THEY appear to have a bit in common.
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They share the same mobile phone number. And they both have a keen interest in matters that impact local government in Newcastle.
Not to mention they are both opinionated, controversial and, invariably, like writing to the Newcastle Herald on strikingly similar topics.
Just when it seemed the letter-writing saga of City of Newcastle CEO Jeremy Bath's best friend Scott Neylon was coming to an end, a new front has opened up in the ongoing Newcastle Herald investigation.
A series of fresh emails have been unearthed from another pro-council Herald letter writer linked to Mr Neylon, Jason Sivo.
So the question is now: who is Jason Sivo?
Three emails from a person using the name Jason Sivo were retrieved last month from an archive of deleted correspondence sent to this masthead since mid-2019.
Judging by the contents of the emails, Mr Sivo seems well connected. So well-connected, in fact, that he can access correspondence facilitated by Local Government NSW that was sent to a closed email network of council heads, including general managers. He can also access inside information about projects at Hunter Water.
The mysterious Mr Sivo and Japanese-based Mr Neylon share a curious bond. The pair provided the same Optus mobile phone number in submissions to the Herald's letters-to-the-editor page around the same time in late 2019 and early 2020.
According to Optus and the Australian Communications and Media Authority, telcos hold disused mobile phone numbers in quarantine for at least six months after they are disconnected, some are held for up to 12 months.
This means the phone number could not have been passed from Mr Neylon to Mr Sivo in the less than four months between their letter submissions.
The current owner of the phone number told the Herald he does not know either of the men.
But using the same mobile phone number is not the only link between Mr Neylon, who has taught English in Japan for decades, and Mr Sivo, who claims to live in Waratah.
Both men are defenders of City of Newcastle and supporters of the Newcastle V8 Supercars race. Dislike of Independent councillor John Church, who is a long-term critic of both Mr Bath and Labor lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes' administration, is another thing the letter writers have in common.
The Herald could find no trace of Mr Sivo living in the region and attempts to contact him via the phone number and email address he supplied have been unsuccessful. Mr Neylon has repeatedly ignored questions about if he knows Mr Sivo, if he wrote to the Herald under the name Jason Sivo or why both men had contributed to this masthead supplying the same phone number.
The Herald revealed last year that dozens of letters and online comments have been published in media outlets over 13 years under the name Scott Neylon, which twist the truth, distort reality and follow the career progression of Mr Bath, attacking his critics and supporting his employers from ClubsNSW to Hunter Water to City of Newcastle.
For almost 12 months the Newcastle Herald has sought to get to the bottom of allegations that the letters submitted under the name Scott Neylon were in fact penned by Mr Bath.
In November, Wallsend MP Sonia Hornery - a major target of the Neylon letters - used parliamentary privilege to declare Mr Bath had authored the letters and "shamefully abused" his $513,000 a year job funded by Newcastle ratepayers.
A controversial investigation by council consultants Pinnacle Integrity found in December there was "insufficient evidence" to support allegations Mr Bath had contributed to the letters. The investigators did not contact the Herald to see the letters, including the many which were not published.
Mr Bath denies writing the letters or influencing his "best friend" to write them, and Mr Neylon has said previously via email he, not Mr Bath, penned the letters.
Mr Bath did not respond to questions about whether he knew Mr Sivo or if he wrote to the Herald under the name Jason Sivo.
But a letter from his lawyer last week said Mr Bath did not write to the Herald under the name Jason Sivo and did not influence any correspondence from Mr Sivo.
"Should Newcastle Herald proceed to publish the proposed article, CN [City of Newcastle] puts Newcastle Herald on notice that it will lodge a complaint with the Australian Press Council and further explore its legal options, including issuing a concerns notice under s 12B of the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW)," the legal letter reads.
Enter Jason Sivo
In a surprising twist last week, the Herald unearthed three emails that were sent under the name Jason Sivo to journalists in the ten months to March 2021.
All three of Mr Sivo's emails share a common thread.
They all appear to be a persuasive push to direct the Herald's attention away from controversies that involve City of Newcastle, pointing attention to other people or organisations.
The unearthed emails also provide further Neylon-Sivo parallels.
Like Mr Neylon, the emails reveal Mr Sivo is not a fan of Maitland City Council, and is particularly keen to highlight any issues relating to its new administration building, which opened last year.
Both letter writers are also not very fond of Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp.
Their correspondence indicates they both read the Herald, but Mr Neylon and Mr Sivo are not subscribers.
The unearthed emails
The first of the retrieved Jason Sivo emails was sent to this reporter on May 1, 2020, encouraging the Herald to investigate the viability of Maitland council's then planned $43 million new civic centre development.
In the email, Mr Sivo is acting as a behind-the-scenes informant, offering confidential information critical of Maitland council. In an effort to substantiate the information, Mr Sivo attaches an email written by Maitland council's then general manager David Evans, who retired last year after more than 25 years in the job.
The screenshot of Mr Evans' email had the top cut off to remove the recipients' names and the date. In it, Mr Evans is responding to others, detailing the impact of the pandemic on Maitland council.
He lists employment concerns and outlines the possible result of funding changes introduced by TCorp, the NSW Treasury financing authority, on Maitland's plans for its new administration centre.
Mr Sivo's email was sent to the Herald as the nation was in lockdown and just days after the NSW government announced high-level details of a $395 million stimulus package for councils.
Part of the stimulus included a two-year moratorium on using TCorp loans for capital works on council chambers and administration buildings.
It was this information that Mr Sivo latched onto in an attempt to get the Herald to turn its attention to Mr Evans and his handling of Maitland council's new administration centre project.
This was at the same time as the Herald, in fact this reporter, was locked in a lengthy battle with City of Newcastle over a denied freedom of information request about how much Newcastle council was spending on its new headquarters at Stewart Avenue.
City of Newcastle initially told ratepayers it would spend $7 million on fitting out the rented premises and the Herald revealed in December 2020 the final cost was $17.6 million.
"Dear ms page [sic]. The nsw government has changed lending criteria to councils, temporarily suspending TCorp's ability to fund Maitland's new civic centre development," Mr Sivo wrote.
"This is a disaster for our council. Unfortunately the GM is reluctant to say anything publicly. Please don't reference the attached email, which confirms what I'm saying."
When contacted last week, Mr Evans said he had no idea who Jason Sivo was or how he got access to his email.
"That's not a name I'm familiar with," Mr Evans said. "It's not the name of a person that I ever recall having engaged with."
Mr Evans confirmed the issues detailed in his email, including the possibility of having to direct seven staff to take excess leave in an effort to keep them employed, were not things he would have been discussing with a member of the public.
He said they were issues council general managers across the state were dealing with due to the pandemic, but he could not recall exactly who was involved in the group discussion.
"Look I don't have the recall sufficient to say who I sent that to ...," he said.
"Clearly the email is a response to something that was initiated by somebody, whether it was one of the Hunter council general managers, whether it was a general manager from another council outside the area, which is quite possible, or whether it was through the Hunter Joint Organisation. I honestly can't recall...
"I mean there were 10 general managers at the time in the Hunter. It could have been an inquiry from one of them that went out to all of us."
Mr Evans said it was a "fair question" to ask how Jason Sivo accessed his email and said he was not aware of any data breaches at the council.
He said if it came to his attention that a member of the public had an internal council email with sensitive information about staffing issues, he would have ordered an investigation to find out how the information was leaked.
"I think to be honest here, the inference that I was sitting on something I should have been talking publicly about was probably an attempt to throw a bit of mud," Mr Evans said.
"And no more than that. And an unfounded attempt, because I don't believe we were ultimately captured in the TCorp funding issue as we got funding from a bank."
A Maitland council spokesman confirmed last week that Jason Sivo never worked there, and the organisation has no idea who he is.
"Maitland City Council is not aware of any breaches of council's email system," he said.
The spokesman said the email sent to the Herald on May 1, 2020, captured Mr Evans' response, written on April 29, to a "closed email network and online forum facilitated by Local Government NSW".
The subject line of the email that was "RE: LG Stimulus Package".
Local Government NSW is a non-government body that represents all 128 councils across the state.
Mr Bath did not respond to questions from the Herald about whether, as the head of Newcastle council, he was involved in, or received, the group email that included Mr Evans' response.
Sivo's community grants interest
The second Jason Sivo email was sent to then Herald reporter Ian Kirkwood. It arrived about a month later and offered further valuable clues about the identity of the writer.
Once again Mr Sivo is providing confidential information to the Herald, but this time the subject of the email is "community grants" and he details concerns about the Hunter and Central Coast Development Corporation (HCCDC).
It was sent at 7.47am, the same day the Herald published a story written by Mr Kirkwood, which revealed that about 80 per cent of the allocations from a $1 million a year "community" grant scheme funded by the privatised Port of Newcastle went to state government entities, City of Newcastle, the university or the port itself.
The news report revealed that a list of recipients showed community groups received just nine of the 22 funded grants, only receiving $792,000 of the $4.8 million spent, a move Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp described at the time as not passing the pub test.
Recipients included $500,000 to Newcastle council to renovate Nobbys Surf Life Saving clubhouse and the same amount for NSW Port Authority for improvements to Macquarie Pier at Nobbys.
The report said that Newcastle council, the University of Newcastle and the Port of Newcastle between them received more than $2.1 million over the five years of the scheme, compared with the $792,000 allocated to community groups.
"Dear Ian. Look at the grant recipients this year. HCCDC was the recipient of a massive grant," Mr Sivo wrote in his email about two hours after the article appeared on the Herald's website.
"Until this year, they managed the entire grant process. How can they be eligible when until this year it was their staff that were managing the process and on the judging panel."
Mr Sivo then went on to provide confidential information about Hunter Water.
"Last year Hunter Water received a grant despite the project not even being approved by its Board at the time or being shovel ready, which is a condition of application," he wrote.
"My sister works for HWC [Hunter Water Corporation] and was tasked with cleaning up the project which very few of her colleagues even knew about or that they were applying for a grant for.
"Oh and the work funded just happened to be on a creek that is literally 100m from their office on Honeysuckle Drive. I've been shocked for two years no one picked up on it."
Focus on Crakanthorp, and cake
The third email from Mr Sivo was sent in March 2021 to then Herald editor Heath Harrison and Independent Newcastle councillors John Church and Allan Robinson.
It follows a Daily Telegraph story about a cake decorated with the words "Scomo's a homo", detailing how a picture of the cake was at the centre of a vicious feud between rival Labor camps battling for control in the seat of Newcastle.
The report detailed allegations that members had purposely been driven out of the Newcastle ALP branch to allow the executive to maintain control to keep Mr Crakanthorp - and also federal Newcastle MP Sharon Claydon - in power. Both Newcastle MPs were also targets of Neylon letters.
Mr Sivo seized on the opportunity to let the Herald know he thought this masthead should also do a story about a picture of the cake, which had been taken almost two years before the Daily Telegraph story.
"The ABC talked about it. The people at work talked about it. But not the Herald. Why?" his email reads.
Mr Sivo then goes on to accuse the Herald of protecting Mr Crakanthorp, and turns his attention to defending then Newcastle councillor Allan Robinson, who at the time was facing disciplinary action for a series of homophobic slurs he made in relation to deputy lord mayor Declan Clausen.
"But still happy to smash Allan Robinson for using the word poofs in a good way," Mr Sivo wrote.
"Robbo loves everybody. Great family, hardest working bloke I've ever met, and calls a spade a spade. But the Herald gives it to him ... how can this newspaper not write about this big story."
Mr Robinson, who left council in 2021 and was banned from holding civic office for two years in 2023 due to homophobic and derogatory remarks, told the Herald last week he had never heard of Jason Sivo and he did not know Scott Neylon.
"I'd tell you if I knew them, but I have never met either of them as far as I'm aware," he said.
"Jason Sivo is not a name I've ever heard before, no idea who the bloke is."
Do you know more? Donna.page@newcastleherald.com.au
