From: Ray Norman <raynorman7250@bigpond.com>
Date: Monday, 22 April 2019 at 9:53 pm
To: Michael Stretton <Michael.Stretton@launceston.tas.gov.au>
Subject: CONFIDENTIAL: General Manager Correspondence - Communication
Protocol
Dear Michael,
Thank you for your letter
and the timely opportunity to address some of the issues and misunderstandings
evident in the correspondence.
Firstly, you should be
aware by now that a key component of my work as a researcher is to do with
placemaking/placemarking, cultural landscaping and cultural geography. As a
consequence, I am an element of a network of networks with many of the others
involved living in the Tamar/Esk/Kanamaluka/Ponrabbel ‘region’ – plus
others well beyond or with different understandings. To me, how all this is
understood and is variously imagined in a ‘governance context’ is
non-trivial.
Also, given that ‘Launceston’
is my current HOMEplace, as a consequence it is an
element of my ‘laboratory’ along with all those other factors
that make places HOMEplaces and that lend ‘placedness’
to spaces and a geography.
You seem to be attempting
to insulate and isolate yourself, and by extension the ‘Council
operation’ per se, from criticism and critique – indeed locating
yourself, and by extension Council, beyond serious critical discourses. I
believe that is not only an untenable proposition but also an idea that is
fundamentally counterproductive.
With all this in mind you
might better understand the context within which I communicate with you and/or
Council – or indeed anyone in networks I’m engaged with. Nonetheless,
this is not the first occasion that I’ve attempted to communicate this context
to ‘Council’ albeit apparently without success – and for
whatever reason.
The ‘protocol’
you are invoking assumes primacy and asserts quite a lot that is ‘inappropriate’.
You seem to have me confused with someone else or possibly someone living
somewhere else. In any event in the absence of alternative ‘deemed’
communication options I’ll take this new information on board and:
- Address
correspondence to ‘The Mayor & Councillors’ –
Launceston’s ‘governor’ – if that is to whom I am aiming to
communicate with – and where appropriate to Contact us’
as well;
- Address some
correspondence to ‘Contact us’ when appropriate to enable a
Council Officer – Launceston’s ‘administrators/managers/officers’ – to
distribute it to whoever she/he/they have a mind to or have been
instructed to forward it to – or ditch it even;
- Address some
correspondence to an individual or group of people employed by Council
when and where that is appropriate – and where appropriate CC to Contact
us as well;
- Address
correspondence to others outside Council on matters relevant to Launceston
PLACEmanagement issues to individuals and ‘Contact us’
in order to flag ‘transparency’ in regard to whom I am
corresponding in regard to Council relevant matters; and
- Lodge
all COLcorrespondence with www.COL63233000.BLOGSPOT.COM
and in particular that which is being addressed to The Mayor and/or
Councillors. Here, this is towards setting a standard of open and
transparent disclosure in regard to my correspondence with Council given
the filtering of correspondence by yourself and/or whoever else you ‘licence
to filter’.
I believe that this will not
run counter to provisions in the Local Govt. Act such as those to be found in SECTIONS
62 & 65 that I’m assuming you might be relying upon.
In fact, I very much look
forward to the subjectivity of, and the deeming of, what is
relevant/irrelevant. Seemingly, you flag that you intend for such a
standard/tactic to be applied. The ‘network’ will also be
interested. Rather than constrain ‘network communication’ my
interests are to do with how, when and the methods by which networked interests
can/might expand and evolve.
Moreover, given that due to
my network linkages from time-to-time I’m called upon to relay messages given
that they, understandably, do not wish to be “disadvantaged, be
bureau-bullied, be overlooked, be dismissed and sidelined, actively
discriminated against, whatever” even when its asserted that this will
not happen. Surely, you will have witnessed this before now abhorrent as it is.
It needs to be understood
that my relationships with, and interactions with, PLACEmaking networks
are quite deliberately rhizomic by design – flat and dynamically interactive.
That applies to my interactions with Council as well and you would/should be
well aware of the layering involved even if you are antithetic to the concept
of rhizomatic networking – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizome_(philosophy).
Therefore, while you may be
able/empowered, ‘managerially’, to assert ‘hierarchical and
ranked’ bureaucratic protocols within Council I’m not at all interested
in changing my research protocols to conform. More to the point, quite
clearly given the research methodologies I work with, you seem to be implying
they are antithetic to Council’s requirements. So be it!
Given that each recipient
of correspondence from me can, and are free to, ‘filter’ it in
their own way – many do for whatever reason – I see no reason to conform
to a protocol that you invoke – even if I’m now mindful of them.
I suspect that in time we
will all discover where the divide is between appropriate and inappropriate is
when it is at work within Town Hall. Likewise, at sometime in the future we may
even see the differentiation between ‘governance’ and ‘management’
clarified – or blurred even further. As expectations of governance
and management shift – locally and further afield – change is
inevitable.
Expectations will move in
line with social networking as the consequent cultural, political and social
dynamics come into play. Along with all that quite likely there will come new
perceptions of what ‘accountability’ should look like through a
21st Century lens. That lens increasingly affords sharper
definitions and deeper perceptions.
I look forward to your
response with considerable interest. Strategically, I am not following my
intuitive inclination to disregard your edict and simply ‘move on’.
My experiences over time seem to mitigate against that. For context, as I said
at the outset, I see all this as a timely opportunity to address some of the
issues and misunderstandings to be found in your letter.
Regards,
Ray
Ray Norman
<zingHOUSEunlimited>
The lifestyle design enterprise and research network
PH: 03-6334 2176
EMAIL 1: raynorman7250@bigpond.com
40 Delamere Crescent Trevallyn TAS. 7250
WEBsites:
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought
not to be trusted by anybody.” Thomas Paine
“The standard you walk past is the standard you accept” David
Morrison
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