Council is questioned

By Chris Brown

A BAN on council questioners probing individual councillors caused tension at Wednesday’s South Gippsland Shire Council meeting.
It resulted in two members of the public gallery walking out, with one stating it was a “waste of time”.
Others condemned what they saw as the lack of democracy.
But Mayor Jim Fawcett said meeting rules only allowed questions to be directed to council.
“It’s an operational and practical way to deal with questions,” he said.
The Star understands the new rules were implemented to deal with heckling questions directed at individual councillors by C48 Watchdog members Paul Richardson and Ken Irwin.
Their written questions last week included inquiries addressed to individual councillors, but these weren’t allowed.
Question four on Mr Richardson’s list was directed to Cr Mohya Davies.
“In examining the article, “Davies responds to ’Burra signs,”…and her comments, “The only thing I’m guilty of is being silly enough to stand up and be a councillor”, how can you justify this decision of the C48 Planning Amendment and how do you see your role as a future councillor of the shire, representing constituents/property owners in your ward of Coastal Promontory and across the shire municipality?” he had written.
The ruling raised the ire of Cr David Lewis, who said it was a mistake.
He called on Cr Fawcett to explain his “sudden decree”.
During the question time he offered to provide an answer, but wasn’t
allowed.
Cr Fawcett said the question would be taken on notice.
“If you give us the questions before the day we will be able to answer them,” he said to one questioner from the public gallery.
“It allows us to absorb and understand questions and respond to them.”
But some questions addressed to council were answered straight away.
C48 Watchdog group member Ken Irwin asked about rates in light of the State Government’s planning rules. Cr Fawcett said it was “one question we can answer”.
Acting CEO Dirk Holwerda said the C48 ruling had resulted in a $250,000 drop in rate revenue for council.
Cr Warren Raabe said in the past most questions have been addressed to council with occasionally a councillor standing up and answering.
“No one has taken the tack that Paul Richardson is taking,” he said.
“It’s a difficult situation and the mayor’s taken that tack to try to alleviate it. Questions such as those asked of Cr Davies are, in my opinion, out of order.”
Cr Raabe said with staff waiting in the room it cost lots of money for council to meet.
“The business of council is of paramount importance and it should be treated with respect,” he said.
“The people of Mirboo North who were asking questions were answered to the best of their ability on the spot.
“But questions asking councillors for their opinion on the matter are wasting council’s time.”
Cr Fawcett said his announcement was in response to the manner in which the questions were asked at the last meeting.
“It was just becoming operational ly difficult and the questions weren’t capable of being responded to by the individual they were directed at, and it was inappropriate for that particular method of questioning to continue,” he said.
“After reading the local laws, I decided it was quite appropriate for questions to be addressed at council in general, and council in general to respond to them.”
Division 7 of the rules for meetings said that “at every ordinary meeting of the Council, time may be allocated to enable any member of the community to address the Council”.

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Posted by Chris Brown on Oct 13 2009. Filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry