‘Tent city’ regrettable and political: CEO report

‘TENT city’ was a regrettable event that failed to help nearly 100 homeless people camped at Pioneer Park, according to the City of Fremantle CEO.
In a report to full council on Wednesday, the CEO says the Boxing Day lunch that went for 29 days before the State Government closed the camp on January 23, “presented a poor public image of the City, had a negative impact on a number of adjacent businesses and users of the City, caused a considerable diversion of City resources from other normal workload and incurred unplanned costs in terms of additional rostering of security staff, toilet cleaning and waste removal, and rehabilitation of the park”.
Had the Government not stepped in, the unauthorised camp set up by activist group Freo Street Kitchen would have remained open for at least another two weeks. FSK appears to still be collecting donations even though it is not a registered charity, stating online that it is still short a few hundred dollars to cover camp expenses.
Importantly, the CEO report confirms, “some aspects of the camp represented a political protest, and that the occupiers and organisers of the site were not prepared to leave voluntarily, and that any forcible removal of the campers from the site would have required significant police support”.
The “summary of the events” based on written records and recollections of relevant City staff fails to make any mention of the role Greens WA candidate Brad Pettitt and elected members including Acting Mayor Andrew Sullivan (who since early December ‘sub-let’ his office space on Pakenham Street to FSK organiser Jesse Noakes) and councillors Rachel Pemberton and Sam Wainwright, who actively supported the camp before and during the month-long fiasco.
Nor does the report, “provide any comment about any discussions, meetings or purported comments by any elected members of the City of Fremantle, excepting in cases where these were meetings convened by and attended by City of Fremantle officers”.
It states the first meeting to discuss the FSK request was on December 21 attended by City staff, Cr Pemberton and Mr Noakes, who the CEO states made no commitment to a departure date by the campers or FSK: “No more contact was made between representatives from FSK and the City until after the establishment of tent city.”
It adds: “During this time the CEO had no contact with any elected members of the City, other than regular phone calls to the Mayor to inform him of the issue and of the actions taken by the City.”
An on-site meeting was not held until January 2, by which time police had received nearly 80 calls for help. Two teenage girls, aged 13 and 14, were allegedly sexually assaulted by two men who either visited or stayed at the camp.
A response group was convened on several dates to close the camp as a matter of priority, only to be overridden by the State Government on January 23 when it ordered the camp to be cleared claiming, “some councillors”, had refused to cooperate with authorities.
WA Premier Mark McGowan described FSK organisers as “political protestors” and “anarchists”, but stopped short of holding a proper inquiry. The Local Government Minister is MIA.
“Initially the closure was agreed to be undertaken by 8th February, this was subsequently revised to January 23, as it was agreed that pre-planning arrangements had been adequately concluded,” the CEO report claims, adding consensus to close the camp was reached on January 23 (the same day the State closed the camp after the City would not).
The CEO will now conduct a review of the process of ‘voluntary goodwill group approvals’ to, “avoid a situation like this ever occurring again”.
Rather than answer specific questions taken on notice at the previous FPOL meeting, the officer’s response states, “tent city queries are generally referred to in the CEO report”.