By Jeremy Sollars
Former Southern Downs deputy mayor Ross Bartley has expressed his disappointment at a complaint about his conduct as a councillor lodged with the State Government more than 18 months after he left local politics.
Mr Bartley recently received a formal reprimand from the Queensland Department of Local Government after a complaint was made relating to alleged improper use of his council email address during the 2016 election campaign.
The complaint was lodged on 31 August, just weeks after a public meeting organised by Mr Bartley was held at the Freestone Memorial Hall to discuss the council’s controversial Invasive Pest Control Scheme and a potential move to lease out the Warwick Saleyards.
The department has not disclosed who made the complaint and mayor Tracy Dobie last week told other local media she did not know who made it “but it has nothing to do with me or the councillors”.
Mr Bartley unsuccessfully stood for the mayoralty at the council elections in March 2016 and as a result lost his spot as a councillor.
The main substance of the complaint was that Mr Bartley allegedly received more than 40 messages in his council email inbox from a Facebook page of which he was a member, called ‘VOTE4UNITY’.
But other councillors were also among the page’s 239 members and in some cases administrators of the same Facebook page and are understood to have received similar messages during last year’s campaign, yet no complaints of email misuse have been made against those individuals, and there is no evidence Mr Bartley responded to the emails from ‘VOTE4UNITY’, which were generated automatically.
‘VOTE4UNITY’ was created by councillor candidate Darryl Evans, who invited all sitting councillors at the time of the election to be members, to encourage open debate about council issues.
The complaint also alleged that Mr Bartley used his council laptop to reset his Facebook password during the election campaign, and that he also used his council email to organise a performance review for the director of the Warwick Art Gallery.
Mr Bartley was issued with a formal ‘inappropriate conduct’ reprimand by Department of Local Government Director-General Frankie Carroll on 3 October in relation to the Facebook issues, but was cleared of misuse of his email over the art gallery director’s performance review.
Other local media have reported that the complaint was originally lodged with the State Government in June but the register of complaints on the Southern Downs Regional Council’s website clearly states it was lodged on 31 August.
Mr Bartley told the Free Times this week he was “disappointed” that someone had seen fit to raise a complaint so long after the last council election.
“I just think people need to keep things professional and not take it down to a personal level,” Mr Bartley said.
“I can only imagine it’s some form of reprisal for activities I’ve undertaken in relation to council issues of late.
“And a reprimand when you’re no longer a council really means nothing.”
The Free Times asked the council if it was aware who made the complaint to the Department of Local Government and why it was lodged more than 18 months after Mr Bartley’s departure from the council, but a spokeswoman said council “is not making any further comment on this issue”.
