War of words

By Lia Bichel
SHOCKED sports club members, including about 30 children, were disgusted by name-calling and insults from Dandenong councillors at Monday night’s council meeting.
Members of the Southern Stars Football Club, including some as young as seven, were at the meeting seeking better facilities from council.
Instead, they saw two councillors feuding over expenses claims.
The name-calling began after Red Gum Ward councillor Angela Long said a journalist had contacted her to discuss her expenses.
Cr Long said she had “nothing to hide” and listed many of the conferences she had been to in the past year.
She said another councillor had gone to a conference in Noosa for a personal holiday and had used ratepayers’ funds by taking a taxi to a conference in Docklands when there was a vacant seat in another councillor’s car.
Cr Long was interrupted by Silverleaf Ward councillor Maria Sampey, who called her a “stupid idiot.”
Cr Long said her comments were a case of the pot “calling the kettle black,” to which Cr Sampey replied, “Go jump.”
Southern Stars Football Club secretary Semiha Yenilmez, 43, said she was shocked by the councillors’ behaviour in front of the children, aged 7 to 17.
“I wasn’t too happy – there were so many kids there and I wasn’t expecting something like that to come out,” she said.
“I was appalled by what they did to each other. They are representing the community. You expect peace and harmony within the community, but they don’t even have respect for each other. I thought they would have been more respectful of each other’s views.”
Ms Yenilmez said her nine-year-old niece and a few other girls from Southern Stars Football Club girls “laughed” at the comments while some of the younger kids did not understand the situation.
She said she hoped the children would not copy the councillors’ behaviour.
“Before going into the meeting we told the children to be quiet during the meeting, and that one day they might want to be councillors,” she said.
“Then to hear something like that- what do we say to the children? We told them sometimes these things happen, but they shouldn’t.”
Cr Sampey told the Star she did not regret making her comments to Cr Long, but was sorry she did so in front of children.
“I apologise to the children, but not to Cr Long,” she said.
“She hates me with a vengeance. She’s rude to me and she was directing her comments at me.”
Cr Sampey said she did not alert the media to Cr Long’s expenses but said she believed councillors needed to have a cap on expenses.
Cr Sampey said she took a taxi to a conference because personal reasons prevented her from catching a ride at that particular time.
Cr Long said she felt the behaviour shown was not characteristic of a role model.
“It was not normal behaviour for me. It was out of character for me to respond to (Cr Sampey’s) comments in council,” she said.
“But it’s about time she got pulled up on her behaviour.”
The verbal clash comes a week after Mayor Jim Memeti said the City of Greater Dandenong was a “highly performing council.”
Cr Memeti said he was “not impressed” by Monday night’s stoush but maintained the council worked well together to meet the needs of the community.
“Those little altercations happen now and then, but council does work well together,” he said.
“I think they had an altercation between each other and we should move on. I think we need to focus more on council issues.”
Greater Dandenong’s Chief Executive Officer John Bennie said there has been no formal complaint lodged regarding councillor behaviour.
“No complaint in respect to councillor behaviour has been received,” he said.
“In the event any complaint is lodged, the council manages such issues in accordance with its Councillor Code of Conduct.”