FOI exposes council contempt for Freo business

A CITY of Fremantle investigation has upheld only one of 19 allegations by Bob’s Shoe Store of Cr Andrew Sullivan’s handling of a parking fine he promised to have withdrawn in March last year.
The 28-page council report found Cr Sullivan breached the City Code of Conduct after the South Ward councillor used, “derogatory language when referring to another person”.
That person is Luca James Lee who on October 31, 2021 lodged a complaint against Cr Sullivan’s role in having the parking infringement overturned. None of Mr Lee’s allegations were upheld, except one.
The $5000 report by ‘external’ investigator WISE Workplace (https://bit.ly/3MpJxSg) turns solely on FOI copies Mr Lee obtained of internal council emails in which Cr Sullivan describes Mr Lee as a self-entitled, self-important and lazy junior Trump.
Had Mr Lee not applied under FOI and uncovered Cr Sullivan’s ‘derogatory’ emails, which also were sent to “independent” investigator Matt Read in late November, Cr Sullivan would have been cleared of any misconduct.
Last month, Cr Sullivan told council before elected members considered the investigator’s report: “In some of those emails I was critical of Mr Lee’s behaviour towards our staff and his attitude towards the City more generally. While my comments were not intended for public consumption, a few of my characterisations of Mr Lee were unnecessarily unflattering and I regret making them. To the extent that Mr Lee was offended by those statements, I apologise.”
Mr Lee, whose family has been trading in Fremantle for the past 32 years, rejected Cr Sullivan’s apology and told StreetWise the report only confirmed what Mr Lee told council last year: “Your appalling lack of engagement and obvious lack of concern for the ramifications of your failure to act is a disgusting indictment of the ‘leadership’ that Fremantle finds itself lumped with by default.”
When asked why Cr Sullivan apologised before members had viewed the report, City governance manager Charlie Clark said: “Why Cr Sullivan chose to apologise before elected members considered the report findings is a question for Cr Sullivan.”

FOI revelations

MR Lee’s FOI documents include an email from Cr Sullivan to City business acting director Matthew Hammond on March 5, 2021, the day after Cr Sullivan met Mr Lee and his father to discuss the disputed parking infringement: “I suspect young Luca is a recent returnee from California and that his dad, John, is trying to hand the business over to him and his sister. He reminds me of a younger [Redacted] just a lot more arrogant, self-important and zero patience if he’s not getting what he wants (the Trump school of business). I might have to wear him out.”
The day before, he told Mr Hammond: ” … given his Californian/Australian accent and arrogance, I felt I was talking to D Trump Jnr”, adding, “There is no doubt in my mind that the fine was warranted … It would be great to keep Bob’s as an iconic Freo business, but we can’t do much about the brash attitude of a new generation of ownership. What I don’t want is for them to unfairly bad mouth us on their way out”.
Cr Sullivan’s email chain also includes: “We investigated whether Luca qualified for the first offence leniency but he didn’t. I left the matter with staff.”
Mr Lee told the investigator Cr Sullivan, “consciously choose to do nothing about an issue which would knowingly escalate and potentially cause a detriment to Mr Lee”. He said at no time did he tell Cr Sullivan he did not live in his property in Fremantle nor mention his sister or where she lived. He also took offence to Cr Sullivan having described him as, “lazy, spoiled and overindulged”, likening him to former US president Donald Trump.
Mr Lee said he lived and worked in Fremantle in his teenage years and was now heading a number of executive functions of two of his Fremantle based businesses including Bob’s. He added his family is of First Nations descent and felt Cr Sullivan expressed an, “outwardly inflated sense of self, place and privilege and deems it his right to assign a level of belonging to another person, especially to a descendent of the original inhabitants of Australia”. He said, “cultural sensitivity training is absolutely necessary for Cr Sullivan”.
But Mr Read found there was no evidence in Cr Sullivan’s email of cultural insensitivity or that Cr Sullivan had knowledge Mr Lee is of First Nations descent: “The comments made by Cr Sullivan may be perceived to be inappropriate, but notwithstanding his admission he was frustrated with Mr Lee, his comments are not considered to be to the level on which to make a finding and may also be perceived as communicating that Mr Lee did not have a local accent, or that Cr Sullivan was not up-to-date with the demographics of Fremantle, despite his position of councillor. Overall, the approach of Mr Lee in this regard of linking the comments to cultural insensitively may support the vexatious nature of his complaints.”
Mr Lee said Cr Sullivan added further insult to injury when on September 9, 2021, he tells planning director Paul Garbett, “While Luca will most likely still go on to rant publicly about our approach to parking etc., he may not get a great reception if he’s actually been given a stay. You may have to fill out the form for him as I get the impression he’s not used to having to do such things”.
Mr Lee said Cr Sullivan’s tone was patronising with references of him as ‘young Luca’ who he said back in March he would wear out, “a direct intent to cause harm or disadvantage to Mr Lee as he deemed Mr Lee’s personality not to his liking”.
As StreetWise reported on October 10, 2021 (www.streetwisemedia.com.au/kick-in-the-shins-for-freo-shoe-icon), Mr Lee wrote to councillors and executive staff, “During the Ordinary Meeting of Council on the 19th February 2022, Cr Andrew Sullivan made a statement regarding an ongoing complaint that I had lodged with the City in October of last year”. He said: “The ‘apology’ that he has expressed appears insincere, qualified, and calculated to achieve a political aim of further evading responsibility for his actions. His statement of apology was pre-emptive and appears to refer to confidential information that was not yet deliberated or decided upon by Council – or made available to me.
“In his statement, Cr Sullivan appears more concerned with the fact that his unacceptable conduct was uncovered as a result of internal emails being surfaced, rather than expressing contriteness or sincere regret.”

Sullivan response

IN his response to the investigator, Cr Sullivan states he used his ‘best endeavours’ to have the fine withdrawn and claims his assessment of Mr Lee’s initial phone message was that he was, “extremely upset, angry and demanding immediate assistance”, and threatened to close Bob’s Shoe Store. Cr Sullivan said he no longer had Mr Lee’s voicemail message. Hearsay?
Cr Sullivan told investigator’s he failed to get Mr Lee’s name or email address even though he says Mr Lee sent him texts, emails and spoke to him on the phone, his oversight, “an inadvertent mistake through a moment of inattentiveness “.
He also told investigators he held, “a confidential conversation with a person who would have been disappointed if Mr Lee’s business left Fremantle and asked for advice on how to build a respectful relationship with Mr Lee. Cr Sullivan states that the person expressed an opinion that there was little point in trying to meaningfully engage with Mr Lee who was almost impossible to deal with. Cr Sullivan states he conveyed this information to Mr Hammond in an email dated 29 September 2021”.
Cr Sullivan’s unfounded character assassination of a person he had never met also includes accusing Mr Lee of politicising the issue on social media sites during the local government election.
Interestingly, Cr Sullivan tells investigators Mr Lee made the issue public after he was approached by a local online community forum and Freo StreetWise, “neither could be described as significant amount of media, as even collectively, they have limited readership” (Incorrect as the number of readers of this publisher’s growing social media page far outnumbers Cr Sullivan’s few hundred ‘followers’).
Importantly, in his response to Mr Lee’s FOI documents, Cr Sullivan said his derogatory comments were only intended as internal conversations between him and staff members: “Cr Sullivan states he made statements in his emails that were more about his venting of frustration regarding Mr Lee making such a huge issue over something as trivial as a parking infringement. Cr Sullivan states his statements show he was frustrated with Mr Lee from the outset and was increasingly losing respect for him as time went on.”
Cr Sullivan accepted that, “wording and sentiments in some of the internal emails was inappropriate and outside the spirit of the Code of Conduct and as such regrets making them”. He said in contrast to his behaviour towards him, “Mr Lee’s attitude towards the Council and Cr Sullivan has been unreasonable, critical and increasingly political and considers the alleged breaches as bordering on vexatious”.
Additional emails cited by StreetWise today show Cr Sullivan tried to influence the FOI process when on October 14 he wrote to Andrew Pittaway: “I obviously made some personal comments about Mr Lee’s tone and behaviour. This was said to convey the nature of the complainant as I consider that was important to the conversation about how to manage the complaint. I’m not convinced that information should be made available as part of the FOI and would prefer it was redacted, but that is your call. Once you have a full document list, I am happy to check to see whether I believe it is complete.”
On September 29, Cr Sullivan also wrote to Mr Hammond to suggest, “a way out of this mess that still seems to sit inside your policy. Hence, maybe a call to him (Mr Lee) to expand that question to, ‘is he or anyone who was involved in the business a Freo resident?'”.
Mr Read found, “Notwithstanding that Cr Sullivan was frustrated with and increasingly losing respect for Mr Lee and felt that Mr Lee’s complaints were bordering on being vexatious, there are a number of internal email communications sent by Cr Sullivan that by his own admissions were inappropriate and outside the spirit of the Code”.
Cr Sullivan’s ‘punishment’ includes a public apology and training to be a better councillor, “to explore his behaviour regarding the use of derogatory language when referring to another person in email communications. This will serve as a strategy to improve Cr Sullivan’s behaviour in his email communications and minimise the risk of further complaints being received of a similar nature”.