scone.com.auCouncillors Efficient or Evasive?
THIS month Councillors dedicated an entire 15 minutes of their time to address 127 pages of matters put before them in the public meeting.
While reporting on Council meetings since January it is a pattern that Councillors go through the motions with lighting speed sparing little time for discussion and certainly there has been no robust debate on any issue.
Some see the process as efficient, but others see a lack of transparency citing whole of Council meetings happening behind closed doors before the public meeting.
Ean Cottle, former Councillor and resident of Merriwa believes such short meetings are not in the public interest.
“When I was a Councillor there were some short meetings and with Barry Rose in the first four years some were only half an hour, but others went for the best part of two hours,” said Mr Cottle.
“Sometimes we’d have a gallery with five or six people and others there would be 30 or 40, depending on what was being discussed,” he said.
“Council meetings were originally meant to be open to the public so that they could listen to debate, the for and the against on certain items, things that are of interest to the community such as whether we are going to put in lights, or charge extra at the pool, it would be debated and the public could sit and listen,” he said.
“It comes back to the word transparency for the public,” he said.
“I’ve heard the stories about how quick the council meetings are and the Council meeting in reality is the meeting they have before the meeting and it is behind closed doors so that the active discussion part of it is not open to the public,” Ean Cottle said.
Waid Crockett, general manager of Council confirmed there was a briefing for all Councillors prior to the public meeting, in which the Councillors could discuss matters and seek clarification from Council staff on a range of matters brought before them.
Mr Crockett said the briefings would vary in length between 20 minutes and three hours depending on the agenda and after the briefing Councillors were afforded half an hour for questions.
Brian Brown, former Councillor and Scone resident said the model which uses sub-committees means the main Council meeting can be more efficient, but said 15 to 20 minutes meetings provided little context for the motions being passed.
“Some Councils in the past sat for two hours, then had dinner, then reconvened the meeting after dinner, but many, many years ago it moved to the committee model and that allows for discussion to happen there,” said Mr Brown.
“But 15 and 20 minutes really is just a case of signatories and really very, very little discussion,” he said.
“A quick meeting can be a sign of a happy, satisfied Council,” he said.
“When I was on Council the meetings were longer, but certainly we were always very pleased with ourselves if we got it in under half an hour,” said Brian Brown.
Ean Cottle agreed the committee model, whereby Councillors sit on sub-committees and make recommendations to the whole Council, was a good model.
“Recommendations were brought to the main meeting, but Councillors still had a discussion on that, but that seems to be happening behind closed doors and not in the public gallery,” said Mr Cottle.
“Allow the public to see the questions, as to why and how things are happening and what their Councillors are weighing up,” he said.
“It certainly takes away from what they promote about transparency,” he said.
“By having it all down pat for the public meeting and for the meeting to be down to a matter of minutes, does not inspire anyone to go along,” Ean Cottle said.
Three recent controversial issues which peaked public interest include the sale of the library, Council’s position on the bypass and the closure of septic services.
While all matters were in the business papers before Council, no significant discussion or debate occurred in the monthly meeting.
More than a dozen members of the public attended the meeting which listed the bypass and overpass issue, but most left bewildered that the motion was simply raised, seconded and passed, with no discussion.
The matter of the sale of the library was discussed at an extraordinary meeting, which was closed during the discussion of the library matter.
Related Story: