Westport chair engineered council friendly CEO

EXCLUSIVE: Westport Taskforce chair Nicole Lockwood engineered the appointment of a close friend as CEO when she was a councillor and shire president at the City of Karratha from 2007 to 2011.
Ignoring legal advice condemning the selection process, Cr Lockwood’s ‘chosen one’ Collene Longmore was appointed to council despite a lack of local government experience. Council sacked Ms Longmore two years later in 2012 after a falling out with staff and elected members except Ms Lockwood, who protested her dismissal.
In a August 14, 2009 letter from council lawyers McLeods Barristers & Solicitors to the late planning services director Robert Sharkey, councillors were urged to restart the recruitment process in which only two applicants for acting CEO, including Ms Longmore, were considered.
Details of the 18-page letter obtained by StreetWise are included in a 30,000-word submission to the WA parliamentary select committee into local government by Norwest Sand & Gravel, which alleges serious misconduct by former and current staff at the City and departments of mines and petroleum, land administration and Water Corporation (‘Trouble in WA’s engine room’, July 7).
The McLeods letter raised serious concerns over the use of different selection criteria that paved the way for Ms Longmore while the other candidate was not even interviewed: “This constitutes a major flaw in the assessment process because it failed to allow the applicants the opportunity to address in their applications each of the criteria against which their applications were to be assessed.”
The lawyers advised the unsuccessful candidate, Andrei Koeppen, would have strong grounds to sue council for having failed to comply with procedural fairness and, “therefore, that its decision to employ Ms Longmore is unlawful”. McLeods said the decision to appoint Ms Longmore appears to have been made a week before the advertised deadline, “on an ad hoc basis, by the Shire President and various individual councillors, with no lawful power to do so”.
McLeods added: “Council members were at least well advanced in their selection of Ms Longmore, if they had not already made up their minds.” It said, “most of the recruitment and selection process appears to have been undertaken by a group of councillors without seeking or obtaining advice or assistance from the acting CEO or … from professional advisers”.
The decision to interview only Ms Longmore, “was made by the Shire President and Crs Cechner, Lewis, Lockwood, Rothe and Vertigan”.
McLeods highlighted the close relationship between Ms Lockwood and Ms Longmore, both of whom previously worked together, Ms Lockwood, “carrying out project work for Ms Longmore and reporting to her”.
It said Ms Lockwood did not disclose the nature of her interest in Ms Longmore’s employment nor was it recorded in council minutes, noting, “details of the relationship between Cr Lockwood and Ms Longmore … are sufficient to raise concerns about whether Cr Lockwood had an impartiality interest and, if so, would cast further doubts on the integrity and lawfulness of the recruitment and selection process, particularly given the nature and extent of the role played by Cr Lockwood in that process”.
McLeods said it was essential to appreciate that groups of councillors do not constitute the Council: “The Council’s powers can be exercised only by the Council itself or by a lawful delegate. Neither applied in this case.” It added: “The failure to give notice of the selection criteria in the advertisement had a significantly adverse impact on Andrei Koeppen (and other prospective applicants) that it did on Collene Longmore.”
Ms Longmore did not return StreetWise calls and Ms Lockwood’s office said, “Nicole is not available to provide a response to your questions”.
Mr Koeppen did speak to StreetWise.

Cheated

The management consultant with extensive experience working in remote Aboriginal communities said he was very surprised at the time.
“I understood I was the only other shortlisted candidate,” he said. “And then I was abruptly told by the shire president (Brad Snell) they had a personal preference for the other candidate. I heard later that person got the job and there wasn’t going to be a process. I thought, ‘oh well, this is the wild west’. What was the point arguing about it?”
Mr Koeppen, who worked in Roebourne when the acting CEO position was advertised, said he was not interviewed by council even though he had strong credentials and qualifications for the job.
McLeods warned, “the absence of sufficient documentation supporting the conclusion Ms Longmore ‘is suitably qualified for the position’ of CEO, constitutes further ground on which the integrity and lawfulness of the Council’s decision making process may be questioned and challenged, including by way of legal proceedings against the Shire”.
Mr Koeppen said he was unaware of the McLeods letter until StreetWise mentioned it: “I didn’t know. Someone must have flagged their concerns at some stage.”
Having failed to land the acting CEO position, he said he did not bother applying for the CEO position, “I just wrote it off as the wild west”. Asked whether he would have reconsidered had he known about the McLeods advice to council, he said: “Absolutely.”
NWSG director Kim North said Ms Lockwood and Longmore played a major role in what he described as council’s victimisation of the company by failing to address allegations of deliberate delays and misconduct dating back to 1999 when NWSG refused to withdraw leases awarded by the Department of Mines at Sam’s Creek near Point Samson (‘Pilbara sand miner pushes back’, July 8).
The City of Karratha told StreetWise it had previously investigated and found no basis for NWSG’s claims and that, “we will not be providing any further statements on these matters”. StreetWise also asked the City whether it had a copy of McLeods’ letter.
Ms Longmore, who also was the ‘compliance officer’ at Karratha City when she was CEO, dismissed Mr North’s claims of delays misconduct by council staff. Her ‘review’ of Mr North’s, “12 complaints or allegations”, found no evidence of misconduct nor relevance to, “the governance functions of the Council”.
She added in her January 27, 2012, reply the Shire, “has not been able to locate information to suggest that a Shire staff member has acted in a vexatious manner to cause the hold up of a decision”.
Mr North claims the victimisation of NWSG continued after Ms Lockwood and Longmore left council in 2012.

Tomorrow: Dancing with the ‘Shark’