By Cam Lucadou-Wells
COUNCILLOR Wayne Smith says his chart-topping travel expense claims in 2015-’16 were mainly as a result of a US fact-finding mission on graffiti deterrence.
Cr Smith said his $9517.71 travel claim for his trip to New York and Los Angeles – as well as an international sister cities conference in Minneapolis – was endorsed by the council.
The study tour, which was documented in a public report, was in response to graffiti getting “out of hand” in Casey, Cr Smith said.
It largely reinforced that the council’s approach – including the removal of graffiti within 48 hours of reporting – was right.
“We wanted to review what we were doing about graffiti and get on top of it.
“The graffiti vandals were being a bit different. They were picking the properties that we can’t touch such as all the freeways and government buildings.
“If you go around Casey, you won’t find it on council or private property.”
Cr Smith noted during the tour that authorities in Phoenix would remove graffiti regardless of who owned the property.
“VicRoads and VicTrack won’t let Casey remove it because it would embarrass them into doing it everywhere else in the state.”
It was part of Cr Smith’s overall expense claim of $15,649, which included IT/communications and training/education costs.
According to the council’s 2015-’16 annual report, the next highest total claims were mayor Sam Aziz ($13,049) and councillors Rafal Kaplon ($11,223) and Susan Serey ($10,778).
The latter two were mainly reimbursed for education costs.
