The following was provided for the gallery at tonight’s council meeting –
Delahunty began the meeting with some explanatory comments regarding the above sheet outlining ‘Request to Address the Council’.
DELAHUNTY: started by saying that at the appropriate time in the meeting she would call for the suspension of standing orders, so that people in the gallery who had filled out the sheet could address council either with a question or a statement. Said that either she would answer the question or direct the question to the ‘most appropriate person’. There will be a 15 minute time limit. This is ‘trialing one method’ and could change depending on ‘how this goes’ but the aim is ‘greater public consultation’.
Delahunty then proceeded with the traditional oath, accepting previous minutes, reading of petition, etc.
When reporting on the Community Consultation Committee minutes, Hyams made the comment that what Delahunty is proposing is that her motion is ‘fine but that local law is sacrosanct’ and that her proposal goes ‘outside’ the law so he won’t be supporting the motion to suspend standing orders.
Delahunty then explained that if her motion to suspend standing orders is successful, that the questions asked by the gallery is different to the public questions process in that the question and answers won’t be minuted. Public questions will continue at the assigned agenda item (ie at the end of the public meeting). Delahunty then moved the motion to suspend standing orders. Seconded by Magee.
MOTION PUT – VOTING IN FAVOUR – TAYLOR, STRAJT, SILVER, MAGEE, DELAHUNTY, ATHANOSOPOULOS, DAVEY
VOTING AGAINST: HYAMS, ESAKOFF.
MOTION CARRIED.
1st question – asked about the Ormond development proposal and the construction of the platform for the development whether this ‘breached’ any council planning laws. If it didn’t breach any planning laws then under what authority was this done?
ANSWER: Delahunty referred this on to Torres who reported that the Minister for Planning ‘changed the town planning controls’ to ‘facilitate the removal’ of the crossing and to ‘facilitate the development of the railway station’. This meant that ‘no planning permission was required’ from council for these two things. ‘We understand that the deck is an intrinsic part of the redevelopment’ and therefore council has no authority over this since ‘it is a structural requirement’ for the trench and ‘didn’t need planning permission’.
2nd question – asked how council is going to stop this development.
ANSWER: Delahunty said that ‘vision’ that council and the community has for the streets will involve strong lobbying. Council does want to see the area ‘enlivened’ but acknowledged there would be concern over ‘what precedent is set’. Residents should be ‘assured’ that ‘we are determined to do some strategic work’ that residents can ‘tell us’ what your vision is for the area. The CEO then spoke about council’s ‘shopping strip initiative’ which would ‘help form our activity’ as a result of the planning scheme review. Torres also said that they’ve started the process to ‘help inform’ our ‘future activity strategy’ such as questions like ‘what do you like about your shopping centre’. This might seen a ‘simple question’ but is important for ‘creating a vision for the centre’.
3rd Question – whether council would consider working together with other councils to ‘enable a more cost effective delivery of services’.
ANSWER: Delahunty said this was a good point about the need for ‘developing partnerships’ and she’s in favour of it as is the CEO. Because of ratecapping this becomes inevitable and they will have to think ‘more collaboratively with our neighbours’. Hyams also said it’s a ‘good idea’.
4th question – will council provide a date for live streaming of meetings?
ANSWER: Delahunty said that she couldn’t provide a date but that it is definitely on the agenda. They are waiting on a report to come back to council. Magee spoke that he’s in favour but the heritage of the building was a consideration but he didn’t like just one camera focused on the mayor. Privacy issues also needed to be addressed.
Question 5 – whether council would change the order of business so that public questions aren’t at the end of meetings and that the time for questions be extended to 30 minutes?
ANSWER: Delahunty said they would look at this but it’s ‘set out in the local law’ which council can change.
Other questioners were invited to speak to councillors at end of meeting since the 15 minutes was up.
Glen Eira Debates 
November 15, 2016 at 11:10 PM
Winds of change indeed. Well done Delahunty and councillors. Great to see the neanderthals (Hyams and Esakoff) isolated and moved into irrelevance.
November 16, 2016 at 8:22 AM
Yes indeed, well done Mary and all the other Councillors willing to support this initiative.
To make this new model worthwhile residents should avoid repetitive questions they already know the answer too.
November 16, 2016 at 7:50 AM
Congratulations to the new Councillors and the Mayor. Very early days but a great start.
November 16, 2016 at 9:16 AM
Congratulations to Mary Delahunty and new councillors for this positive start to working on behalf of and responding to residents concerns.
November 16, 2016 at 10:04 AM
Good start for the new Mayor, Delahunty. Her first priority should be to crush the two serpents, if not, history will repeat. It is a matter of time the 2 will be 4 and a new Pilling will emerge.
November 16, 2016 at 11:22 AM
Pilling was bought by the mayorship, this isn’t in their hands anymore
November 16, 2016 at 10:57 AM
Agree. A very promising start to what will hopefully be a new era in council/community relations. There’s still a long way to go, especially on planning and time will tell whether there has been a genuine change in attitude on the part of council.
November 16, 2016 at 12:15 PM
Hyams and Esakoff sidelined is the best possible news for residents. Now for more positive change. Well done councillors.
November 16, 2016 at 12:51 PM
Lipshutz must be cursing himself for not being there to stop Delahunty from being a Mayor. (MODERATORS: rest of comment deleted)
November 16, 2016 at 1:32 PM
Does not look like Esakoff and Hyams have learnt a single thing from the election results. Their vote was way way down and with 5 new councillors residents have made it clear that change is a top priority. Voting against Delahunty’s motion was not a good look.
November 16, 2016 at 2:21 PM
With their thumping good first preference vote, down but still very high, they will be thinking the opposite.
These two are the old school blue blood Libs with the core belief in secrecy, and the right to rule. They’ll never give up this ego driven position, never ever, even if they have to destroy partnership, consensus and harmony to achieve it, just as they have done in the past.
November 16, 2016 at 5:09 PM
I like the questions and the answers. Making this permanent should be on the list of very important things to do
November 17, 2016 at 6:51 PM
What about all those who cannot make it to the meetings?
November 18, 2016 at 8:59 AM
Live streaming may be on the way, there seems to be general support among the councillor group, and the CEO would like to see it.
November 18, 2016 at 5:20 PM
The issue of sound and video recordings of Council meetings was considered at 26 Nov 2013 meeting. The Minutes contain a report from a member of Council staff, Paul Burke, warning of governance and legal implications, including increased risk of defamation. Council noted the report and walked away from the idea.
I did once ask for a transcript of a meeting to find out what each councillor said in support of their vote concerning an item I was interested in and which their Code of Conduct tells me they are accountable for. Paul delighted in telling me Council didn’t provide that service. I asked him how I could found out what was said and he somewhat dismissively responded I would have to have attended the meeting. Not impressed.
November 18, 2016 at 6:09 PM
How each councilor votes isn’t recorded in the minutes, it’s only recorded if a councillors calls for a division, and that’s frowned upon, the last thing most councillors want is for their voting record to be available. A change in our local law could make it mandatory to minute who voted to support or sink a motion or item.
November 18, 2016 at 10:25 AM
Hey!The colours of the two will be seen live!
November 18, 2016 at 1:14 PM
We’ll need translations for Hyams double speak