Bankstown council was dismissed for the third time by the Minister for Local Government (Pat Hills), with Dane appointed for a second term as administrator, when five aldermen were charged with conspiracy to demand and receive payment in consideration of doing acts pertaining to aldermanic office. It was alleged the aldermen William Thomas Delauney, Charles Henry Little, Georgen Allardice Johnstone, Alfred Frederick McGuren and Murt O'Brien, were involved in a conspiracy to seek £5,000 each for ensuring that a Lend Lease proposal for a shopping centre in Bankstown was approved. On 7 April 1965, Delauney and another accused who was not an alderman, Martin Goode, pled guilty to the charges, while the remaining four went to trial at the District Court of New South Wales (prosecuted by John Slattery QC and presided over by Justice Christopher Monahan). The Crown's case relied upon tape recordings of the accused, which the judge ruled as admissible despite an admission from the Crown that they had been illegally obtained. On 13 April 1965, Justice Monahan acquitted McGuren and O'Brien on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to connect them to the conspiracy. On 15 April 1965, Johnstone was acquitted and Little was found guilty, with Judge Monahan sentencing him, along with Delauney and Goode (who had pled guilty), to 12-months in prison. City status and later history Bankstown's city status was proclaimed in 1980 in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, becoming the "City of Bankstown". On 12 May 2016, the City of Bankstown was merged with the City of Canterbury to form the Canterbury-Bankstown Council. Council seats Council Chambers (1918) On 29 June 1918 the new Council Chambers building located on South Terrace south of the Bankstown railway station (now No. 9 Bankstown City Plaza) was officially opened by the mayor, A. Townsend. Completed to a cost of £4,000, the new Council Chambers building was designed by prominent architect and mayor of Kogarah, Charles Herbert Halstead, and built by A. G. Swane. At the time of opening the street frontage included a post office, and a branch of the Australian Bank of Commerce. This remained the Council's primary meeting place and offices until new offices in the Civic Centre to the north were completed in 1963. Civic Centre and Council Chambers (1963) By the early 1960s, Bankstown Council sought a new headquarters that would be able to accommodate a growing organisation as