By Laura Michell
A municipal monitor will be appointed to oversee Whittlesea’s newly-elected councillors during their first year in office.
Next month’s council election will be the first time Whittlesea has had elected representatives since March 2020, after the state government sacked the former council.
The council was sacked by the government following a report from municipal monitor Yehudi Blacher that found serious governance failures at the council.
Mr Blacher was appointed by the government to oversee the council in December 2019, following the sacking of former chief executive Simon Overland and complaints of bullying at the council.
His report to the government said the governance of the council had collapsed, “along with its reputation”.
He labelled Whittlesea a “broken council” in which “poisons run deep”, and found that the council’s deep divides and personality conflicts had rendered it “dysfunctional”.
Administrators were appointed to the council to perform the duties of councillors until the October 2024 election, meaning Whittlesea ratepayers were unable to elect councillors at the October 2020 election.
The state government said appointing a monitor to oversee the new councillors would support the council’s transition back to elected councillors and ensure good governance practices.
The government hopes the monitor will help prevent the recurrence of issues that led to the council’s dismissal.
The monitor and the terms of reference will be announced in due course.
Local Government Minister Melissa Horne said the monitor would help the new councillors to best serve the ratepayers of Whittlesea.
“I thank the administrators for their work in supporting the local community through this challenging time – Victorians rightly expect newly elected councillors to maintain the high standard of good governance that have been put in place,” she said.
The state government said the new councillors will have to abide by a statewide uniform councillor code of conduct to create consistent standards of behaviour and increase accountability. A program of mandatory training will be introduced for councillors and mayors, including annual professional development.
Ms Horne will have strengthened powers to deal with councillors who are found to have created a serious risk to health and safety or are preventing their council from performing its functions.
