Broken Left Leg Blog occasionally gets thing wrong.
In the rush for an exclusive, the media sometimes get things wrong. Bloggers should not be afraid to admit it and correct the record.
In my post about the Surf Coast Shire mayoral race I said "(Cr) Rose (Hodge) is going to be mayor on Tuesday". This is wrong.
Rose became Mayor today (Wednesday).
The good news about my mistake is, I got to attend the council meeting to elect the mayor.
First some background information.
My buddy Cr Ron Humprey spent the week before the meeting bad-mouthing Cr Rose Hodge to the press and cheering for popular Cr Kieth Grossman.
The only problem for Ron is, Kieth never confirmed he was running. Insiders knew that Kieth's heart wasn't in it and Rose was a shoe-in for the top job.
But the cherry on top of the pie in the mayoral race came when the returning officer (Cr Dean Webster) called for nominations.
Up jumped Kieth to nominate Rose Hodge. He even went so far as to add a thirty second speech about why Rose would be a great mayor.
Not only did Humprey throw his support behind someone who didn't even run, Ron supported a guy spruiking for his mortal political enemy.
Needless to say, he looked like one unhappy camper at the meeting.
When it comes to politics, as they say in the classics, Ron wouldn't know his arse from his elbow.
The only thing left is Ron's inevitable undermining of the new mayor in the papers.
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- Broken Left Leg
- I like lattes, chardies, skiing, sailing, the perverted arts, living in the inner city, and laughing at poor people. Basically, I'm a lefty as defined by Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt.
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9 comments:
We look forward to continuing sound leadership and sensible, thoughtful decision making by the majority of Surf Coast Councillors.
Others will, of course, continue to make their own arrangements - right up to the point at which Surf Coast ratepayers have another opportunity to decide who they want to represent their views on Council.
May all his efforts until that time continue to be as effective a pissing into the wind!
When council elections come around, I hope that residents of the Surf Coast Shire can stop and reflect on the domineering, negative attacks by Cr. Ron Humphrey and do the sensible thing by not supporting him for a return to office.
May the easy election of Rose Hodge as Mayor serve as a resounding warning to him and others intent on perverting professional democratic processes.
hear hear cmdr biggles,
One of the main reasons why i continue to report on ron is because surf coast shire residents deserve so much better.
Multi seat elections with preferences send up anomolies. In the surf coast shire that anomoly was ron.
He is unbelievable negative, undermines the good work of others, and the "pissing in the wind" phrase is very apt. He has very little support in the community, and he certainly does not have a mandate to be a morals campaigner for the shire.
Ron creates enormous amounts of media coverage, and yet no media scrutiny.
Hence the coverage on bll.
Ron must also have suffered some discomfort at listening to the speeches of both the out-going and in-coming Mayors - brilliant!
Interesting that Rose, one of the queens of back-door deals and piss-poor governance in general has spoken out against back door dealing. The casual observer could easily be forgiven for thinking she had done a "back-door deal" with Grossman to, along with the other ladies, back an alleged sinister plot by Keith to use his council position develop his vast acres surrounding TOrquay. It is a fact that Keith had the numbers above Rose for the mayoral post so something must have transpired. So hypocritical Rose.
Hey Anonymous,
The fact is, kieth's land is now so heavily scrutinised by the local media it is highly unlikely to be a bargaining chip in any Mayoral deal.
If you've got any proof of this back room deal, send it to skoragolovic@hotmail.com
Kieth may have had the numbers but he simply didn't run. You are assuming the reasons.
My guess is you are just not happy about Rose being mayor so you've chosen to smear her on this site.
If you can back up your claims you're free to do so.
Just like most of the theories expressed on this site, it was just that - a theory. However, the fact that Keith – note the correct spelling – denied having contacted Rose throughout the week of the mayoral elections when Rose confirmed she had ‘sat down and discussed what was going on’ with him points to a deal being struck to persuade Grossman not to run. Not only does Keith’s apparent lie indicate a shifty arrangement between the two, it confirms Rose is guilty of the exact kind of “back door deal” she claims to despise. Once again, Rose would have felt very foolish after basically giving journalists her acceptance speech a week before the “election” only to find out there was a real chance she would miss out. If she didn’t then successfully go into overdrive and pull every trick under the sun to persuade Keith not to run she would have had an enormous amount of egg on that delightful face of hers come the ‘elections’. I think every observer of Surf Coast politics with half an analytical mind is fairly confident of the reasons why Keith abandoned his fellows on the Save the Surf Coast ticket and joined the ladies. Some pundits in the Liberal camp have even suggested it was because of a certain non-councillor puppeteer (a megalomaniac ex-mayor strongly aligned with Beth, Libby and Rose through her poorly-veiled ALP links), or Beth herself, would have exerted all of her power and influence over then planning minister Rob Hulls to knock Keith’s planned rezone on the head, precluding him from selling it to a developer for a $60 million old folks home. Funny that when Hulls was shunted from his planning portfolio (to be replaced by Justin Madden – a former player for a football side associated with the above developer) Keith finally considered jumping ship. Once again…this is all just theory…….but I reckon it’s a good one.
It's not a bad theory, anon, but there could also be a slightly more obvious one.
Keith and Dean quickly abandoned the sell the surf coast team because they realised that it was, run by, and full of shonks.
Maybe these two guys realised that it would be slightly more difficult to flog off and rezone large swathes of Torquay's surrounds to developers than planned.
Maybe they just had too much of Ron?
Perhaps Ray gully, who put together the sell the surf coast team, was considered too much of a crank to work with?
Personally, I'd like to know who funded their whole campaign. Was it Ron, Ray and Keith? or were others involved?
This of course is the $64,000 question.
It's possible, brokenleg. I believe my reading of the situation was closer to the mark though. You have neglected to mention allegations Keith had already attempted to use his council position to exempt his land from planning restrictions. I think that the exposure of this apparent plot would have led him to consider new ways to exploit his position and his chosen option, it could be argued, appears to have been cutting a deal with the ladies to give them the numbers. Dean is very friendly with a number of developers so a similar deal (or an unholy union) may have been the catalyst for him abandoning his ticket. With Dean appearing the least financial of the parties you mention, I think you are right to question the origin of his contribution to the $64,000 fund (I assume that's what you were referring to).
Merry Christmas all.
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