Extract of letter to the Waverley Leader Newspaper

 4/11/04

Re Councillor Do Little

I refer to the Leader Editorial 1st November

 Your article raises quite a few questions. Firstly, Councillors are required to attend all Council Meetings as stated in the Act. Cr. Little obviously did not consider how busy he was going to be as a Councillor, perhaps he should have given that some thought before he ran for election. It is a bit late to consider resigning after you have been elected and I ask the question: how adequately is he representing his constituents??

 When I was on Council I had a family to take care of and I could have well done with an assistant. I didn’t because I didn’t think this was the best way to spend my allowance; which was spent by attending functions, community groups and helping if necessary in a financial capacity.

 The second question raised is about the assistant. How can Cr. Little assure the public that his assistant doesn’t access potentially private and confidential information when the paper quotes Ms Rowe as saying that “Council-related emails are not private”????

 Cr. Little’s comment "Most of the stuff is decided before Council meets" is a throwaway line that implies that it doesn’t matter if he attends or not.

 Community Consultation is the buzz word but actually doing it is something else. This Council has been big on this but doesn’t want to consult with groups that may be critical of Council and its processes. Consultation means taking the good along with the bad and coming up with a compromise.

 Cr. Little states that he fought the Home time Development in Oakleigh and that he attended every consultation session. Well he is misinformed. The Home time development was passed by Council in 2002/2003 before he came on Council. As I was the Ward Councillor at the time and I attended most of the consultation sessions I did not see Cr. Little there in a private capacity at all.

 Monash Residents and Ratepayers deserve much better than this, they deserve Councillors who actually work for the people and are prepared to take a stand even if it gets overturned. Cr Little has shown that he does not have the interest or the capacity to be a good Councillor.

 Yours sincerely,

Felicity Smith

Former Huntingdale Ward Councillor.