Main Street Changed Forever
The Headline was superimposed over a full-paged image looking straight along Main Street from The Wildflower Arcade towards the Markets.
Page three then had a still imposing headline - "Planning Committee seeks retail face-lift" - under the by-line of Tony Cassidy. The prose was full of indignation and implied the typical skulduggery that he is always challenging Council about - that this attempt to re-open the "Supermarket" debate that was so soundly repudiated by the people of Quarabup 5 years ago must certainly be the result of some palm-greasing of personal vested interests of certain Councillors. Such was Cassidy's reputation that even just these words were enough for everyone in the community to know that their number one shifty Shire President, Sam Malone, had to be behind it and had to stand to benefit from it - after all, didn't he own The Wildflower Arcade?
If it had been television, Cassidy would have been frothing at the mouth. After laying out his primary accusations, Cassidy reminded readers of the history of the retail proposal five years ago, gilding for renewed scrutiny every line in that story that reflected badly on Sam Malone. "This", he said, "was a prima facie case of corruption in the Council. So long as Sam Malone controlled that Arcade end of Main Street he would stand to benefit financially either directly or indirectly from any approval Council might give for Coles or Woolies in partnership with Westro Regional to build some sort of shopping centre with a supermarket at the heart of it.
Of course, Cassidy didn't have a shred of evidence for his accusations. He was simply relying on Sam's reputation and the willingness of the general public of Quarabup to buy into a conspiracy theory in the matter. He even made it seem worse for Sam in his final paragraph by saying "The Shire President was unavailable for comment when asked about this matter," which was absolutely true even though he had called the Shire Offices at 7pm when there was no one there to take the call.
Sam could not have wished for a better response from Tony "Clark Kent" Cassidy. It seems they knew each other very well. Later that day there were numerous requests from his Council Officers asking him to return calls to concerned citizens and by the end of the day he had called together the Planning Committee to work on a Media Release that they could prepare to give to the paper. Tom Knight led the discussion. Their main purpose was to identify succinctly what one or two things needed to be said from the Council to rebut the inferences of the article. The end result looked like this:
MEDIA RELEASE
Regional Development Plan Review Routine
The Local Government Act 1995 expressly required Councils to review their Regional Development Plans not less frequently than five yearly. The Council's Planning Officer was required to bring this to the attention of Councillors to ensure Council was compliant. It is timely that this review has been raised at this point and the media claim that Councillors have vested and conficting interests in the outcome of this review are utterly false.
Chair of the Quarabup Shire Council Planning Committee said today that media speculation about the motivation behind the recent discussion of the Regional Development Plan was profoundly speculative and that all ratepayers can be assured that when the time comes for public discussion of any issues arising from the review, they will have all the usual opportunities to make their views known to Council.
Shire President, Cr Sam Malone will comply with all statutory obligations relating to conflicts of interest, should they arise in the course of the Council's consideration of the review.
ENDS
Media enquiries for further information should be directed to the Chief Planning Officer, Quarabup Shire Offices.
Sam thought there was enough of a rebuttal there to make it seem like Cassidy was on his high horse, but there was enough room for him to continue ferreting around to see if ever there might be a conflict of interest for which the Shire President might be required to abide by his statutory obligations.
The following week a PUBLIC NOTICE was published on the Council's Web Page announcing the beginning of a review of the Regional Development Plan on December 1. Interested parties were invited to make submissions regarding proposals for future development as well as matters for public consideration in the development of the Plan. Special mention was made of the desirability of property developers to offer suggestions that were believed to enhance the future development of Quarabup and its region. Copies of the current Regional Development Plan were available on application to the Chief Planning Officer.
Tony Cassidy was like a hound on a scent. He just knew that Sam Malone was at it again. The problem was he didn't quite know what it was that Sam was at. He was always rewarded by sniffing around - casting his trawling net wider and wider. "Follow the money" his Editor at the Advertiser where he did his cadetship always said to him. "Follow the money and you will find out who is driving a story." It was good advice and it had got him close to a Walkely Award once for a story he did years ago about the proposal to establish a fertiliser plant at Quarabup - Runner Up, Best Regional Journalism. But sometimes, when you don't have much to go on - just a pretty good hunch that Sam Malone was up to something - it is hard to get that first scent of the money.
First he tried the Lands and Titles website where you could sometimes access the names of property owners. He checked as many of the properties in Main Street to see if Malone had quietly acquired any of the shops that were so often owned by other than the shop keepers. Then he went to the Local Government Department's web site to check out the Register of Pecuniary Interests for Councillors. Since the aftermath of the "WA Inc." disasters of complex interrelationships between property developers and government policy-makers at all levels of government, both MPs and Local Government Councillors have had to register all their financial interests so as to ensure they did not engage in corrupt behaviours that could lead to personal gain. Conflicts of interest at almost any level of discussion at Council had to be declared, and Councillors were not permitted to participate in the discussion, sometimes even leaving the Council Chamber until the matter has been dealt with. Both these lines of enquiry resulted only in confirming what Cassidy already knew.
Meanwhile, The Tribune had published the material in the Council's Media Release on page 5 the following edition. Cassidy tried to maintain the rage and imply that things were amiss, but he knew he still didn't have a single fact to back up his story. Even the Letters Column had a couple of letters supporting the integrity of Councillors. He decided it was time to lie low, while he followed up a few leads. One could never predict where the pay dirt was some times. But he would keep looking.
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