An ear to the ground, but still not a lot of action
Democracy Foundation. The jury’s task is to determine the best model for the council, following the dismissal of all councillors back in April, and will make recommendations to the Government about the council’s mayor, deputy mayor, number of councillors and wards.
As with the administrators’ community consultations there will be some public forums and workshops. The Citizens’ Jury’s deliberations will then be forwarded to Local Government Minister Natalie Hutchins.
No doubt they will be very welcome and sit nicely alongside the recommendations already on her desk from the Municipal Association of Victoria, which has already been through this exercise.
No doubt Natalie will take the ideas on board and then do exactly what she was going to do in the first place, which I’ll bet London to a brick she already knows.
Still, the important thing is that at least it looks like we have all been consulted and listened to, doesn’t it?
But back to the Grovedale meeting at which about 50 or so people turned up.
There were 27 questions asked, of which 23 were about the closure of the Geelong Saleyards. Ho hum, I’m thinking, as I had rather thought we had settled this matter some time ago. Apparently not.
Former councillor Ron Nelson was in attendance in what I thought was a pretty long run in to the next elections. I actually can’t really remember what his point was except that he seemed to say that they, the councillors, hadn’t done that bad a job.
As chair, Dr Kathy Alexander’s performance was superb. Quite simply it was one of the best public speaking sessions I’ve ever witnessed. She didn’t miss a beat.
When she didn’t know something she just said “I don’t know the answer to that” and immediately referred it to a general manager for clarification.
Self-deprecating at times and all tinged with just the right amount of humour and banter when appropriate and the opportunity presented itself. I felt warm, fuzzy and very “consulted”. Very impressive.
After the meeting Kathy asked me where I thought it had gone wrong with the previous regime. I said that nearly all decisions made or not made were influenced by the councillors’ desire not to lose votes or popularity and that the hard decisions were nearly always just too hard.
At Tuesday’s night’s council meeting, the sale of the saleyards was up for discussion. In the 11 pages of notes on this topic in the agenda there was almost no reason put forward not to sell them. Just like in every other report that has been done on them.
What happened then was quite strange; the administrators delayed making any decision for two months. Too hard?
By delaying, perhaps they’re appeasing objectors for one last time?