CEO under attack

By Jim Mynard
MAYFIELD Ward councillor Kevin Bradford was ordered to withdraw a statement and was ruled out of order several times during a persistent attack on Casey chief executive officer Mike Tyler during the Tuesday 10 December council meeting.
Cr Bradford moved in a notice of motion that Mr Tyler be directed in March to present a 20 to 30-minute talk on his vision for Casey over the next four years.
He said the address should encompass operational changes in the council, project priorities, new initiatives to improve employment opportunities in Casey, areas of service delivery to be improved, and initiatives to maintain levels of operational expenditure and improved service delivery.
Other councillors and Mr Tyler had no problem with the motion, but Cr Bradford used his debate to insult and malign the chief executive and mayor Janet Halsall had to call him to order several times.
Cr Bradford said the council had been through a tedious and questionable re-appointment of the chief executive.
The mayor immediately directed that he withdraw because the comment was potentially abusive and defamatory. Cr Bradford said he would retract because of the mayor’s authority.
“However, I have not seen the chief executive get up and say what his vision is for Casey,” he said. “We had a press release go out this week with officers claiming credit for getting the proposed Casey Towers project to Narre Warren.
“Nothing the officers did was responsible for getting Casey Towers,” he said.
Cr Bradford said the news release implied that the council was pro-active when it had not been, but the mayor ruled his debate out of order because it was not relevant to the motion.
Cr Bradford then said he wanted to hear from the chief executive and not from his directors.
Mr Tyler said he had no problem with the motion or with making a presentation to the community. But he did have an issue with some of the sentiments Cr Bradford expressed.