Carlo Meschino: Charles Sturt Council complainer ban extended for another 12 months
A serial complainer, who has cost an Adelaide council more than $160,000 in answering his requests, has been banned from making complaints for a further 12 months.
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An Albert Park man has had his ban on making complaints to Charles Sturt Council extended for another 12 months.
The council agreed at its last meeting to extend Carlo Meschino’s ban, which it first put in place last year under its “unreasonable customer complaint procedure”.
This was despite Mr Meschino lodging a 91-page submission with the council, arguing why the ban should be lifted.
A council report said the submission “contained a number of incorrect and defamatory assertions” and that based on legal advice it was not included in the agenda.
The ban was initially put in place due to Mr Meschino’s “persistence, demands, arguments and behaviour as well as displaying an unreasonable lack of co-operation”.
After last year's ruling, Mr Meschino made a further 13 complaints to the council, mostly related to a business near his home he claimed was operating outside of approved hours.
Council officers visited the business five times but never found any evidence of wrongdoing.
Ombudsman Wayne Lines last year criticised Mr Meschino for his “abuse” of the Freedom of Information system after the council spent more than $160,000 and 2200 staff hours collating more than 7000 pages of documents to answer his 31 requests.
Many of the documents had already been provided, or had originally been sent by Mr Meschino himself.
Mr Meschino was critical of the council for refusing to publish his submission, saying it could have redacted details it considered defamatory.
He said he would continue to fight the ban.
“I will keep on fighting in the meantime because it’s not only in my interest but in the interest of every ratepayer,” Mr Meschino said.
Mr Meschino also lodged 15 code of conduct complaints against elected members, including 12 against Cr Tolley Wasylenko.
All the complaints against Cr Wasylenko were dismissed.
Cr Wasylenko said a process where a mini-examination to determine whether a code of conduct complaint should proceed before the council spent thousands on an investigation needed to be introduced.
“It should be stopped at the gate before it gets to the farm,” Cr Wasylenko said.
“Ratepayers would be shocked to know the cost of investigating the code and conduct complaints.”