by Sahar Foladi
Greater Dandenong Council’s security and surveillance contract has been put on hold after alleged long-standing security lapses at a Dandenong North park.
At the council meeting on Monday 12 August councillor Bob Milkovic rose to oppose the extension of the council’s current electronic surveillance and security services contract for its public toilets, car parks, reserves and other public facilities.
He claimed that he was first “alerted” by residents last October that the gates to the parks were either not locked on some nights or locked very late outside normal specified hours.
Upon inspection of the gate with council officers, the padlock was found broken and unable to be locked all the way.
“They were simply pulling the gates together and clipping the chain on meaning that it was completely unlocked,” Cr Milkovic said at the meeting.
“Not only they didn’t do it (lock the gate), but the fact is they didn’t bother to report the faulty equipment or the tagging at the wrong time.
“I would expect of our council contractors to report a broken key lock or anything of that nature, not just pretend to go there put a chain from one end to another and walk/drive away leaving it ‘locked’ when it wasn’t.”
Cr Milkovic said the defective lock had not been reported by the contractor between October 2023 and June 2024 – when he formally raised the issue with council officers.
Chief engineer David Fice said the security provider was responsible for 95 site security checks within the council, 15 reserves, three multi-storey car parks and 42 toilets.
“We’ve since prepared a new process as part of auditing, and we have the security provider go out and take timestamp photos each evening when locking the gate, so we have documented evidence every day to ensure that work is taking place.”
Councillor Rhonda Garad however was not satisfied as she also had residents raising the same issue in the past week during her door-knocking in another part of Dandenong.
The item was deferred to the next council meeting.
“Bob has been saying this for a while. If this situation hasn’t been resolved than how are we evaluating the efficiency and standard of their work before we reissue contracts?
“It’s a more systemic question for me rather than one gate one lock. It’s by chance we know about this.”
Councillor Milkovic said explanations were offered by the contractor, but they seemed illogical to him.
A proof of the locked gates log from the contractor did not match Cr Milkovic’s date-and-time-stamped photographic evidence “on quite a few occasions”, he said.
