developers had already spoken with Council, haggling over prices and the number of storeys to ensure planning scheme changes allow future development that are profitable to developers. The councils’ EOI invitation for tentative bids opened 11 Nov and just closed on 18 Dec 2015.

They also indicated that the council decision making is biased, that it only offered one development option (ie to build the new library) and is proposing only one funding strategy (ie to sell the car park to finance the library development). They asked Monash council to consider their proposal and show better transparency in council decision making.

During the meeting, Cr Lake publicly said he would vote for the JMMS proposal after seeing the passion in the room. He said ” I would support a JMMS proposal and I think one other Councillor will also support it but I don’t think anyone else will vote for it.”

The community participants have also asked council to suspend the EoI process until GW residents and other ratepayers have been properly consulted and involved in the future of the Square development. They also requested a follow-up Forum where there was no imposed limits to attendance and that all councillors should be invited to attend.

What’s next?

Whether Monash Council would be responsive to its community and be resolved to close their community engagement and decision making gaps, is yet to be seen, as this is a case still in development.

Update Logs:

1. See update 1 posted 4 Jan 2016

 

Monash Council proceeds with EOI even despite community feedback

Source: Monash Council proceeds with EOI even despite community feedback

The Future Liveability of Glen Waverley comes first, or Councillors’ collective opinion of what THEY DECIDE the community should need and have?

The coming acid test is “are Monash Councillors in for the developers or for their community first when it comes to the Glen Waverley square’s development?”….. will good governance prevail for once in this decision making?  The truth shall be known in due course….. watch this space develops.

Monash Leader, 3 Nov 2015, Page 20

Does community’s needs and interests really matter in Monash Council’s Decision Making?

Here we go again… Cr Geoff Lake’s  library development agenda, which started in 2012 and had lead to the assets’ sale of the 2 aged care residential facilities (as a funding strategy), and there is talk of more future land sale to further fund this library’s development goal. In 2012, the writings were on the wall (in the public records) that a premeditated decision would be voted prior to the 2016 election.

Will a repeat of the same assets sale decision making tactics reoccur when Council decides the fate of the Glen Waverley central car park square? We do not hope so, as the repeat of such pre-orchestrated and biased decision making would only increase damage to Council’s already poor performance in good governance, not mentioning having election ramifications on Councillors rejecting the residents’ proposal for a John Monash Multi-cultural Square and pressing on on their own collective agenda for supporting and building Cr Lake’s proposed new library.

Monash Leader, 3 Nov 2015, Page 5

An interesting event to keep watch, to see how the decision making and compliance to good governance is cleverly engineered to bend the rules…..

When discredit becomes a credit

It was  an attempt of direct personal attack plan when mayor Klisaris, took liberty to threaten and accuse MRI Vice President of interjecting the June Council meeting, when no such deed was prevalent. The surprised MRI Vice President’s first response was to ask the major to explain what was the act of interjection and the mayor refused to clarify and continued to acclaim further interjections. By then, it was also easy to escalate the dialogue of inquiry into claiming further interjections, especially when MRI President got involved. It was a public act of denying one’s right to natural justice. Several public witnesses contacted MRI, to volunteer testifying against the accusation.

The situation also involved online media manipulation. MRI’s letter of complaint to the local press’s editor, corrected reporting of the true situation of the event as it had actually happened in the printed copy of the Waverley leader – that “…. the meeting was disrupted when mayor Paul Klisaris demanded Monash Ratepayers Association president Des Olin and vice president Chan Cheah leave the gallery. Cr Klisaris accused the pair of “heckling”. Dr Cheah said she was being “discriminated against” and the pair refused to leave, but agreed to do so after a discussion with the council’s chief executive. Mr Olin said he was unsatisfied with a subsequent letter from Cr Klisaris and demanded an apology. ” (Waverley Leader, 7 July 2015).

The character assassination plot continued to name MRI personnel in the Council’s June Council meeting minutes, never mind the non compliance to the Victorian Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014. It is the first time that Monash Council chose to publicly name public members from the gallery to imply the accused are guilty of the acclaimed offence, including not informing them that they would be named in Council’s public records (never mind seeking their consent), which would be expected of proper legal compliance procedures as part of good governance practice.

With no due diligence exercise of by-law procedures, the accused MRI people were further denied their rights to a remedial meeting with the mayor. The mayor also changed his mind and chose not to fine them, however without proper protocol procedures to explain the reason for  his individual and discretionary waiver decision. Another violation of natural justice.

The opportunistic creation and leverage of incident, together with following media manipulation, certainly revealed itself as a low political tactical of smear campaign, a very frequently used character attack political tactic  in many Victorian Councils, where groupthink and party politics prevail before community interests. Such a tactic is certainly being used in a different context, against apolitical ratepayers advocating for good governance.

The incident served as a strong confirmation that MRI has been effective in its good governance oversight, to the extent that:

1. Some groupthink people are seeing MRI as a threat that is imposing the openness of poor governance conduct and decision making in Council affairs;
2. MRI is being recognised as a twelfth de facto Councillor of Monash, to warrant naming its key people in the minuted Councillors’ meeting discussions.

MRI is pleased with these directions of publicity of its good governance oversight and advocacy developments. A attempt to discredit certainly turned out to be a credit to MRI.