The Brimbank City Council has been sacked and will be replaced by an administrator that will run council matters until 2012.

The decision was handed down on Tuesday following an investigation by the Municipal Administration Inspector, William Scales who found inappropriate behaviour by certain councillors.

Mr Scales was given the role of monitoring the activities and performance of the Brimbank City Council after a scathing Ombudsman report that was released in May.

In his report to the Minister of Local Government Richard Wynne the Municipal Administration Inspector tables a series of improprieties he found in the conduct of a number of councillors, including one who attempted “to inappropriately intervene in relation to a parking fine related to his private business vehicle. Four Councillors have been investigated and have been found to have acted inappropriately in relation to their responsibilities as Councillors…”

Neos Kosmos English Edition (NKEE) contacted longtime Brimbank mayor and until recently Brimbank councillor Sam David, who refuted Mr Scales findings as unsubstantiated. “I was very disappointed by this decision and especially for the new councillors because we were functioning normally,” Mr David said.

In the November elections last year, 8 out of the 11 Brimbank councillors were newly elected.

“This report [of Bill Scales], to give you an example is like telling a child not to touch something and if the child does so you cut its hand off,” the former Brimbank Mayor of Greek Cypriot descent said.

But even a once political adversary of Mr David and a former Brimbank councillor, Costas Socratous highlighted the fact that the decision was an overreaction.

“There were 8 new councillors and I don’t believe they were given the chance to prove themselves but rather are paying the mistakes of the past. You can’t sack a whole council over a parking fine,” Mr Socratous underscored.

In his report, Mr Scales also talked about “evidence that unelected persons are still trying to inappropriately influence the actions of Councillors.”

He was referring to the St Albans Branch of the ALP which send a letter to council members raising their concerns over the location of new City offices.

The Brimbank saga has deep rooted political ramifications with the potential of causing serious political damage to the Labor Party that has dominated the area and controlled the election of its councillors.

An ALP party insider who spoke to NKEE on the condition of anonymity indicated that the political pressure is on from the Brumby government for the scandal to go away.

“They want to avoid by all means a spill over of this scandal during the election campaign of November 2010,” the insider explained. “That’s why they want to wrap things up as quickly as possible and don’t forget that there is a criminal investigation underway regarding certain Brimbank former councillors that will also be soon discussed in the public realm,” this insider added.

The same source suggested that the ALP feels a serious threat of losing the Upper House majority in the upcoming elections from the political fallout of Brimbank and is scrambling to minimise the impact.

The Opposition has rushed, of course, to capitalise on the new development of the Brimbank story with its leader Ted Baillieu calling for the sacking of government Ministers.

In an interview to 3AW radio when Mr Baillieu was asked if the Brimbank councillors have been made scapegoats he replied: “I certainly am of the view that other heads should roll …They haven’t chosen to sack Richard Wynne, the Local Government Minister, whose department inadequately investigated in the first place. They haven’t chosen to sack Justin Madden, who turned his back on these complaints for years. And they haven’t done that because they know this goes to the heart and the head of this government.”

The government on the other hand is expressing its vigilance on the matter with Mr Wynne stating last week that “…the Government has been left with no choice, given that Mr Scales has found that councillors have fundamentally failed to correct poor practices and issues of probity and misconduct,” and added that when he appointed Mr Scales the council was given a clear message “if we did not see real cultural change at Brimbank we would take action.”