Society throws out potential Freo candidate

A THROWAWAY comment about City Ward candidate Claudia Green during the 2017 local government elections is causing ruptures in the 49-year-old Fremantle Society.
As reported in the latest edition of Freo StreetWise, ‘Committee on Notice’, the FS Committee has decided not to renew Ms Green’s membership after 11 years as an active member, including as a Committee member.
Ms Green said FS Committee members did not notify her about their change of mind to reclassify her 2020 membership renewal as an “application for membership”, which they rejected, even though it had already accepted her renewal fee six months earlier in May 2020. Under the FS Constitution, the Committee does not have to say why it rejected Ms Green’s membership.
StreetWise first reported on the public falling out between the Society Committee and Ms Green in its April 2018 edition, ‘Society Stoush’, after Society president John Dowson, in his Newsletter and in the Fremantle Herald several days later in August 2017, accused Ms Green of being, “disruptive when she resigned from the FS Committee around the time of the Beaconsfield by-election”.
Mr Dowson said the Society could not support Ms Green’s City Ward election campaign, “because of the Committee’s concern with her behaviour last year towards the Fremantle Society”, which was quickly challenged as “unfounded and untrue” by Ms Green, her campaign team and other FS members, including members of the 2016 FS Committee.
When asked to clarify Mr Dowson’s claims in his August 14, 2017 Newsletter (also published in a subsequent newsletter one day later), the Committee stated: “President John Dowson’s statement in the most recent email to members relating to Claudia Green was based on Ms Green’s resignation from the Committee last year which was disruptive (around the time of the Beaconsfield by-election).”

Apology

Ms Green said because of the “factual impossibility” of Mr Dowson’s claims, the Herald published a formal apology. Mr Dowson has never challenged the Herald for calling him out nor has Mr Dowson responded to StreetWise requests to explain how Ms Green was ‘disruptive’ and why the Committee expelled her from the Society.
The Freo local and well known advocate of good governance and local government transparency had run the campaign of another Society supported and funded candidate who ran in the subsequent Beaconsfield by election to which Mr Dowson donated $350 of Society funds. Hardy ‘disruptive’, she said.

Ms Green told StreetWise Mr Dowson repeated his false claims on page three of the Herald on August 25, 2017, ‘FS clashes with candidate’. Ms Green said this immediately compromised her campaign, having created doubt in voters’ minds, “as to my integrity and capacity to stand for public office”. Ms Green lost the 2017 local election by just 90 votes.
According to the Herald: “Ms Green has provided evidence that she had resigned eight months prior to the by-election in Beaconsfield in October 2016. The Herald accepts Ms Green has always had a strong public commitment for good governance, and unreservedly apologies for any distress the article caused her or for any inference that she was not fit for Fremantle Society support or public office.”
Ms Green said Mr Dowson and Committee members were fully aware at the time of her election to the Committee in November 2015 that she may resign in the new year (2016) because of her ongoing commitments as Chair of the Fremantle Residents and Ratepayers Association. “There was no by-election when I resigned,” she said. “The decision by the City to even have a by-election did not occur until six months later in August 2016 after Beaconsfield Councillor Josh Wilson resigned in June 2016 following his successful election in the federal election in May 2016.”
She said it was impossible her resignation from the FS Committee on March 11, 2016, could have had, as Mr Dowson claimed, any influence on the FS Committee or a by election as one did not exist and the president was overseas at the time. Additionally, the Federal election did not occur until May 2016, and that did not trigger a by-election until October.

Governance not

Ms Green said the actions of Mr Dowson and FS Committee members raised questions over procedural fairness and why, if Mr Dowson’s ‘disruptive’ claims had any substance, they were not dealt with at the time using the normal due processes available to the Society under the Associations’ Incorporation Act and/or the Society Constitution.
Ms Green also questions the lawfulness of the decision of the FS Committee to suddenly change its mind over its acceptance of membership renewal, to an application for membership (after 11 years) and then wait nearly two months after its September meeting to inform her.
She said this breached the Society’s own Rules and Constitution and the Associations’ Act, adding the Committee did not believe it had a moral or ethical obligation to say why she was cut loose.
Ms Green notified the Committee of a formal dispute as soon as she was informed of the Committee’s decision to change her renewal to an “application for membership” without explanation. Under the Rules, the Committee had 14 days to respond to the Dispute notification. Under the Constitution, the matter would then need to go to independent mediation as the Committee were a party to the dispute.
Ms Green said former secretary Chris Williams had said the matter would be dealt with at the next Committee meeting on December 8, 2020, but newly elected secretary Mia Kriznic subsequently informed Ms Green the, “matter of her application for membership” (which is incorrect), would be dealt with in the New Year because the Committee, “were very busy volunteers, and had other things to do”. She said it could not get a quorum and she hadn’t had time to read the Constitution.
On December 7, Ms Green wrote to Ms Kriznic stating, “My formal dispute is covered by the FS Constitution and Rules, and not the timelines of volunteer members”.

Ms Green said as secretary, Ms Kriznic had not even informed herself of the grievance/dispute and had concluded incorrectly that she had applied for her application for membership to be resolved.
Ms Green added Ms Kriznic was incorrect when she stated the Committee needed a quorum to deal with the grievance because there was no decision to be made once the FS dispute resolution process commenced: “Ms Kriznic’s comments were incorrect and inaccurate because she did not bother to read the grievance/dispute nor was she aware of the FS Rules and Constitution, even though she had been an office bearer of the FS for 12 months.”
By not responding in the 14 days required, Ms Green said she will have to seek arbitration by the State Administrative Tribunal as the FS Committee, “has chosen not to bother with its own Rules and Constitution” and the decision by the Committee to arbitrarily end her FS membership without cause after 11 years, is unfair and probably unlawful.
“This lack of due process by the President and Committee on behalf of the Society should be of concern to the members it represents. The FS Committee was consistently attacking the Council over poor governance and ratepayer representation,” she said.
Coincidentally, Ms Kriznic is also a co-administrator of the Fremantle Community Forum and, although she lives in the City of Melville, intends to run in City Ward in the WA local government elections in October 2021. Ms Green also is a potential candidate and lives in City Ward.
Ms Kriznic contacted StreetWise on Thursday to say she was, “no longer Secretary of the Fremantle Society”. According to the FS Facebook page, Ms Kriznic and FCF co-admin Mark Woodcock now have, “Fremantle Society connections”. Mr Dowson did not respond to a request to confirm whether Ms Kriznic had resigned as secretary, just weeks after she was elected.