Fremantle Council and Fremantle Markets. What Tha?

Fremantle Council’s Report for March 2010 re Update on Fremantle Markets Alleged Breaches. For full report see:
http://www.freofocus.com/council/resource/Council%20Agenda%2024%20March%202010.pdf Page 84.

It just gets sillier as we move forward. The ex mayor pretty much wrote the proposal for the Murdoch’s as we saw in a 2006, Fremantle Herald front page article. He strongly promoted the idea of turning the market into a food venue. In that same article he even suggested that if the Murdochs opposed his vision he was prepared to buy them out of the remainder of the lease. When you look at the Murdoch proposal it almost looks like Tagliaferri could have written it himself.

Rather than put it out for tender council allowed a one horse race. The new lease was renewed years before the old lease expired; there was no urgency other than the fact that the ex mayor was soon to be vacating his seat and a well publicised threat by the Murdoch’s that they would run the markets into the ground, and some mention of flimsy litigation. More than one councillor later stated that they took these threats seriously and were persuaded to vote for the Murdoch’s on these issues. Some have since said that they regret that decision. Others stated that it was the very reason they strongly opposed the Murdoch application.

When hundreds of letters and emails were sent to council opposing the renewal, one councillor had to ask twice before she and the others got to see them. Another councillor later stated that he did not have time to read them. That same councillor recently stated that to his knowledge only one person had been evicted from the markets! I very clearly remember that councillor sitting in on all of the meetings in which stallholders spoke of evictions and being forced to walk away from businesses. Clearly, there were scores of articles about this in the papers and two public rallies. The last rally included the reading out of forty five names of people who had left the market since the new lease agreement.

The chairperson and the secretary of the stallholders association were evicted. When Mark and Gerry came on board and spoke publicly about their plight they were defamed in newsletters, had their stalls downsized, rents increased and offered only a monthly tenancy instead of the 5 year lease previously promised by both the Murdoch’s and the council; all making it impossible to continue and in effect ‘bullied’ into walking away from previously successful businesses with nothing. Many others who spoke out have also left due to similar treatment.

Within a year the stallholders association collapsed due to key people being evicted or shafted and no one else is now prepared to step up or speak out. Both the Murdoch’s and the council have robbed the market of any feedback, advice or protection from the people at the front line – the collective voice of the association . Stallholders are now as potent as pawns on a chessboard and are treated as such.

Brad Pettitt campaigned hard to be elected new mayor and made sweet statements about his concerns and made wishy washy promises about mediation and moving forward. Within weeks of being elected there was no stallholders association left and the best he has had to offer is a glib comment about the personality conflict between the parties. Meanwhile, more businesses have failed, customer numbers have greatly declined, businesses throughout the CBD are claiming it has impacted on them and there are now a number of official inquiries in progress.

Wouldn’t you think that the mayor and elected members would be scrambling to put things right? No. Everyone is blaming someone else and there is plenty of covering their tracks going on. But, getting back to the report and a very clear insight into the mindset of Glen Dougall, Director Corporate Services:

“Part 3 of the resolution of council in March, 2009, sought for a Working Group to be expanded to include a representative of the Stallholders Association. Whilst this matter has been discussed with FMPL on a number of occasions no agreement has been reached. The main reasons are that during the process the Stallholders’ Association were no longer viable due to lack of committee nominees and now lack of committee members. The City is of the opinion that it will continue to monitor the situation. With City officer members of the working group meeting with stallholders from time to time it is thought that any significant issues involving stallholders can be raised by the working group or by stallholders to ensure that matters are considered by the working group.

Officers will continue to monitor the situation and take action where it is deemed that FMPL are not operating in accordance with the Head Lease or the Operating Strategy. Any action will be so under the direction of the City’s legal team.”

It has taken them a year to talk about this one issue; private enterprise would have had it sorted in fifteen minutes. When you look back on all of the fart-arsing around that FCC has displayed you can only conclude that they deliberately stall making decisions knowing that if they wait long enough the problems will go away. This time - They are soooooooo WRONG. We will chase them down like rats in a drainpipe until we get answers.

It's all just another example of pollie speak and seeming to appear...I am so staggered by this that I am speechless.

Only one comment left in me, “Is this legal team the one who put the lease and the operating strategy together?” Of course it is.


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