A Melbourne landscaper says he is being treated like a “murderer or a drug dealer” by his local council after he was slapped with an $11,500 [$7,781 USD] fine for filling in a dangerous hole.
The fine was followed by a demand to inspect his property for “unsafe” building work after he took his story to the media.
Adam Marsal, 40, says he was only trying to do the right thing when he filled in a large hole that had been left by a fallen tree in the nature strip near his Cranbourne Road home in Frankston late last year.
The roughly two-meter hole, just behind a bus stop, had been left for months and Mr. Marsal had “seen people tumble off the side”.
“I tried to do the right thing,” he said.
“This tree stump was huge. I sort of smoothed it out, used my skills to fix it all up. I put some soil in, put some plants.”
The landscaper, who grew up in nearby Mentone, said he was “passionate about the area” and wanted to help clean it up.
“Driving around you see rubbish everywhere,” he said.
“I’m just sorting out my little patch. It’s that broken windows philosophy — cleaning up rubbish and needles, making it look normal, it deters people dumping stuff.”
But to his surprise, Mr. Marsal was contacted by Frankston City Council officers earlier this year requesting he come to discuss the unauthorized works, after a tip-off by another local.
Mr. Marsal said he thought he was “just going in to have a conversation”, but instead was subjected to an extraordinary police-style interrogation by Bruce Gardiner, the council’s prosecutions co-ordinator.
From the beginning of the 20-minute grilling, described as “disturbing” by a local MP, Mr. Marsal was “already on the defensive” after what he alleges was Mr. Gardiner’s “rude and arrogant” treatment of him on the phone.
Mr. Gardiner — who made headlines last year after pop star Tones and I and her husband were slapped with $25,000 [$16,915 USD] in fines for illegal renovations to their Frankston investment property — opens the on-camera interview by telling Mr. Marsal he was going to ask about “some allegations about the illegal deposit of litter on the side of the road”.
“I don’t know that it’s litter, but OK,” Mr. Marsal says.
Mr. Gardiner proceeds to read Mr. Marsal his rights and requests he state his full name, sparking a hostile back-and-forth that sets the tone for the remainder of the combative interview.
“Do you have a middle name, Adam?” Mr. Gardiner says.
“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Mr. Marsal replies.
“There’s probably a lot of Adam Marsals in the world,” Mr. Gardiner says.
“No not really, if you want to do a Google search,” Mr. Marsal says.
“Do you want to state your full name or not?” Mr. Gardiner says.
“I’ll just say Adam Marsal,” Mr. Marsal says.
“Do you want to state your full name or not?” Mr. Gardiner says.
“That’s my name,” Mr. Marsal says.
“That’s a yes or no,” Mr. Gardiner says.
“That’s my name, Adam Marsal,” Mr. Marsal says.
Mr. Gardiner bristles when Mr. Marsal similarly refuses to give his age and date of birth, or answer questions about his business, saying he doesn’t “see how that’s relevant”.
“Well answer my questions or don’t answer my questions, let me work out what’s relevant and what’s not, OK?” Mr. Gardiner says.
Later in the interview Mr. Gardiner produces a series of photos of the hole.
“Yeah I’ve cleaned up the site, it used to be a f**king derelict site, full of s**t,” Mr. Marsal says angrily.
“Mind you, there was this big gum tree, it fell over and you left a hole in the ground two metres deep and about four metres wide, right here, for about six months, so I cleaned it up.”
“I didn’t leave a hole anywhere,” Mr. Gardiner says.
“You’re the council!” Mr. Marsal says.
“No I’m not,” Mr. Gardiner says.
“You work for the council — the council left the hole in the ground,” Mr. Marsal says.
“Adam, why did you put those items on the side of the road?” Mr. Gardiner says.
“I’ve just been telling you,” Mr. Marsal says.
“Did you hear what I’ve been talking about. Does that answer your question?”
“No it doesn’t,” Mr. Gardiner says.
“Your suggestion is that you put those items there to beautify the area.”
He tells Mr. Marsal council has no record of him having reported the hole.
Mr. Marsal insists “I called you guys, I called VicRoads, I cleaned it up because no one was coming”.
“This is my home, I live across the road from this place,” he says.
“I’ve spent thousands of dollars buying stuff for this.”
Mr. Gardiner informs him that to do works in a road reserve he needs a permit, which Mr. Marsal concedes he does not have.
Last month, Mr. Marsal received two infringement notices — one to himself and one to his company — for “depositing waste of more than 1000 liters” in violation of the Environment Protection Act 2017, totaling $11,500 [$7,781 USD].
After his story was featured on Nine’s A Current Affair earlier this week, Mr. Marsal then received another letter from council requesting access to his property for a building inspection on Monday, July 15.
“Frankston City Council has received information that there is potentially unsafe or non-compliant building work at the abovementioned property that requires inspection,” the letter said.
news.com.au does not suggest that Mr. Gardiner had any involvement in the issuing of the letter.
Mr. Marsal said he had owned his two-bedroom freestanding unit for nearly 10 years.
“Years ago I did some renovations inside and landscaped it, put retaining walls up, fixed the veranda that was falling down and put in some stairs,” he said.
“That’s the extent of it. It’s been like that for years, and coincidentally after the other issue they sent [this letter]. It makes me feel intimidated and harassed. I’m pretty sure they can go to any house in Australia and pick someone up on anything.”
Mr. Marsal said he did not intend to give consent to the search, meaning the council “have the option to go to a magistrate and get a search warrant”.
“I’m not a murderer, I’m not a drug dealer,” he said.
“I try to keep my head down in life, I don’t want these kinds of issues. You just don’t go and treat people like this.”
Paul Edbrooke, the Labor state MP for Frankston, said watching how Mr. Marsal was treated in the video “was actually quite disturbing”.
“These kinds of issues can be treated in a much more pragmatic and productive manner,” he said.
“In the last few months we’ve had quite a few complaints in regards to the way ratepayers are being treated by council over issues such as this one. Personally I have no idea why council would be this heavy-handed on someone that basically did their job for them.”
Mr. Edbrooke said he had “no idea at all why you would treat anyone in your community like that.”
“The effect on Adam’s small business is just amazing and very, very disruptive,” he said.
The MP also said he found the timing of the letter “really suspicious”.
“A reasonable person could start thinking that this is targeting, intimidating and bullying someone,” he said.
“This council has been pulled up quite a few times for alleged bullying. I think there is some big cultural issue.”
Mr. Edbrooke said “overall the message I’ve gotten” from constituents was the council was “out of touch, out of focus and they’ve got a culture problem”.
“People are just wondering, when the rates, roads and rubbish portion of their council rates, they don’t get those services, why council are focusing on these other pet projects they’ve got,” he said.
“Meanwhile a hole that had been there more than six months, two metres deep, a guy that has to take matters into his own hands is then charged $11,500 [$7,781 USD].”
Adam Glezer from Consumer Champion, who is representing Mr. Marsal, said he had “seen council issues but nothing nearly as disgraceful as this situation”.
“It seems like a classic case of bullying,” he said.
“The tactics that the council used in this situation were extremely inappropriate.”
Mr. Glezer said from what he had heard, “this is a systemic problem with Frankston City Council”.
“How can you give a good Samaritan a $11,500 fine for making an area safe that the council failed to do themselves?” he said.
“Adam went in for a meeting with his local city council, not the AFP. That’s exactly how they came across.”
He added that “rather than apologising for their egregious behaviour, the council has doubled down”.
“He’s done nothing different to his house in several years, yet the council thought it was appropriate to send him [an inspection] letter shortly after I got involved in his case,” he said.
“Frankston City Council representatives need to have a good, hard look at themselves because they are an absolute embarrassment. It appears they couldn’t care less about their community.”
Late on Friday, after news.com.au sent questions to Frankston City Council, Mr. Marsal said he received an email informing him Monday’s inspection would not go ahead.
The council is yet to respond.
