25 May 2021 - Ordinary

Welcome everybody to tonight's meeting. I'd like to start by acknowledging the Dharug and Darkinjung people as traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury and pay respect to our elders past, present and emerging. I hand over to the Acting General Manager for the housekeeping matters.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Members attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you'll be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I would also like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.18 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The revision of any information that is recorded is voluntary. If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting.

The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored in Council's records management system. For the benefit of those persons who will be addressing the Council tonight, it is expected that you'll refrain from making any insult, allegation or personal reflection against any person present or not at this meeting. This request relates to both your address to Council and the answers given in response to questions from councillors. Finally, it is also requested that if any person participating in the meeting has a mobile phone, they either turn it off or turn it to silent.

Thank you. Do we have, I don't think we have any apologies. We have an application to attend by audio-visual.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. First of all, Council at its meeting on the 20th of April 2021 resolved to grant approval for Councillor Paul Rasmusson to attend the Council meeting of the 25th of May 2021 by audiovisual link. An application has also been received from Councillor Amanda Kotlash to attend this Council meeting of the 25th of May 2021 by audiovisual link due to prior work commitments.

Somebody want to move to accept that? Moved, Councillor Richards. Seconded, Councillor Zamprogno. All those in favour? Against? Declare it carried. So we'll let Councillor Kotlash into the meeting, please.

Thanks, Councillor Kotlash. Are there any declarations of interest?

Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Item number 99, Local Traffic Committee, a significant non-pecuniary interest. Okay,

Thank you. Any other declarations of interest? No. Someone to move the minutes from the previous meeting? Moved, Deputy Mayor. Seconded, Councillor Zamprogno. All those in favour? Against? Declare it carried.

We don't have any items subject to public address. So the first item is the Mayoral Minute. So the Mayoral Minute is probably fairly self-explanatory. It's in regards to the closure of Greens Road and the Upper Colo Bridge, and I think this is in response to a lot of feedback from the community, a lot of questions, and I guess understanding that people are quite frustrated by not knowing when—obviously having their lives impacted by these roads not being open, but also the frustration of not knowing when they will be open. And we certainly hear that. So I wanted to put a motion up tonight that notes that we understand the significant issue this is causing. It's not that we don't understand that.

We're definitely committed to reopening both as soon as it's possible and safe to do so. In terms of information distribution, so that people aren't waiting for an update and not knowing when that will come, the suggestion is that we provide regular weekly updates on both, and that would be through social media as well as by having an email list that people are able to subscribe to to get that weekly update, as well as disseminating that through the Recovery Hub at Colo Heights in particular, but all of them. We're going to write to each affected residence and advise the current status as things stand now, and also how they get on that weekly email update list so that they can be informed going forward.

Also provide those weekly updates to the local members of Parliament. Stress here that nobody's anticipating that funding is an issue, and I think there's some feeling in the community that funding might be an issue, and that's certainly not the holdup here. It's not about funding. These should both be eligible for the Natural Disaster Funding arrangements. It's just a matter of having solutions designed that are safe and can be implemented. And finally, that we, I understand some of this discussion has been had informally around the ADF being requested to provide temporary solutions, but I think it's a good point that we should ask the State Government if they have, and if they can formally approach the ADF and ask for assistance as is required.

So I hope it can be supported. It doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't probably give people really what they want to hear. Unfortunately, we're not in a position to give a firm timeline, given that we don't know what the solution is yet. And to that point, I might actually hand over to the Director of Infrastructure Services to give us a bit of a rundown, if it's okay, on what's happened to date and where we are up to.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Perhaps deal with this probably in chronological order so that we can respond to the various issues that have come. I guess as a result of the flooding, we identified various slumps and failures during and immediately following the flood event, and I'm referring to Greens Road at the moment. We did undertake some immediate remedial work at that stage by doing some widening into the table drain area on the high side, the non-riverside, and we monitored that for several days. We became very concerned following observation of some significant failures out to the centre line of the road, and we closed the road at that stage and immediately engaged a specialist geotechnical firm to provide advice on that.

They met on site the following day, which I think was the 27th of March, and their advice was to load limit the southern section and close and monitor the northern section. So they confirmed our view of the hazard that had occurred at that stage. That same specialist firm was then engaged to undertake a detailed investigation and survey, and that's above and below the water line. The issue here is that the slump invariably starts below the water where it may be undercut by the currents. That below-water survey was undertaken by a specialist sub-consultancy, noting that their availability was somewhat restricted simply due to the specialist nature of that. We actually engaged the particular geotech firm on the basis they could get that consultant at the earliest opportunity.

Both the above-ground and the underwater surveys have now been complete, and with the underwater survey, the data is currently being processed, and it's likely to be with the principal consultant by the end of this week or early next week, so they can make some assessment on that. What we have sought is to get some early advice on interim works, if that is possible, and I'm always very conscious of the risk to basically look at whether we can reopen or carry out some interim works that can provide safe access in the short term. As the Mayor indicated, the funding is not the issue at this stage. We'll be seeking funding under the Natural Disaster Funding Arrangements for this project, but for us to be able to do that, we're obliged to go through and provide the cost estimates and design for the reinstatement.

We've met with Transport for New South Wales, who administer that side of the funding. They've indicated their general support, subject to the detailed design being submitted. So that's Greens Road in terms of Upper Colo Bridge. We've engaged, so Council may be aware that the majority of that bridge has been destroyed and lost. We've engaged a specialist bridge designer to undertake those works, and again, they've bumped us up the list. We've been using that firm before, and they've indicated they can do works over the next couple of months to commence that design.

Having said that

It's not a quick and easy fix. It's approximately a 75 metre long bridge, and despite the fact that it's not very high above water level, still requires virtually the same amount of work as a higher level bridge. We have attended, or staff have attended, a meeting with the residents up there last week, a week ago, and we've given that same advice to the community up there about all of the options for reinstating that bridge. I guess the real issue is that it will take some time, and we need to go through the design and approval process for that. So we're working as quickly as we can on both of those fronts. Again, we understand that this is causing significant concern to the community, and it's not our intention to prolong that any longer than we need to.

Thank you. And if I could just ask the Manager of Communications just to give us an update of what we've done so far in terms of communicating that.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Yes, for Greens Road, we have sent out two letterbox drops on the 28th of March and the 21st of April, and we've done three Facebook posts to communicate that to the community as well. And then the Upper Colo Bridge, we have done a Facebook post on the 4th of March to update the community.

Thank you. So on that basis, I'll commend it to the Council and open it up for discussion.

Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. It's just a question for the Director, if I may, through you. Some of the local talk suggests that the military could be brought in to build a Bailey bridge or a more interim solution to provide some relief to the people that live on the other side. Could you comment on the feasibility of that? Are expectations being raised improperly by suggesting that that's a viable solution in the short term, or is it something that we would be best to advocate for?

Through you, Mr Mayor. The issue was raised during the flooding event when it was clear that it was lost, and at that stage JDF were not in a position to be able to assist. I guess what's in the mayoral minute is to raise that again, and we don't have any objection or concerns with raising that through the channels. The normal process would be for that to go through via the state government up to the federal government in the protocol for requesting ADF assistance. Should there be a viable option in the kickback of the ADF for this particular site, then we'd be certainly all ears to taking advantage of that.

Thank you. Any further discussion?

Councillor Ross. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Further to the comment just made by the Director, could I inquire please through you, Mr Mayor, Whether you see that there is a

Practical or a practicable location at which such a project of an interim nature may be considered within that area,

More distant than the Lower Portland ferry, please.

Mr. Ogan

Assuming you're talking about the Upper Colo Bridge.

No, Greens Road.

I'm not sure that there's an alternative location that could be provided there in terms of that road.

Basically, it's reinstating access to individual properties, and I think the road would need to be reinstated in as near to its current location as possible to provide that access. I don't think there is an alternative elsewhere to gaining access to Greens Road.

Thank you. My next question would be in relation to, I hope I describe this correctly, as the southern portion, in other words the access to the South Juniors result facility, is that as markedly deteriorated or depreciated as is the further along section, sir?

Through you, Mr. Mayor. No, that's the reason that only a five-ton limit has been imposed on that section there. It is safe for that load. What we didn't want at that location was significant heavy traffic further destroying and— Ultimately denying access to the limited access to that area. So it's not as damaged as the top section. But again, I'm going to wait until we actually get the underwater survey to know what the root cause of the damage is.

Thank you. I do understand, sir, that as a result of that limit, busways are not able to provide even a smaller coach for the school children up to that site, and they are now being collected from the junction of Wilberforce Road and Green's Road in that vicinity. Is that as a result of the load limit?

I'm not aware of the exact issue with busways, but if their vehicle is over five tonne, we wouldn't be allowing access beyond the section where it's restricted. We have traffic controllers there on site who control that access. There is a short section where vehicles can access beyond that traffic control point, but it's not to go beyond where the issue is with the road. So they do exercise a little bit of flexibility for immediately adjoining property, but that's as far as that five-tonne limit waiver will go

Thank you, sir. My understanding is that prior to this calamity, that the children were collected from adjacent to the South Juniors facility, and now it's been moved, of course, closer to Lower Portland Ferry.

You may not have understood that, and I'm just wondering, in the present state of that load limit on that road, would a small coach of the Mercedes type that Busways use be able to access the South Juniors Club or not, sir?

I think we can take that up with Busways and to see whether they have a suitable vehicle that would meet that five-ton limit and allow them to access South Juniors if that's where they are picking up, or alternatively some other form of transport down to the corner of Wilberforce Road

Thank you for that. I do understand that that is some cause of inconvenience. Whether that would assist, I am unsure, and I would suggest also that the residents be spoken to in that regard, if I may , sir. My other concern in regard to this area is the terrible state of the, if you like, the refuse collection point at the corner of Wilberforce Road and Greens Road, just adjacent to where the traffic control is. And I've made representations to the mayor today in that regard. And I sincerely would ask, on behalf of the residents and ratepayers, that could we not include something in tonight's mayoral minute which might at least indicate that we as a council have due regard to the environment and the difficulties that these people are facing, and try and at least do something in that area in the way of a clean-up and so on in the initial stage.

And possibly replacement of all the bins in that location because a lot of them are broken and split.

And then I'm sorry to say that I would like to further suggest that we, that staff... Go about a process which would assist in the alleviation of the necessity for those local residents to cart rubbish in their own vehicle down to that particular point from their own boundary, please.

Councillor Reynolds. Thank you, Mr Mayor. A question through you to the Director of Infrastructure. I just wanted to clarify something he said, or I thought he said, and that was that a higher-level bridge would be about the same work as the lower-level bridge at Upper Colo. Is that something you said?

Sorry, Mr Alden.

To basically state that the only difference is the height of the piers and the substructure. Still got the pier, still got the same number of spans. Okay. And there's a bit of a dog-chasing-its-tail exercise there because the higher we build it, the more impacts from flooding and handrails, and so there's a design issue to go through with that.

Okay. And the other question was something you said was regarding requesting help from the military in the form of, for example, a Bailey bridge. And I'd just like to point out there was a Bailey bridge across the creek on West Portland Road for decades, and it did quite a good job up until a couple of years ago when it was replaced. Did you say that the protocol to approach the military was via the state government?

That's correct. The normal process during a disaster is for the state through the—if it was during the event, that's probably now during the recovery through Resilience New South Wales would probably be the agency now. Normally it would be the— Through the LEOCON, the Local Emergency Operations Controller, to request that assistance through the state, and then that goes up to the ADF through the Commonwealth and down the line.

You would be able to seek the support, but the normal protocol is for the state to request that assistance under the disaster funding agreement

And the ADF protocol. Okay, so no. Okay, so no further. Okay, thank you.

Councillor Garry.

Yeah, just an observation and possibly some changing. I notice in point four that it is to write to each affected resident and advise of the current status of both projects, with the direction to register for weekly email updates. It's my understanding there's approximately 15 residents in Greens Road who do not have access to their letterboxes, most of which have been able to apply for the emergency disaster three-week diversion of their mail to their local post office. However, depending on when they applied for that diversion, most of them that will end, or has already ended, or will end this week. So, just not sure, and I think there's quite a lot of uncertainty amongst the residents as to what they're going to do with their mail.

The diversion ends. Do they have to now pay for their own diversion of mail because they cannot get to their letterboxes? I'm assuming their letterboxes are all in the one location, which is inaccessible. So, yeah, I just wanted to bring that to attention that writing to each of them may not actually get to them.

Thank you. I guess the idea there is because we're dealing with a small number, cost not being a concern, we might as well try everywhere we can to reach them. I think they're fairly well connected on social media, and we should be able to catch most of them that way

Yeah, I think they've got, they seem to have a pretty good succinct group happening, so maybe if we can reach out to people within that group and disseminate it that way. Just didn't want to leave it just to going out with mail, just in case there is some issues with access with that.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor, and thank you for bringing this mayoral minute. As you know, I wrote a motion as a matter of urgency and presented it to Council this afternoon, and some of that is reflected in this mayoral minute. I think what we've seen from the emails that have come in to us over the last few weeks is the now fairly high level of desperation of the people who live, particularly on Greens Road, but also the very real concerns of the people from Upper Colo who are perhaps less vocal, or certainly less vocally via email than the Greens Road group. But this is clearly taking its toll on the communities who rely on these roads, and some of the information that's come out, for example, the people who are relying on Upper Colo Bridge.

This is affecting St Joseph's College. I was at St Joseph's on the weekend. It's affecting the Upper Colo RFS, who can't accept call-outs to Colo Heights. We've got residents who are covering an estimated additional 37,000 kilometres, it's been reported. That's a staggering distance. They can't get their bins out. We've got people who are struggling to use Colo Heights Road because of the road condition. Some people's cars that can't cope with the conditions of the road anymore. People paying for regrading. People who can't access their Telstra service, so they're even further isolated than before. And we've got, and I find this the most troubling, is that we've got a family who accesses the NDIS and have had their access reduced.

From six hours to one hour a day for support workers. That's a really desperate situation, and I think this is the information that we need to be conveying to the local member so that we can get some fast action on this. Clearly, I understand that we need to go through the survey and design phase, but we've told these people that they possibly won't get a bridge in place until a few months at best into 2022. That is a very long time for someone to be without an NDIS care worker. That is just simply not acceptable for that family to have to deal with that, nor is it acceptable for us to face another bushfire season where our RFS units can't get to places that they need to go. If we have another Section 44, God forbid,

It doesn't bear thinking about, frankly, that that road will be inaccessible for fire trucks, and particularly for water cartage for the people who live there, but also for the RFS who rely on it in order to defend both life and property. I think bringing the defence force in, if possible, is probably a good short-term solution. Clearly, it won't be a long-term solution, and that's what we're looking at. But I think we need to provide something in the interim. I've seen the capacity of the Corps of Engineers to put in place temporary road and bridge solutions. Besides being fascinating to watch, it's really amazing the ability that they have to make the impassable passable. It would be an enormous morale boost to this community for us to at least try and get some sort of solution in place for them.

Clearly, they can't continue like they are until early 2022. That's just not acceptable. I'm hoping, Mr Mayor, that you'll allow a couple of changes to your mayoral minute. I would like us As an elected body, to go up and conduct a couple of site visits to both these affected areas. If councillors can't attend for various reasons, then that's fine, but I think it's an attempt that we should make. So I'm hoping that you will add that as a point to your mayoral minute. And I would also like an amendment to point six that we, as well as contacting Robyn Preston to make the request, that we contact the federal member for Macquarie, Susan Templeman, and inform her of the request. I've spoken to Susan—well, actually, Susan and I have played phone tennis repeatedly today in an attempt to discuss this , and she's just informed me that she has spoken with the Minister for Emergency Management's office, who are considering the issue of the Army assisting with the temporary bridge at Upper Colo.

And she was happy for me to disclose that. So hopefully , if we can put a formal request in through the state government as per the process, and also put some pressure on from the elected member and from us as an elected body, we might actually get something done for this community who I think have really— they faced months. Colo was one of our most affected communities in bushfires, then they were flooded early last year and cut off, so they've been cut off twice in 2020 for a considerable period of time, also in 2019, now in 2021, and they continue to be isolated in their community. They are enormously resilient, but I think we need to do whatever we can to alleviate this problem.

Thank you. Yeah, certainly happy to include that in point six that we let Susan Templeman know, once that request has been made to Robyn Preston, and we've asked Resilience New South Wales to do that, so happy to make that change. In terms of site visits, I mean, I'm happy to go there again, but I'm not sure what we're going to look at really. Like there's a cul-de-sac; you come to the end of the road, there's water, and then on the other side there's a road. There used to be a bridge. I don't know that we necessarily achieve much by making council staff coordinate a big visit and everyone take time out of their day to go up there. Like I said, happy to do that, whether that maybe can just be councillors on the weekend. I think

That's fine, councillors on the weekend. I think it's a show of solidarity with the community and also informs us of what they're actually facing.

Yeah, I'm happy to organise that.

Yeah, give your commitment, we'll organise that. I'm not sure where it fits, but we will get that happening. Yep. Oh, Councillor Rasmussen, sorry. Sure

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, I wonder whether you would also include some mention of Wilberforce Road, particularly some sealing, some section to be sealed near Lower Portland and Greens Road. I mean, that is becoming quite a trafficated area, and the dust and the safety hazards down there are quite significant up there. So if you wouldn't mind including in this particular package of things we're going to do for the community up and around there, whether we would not also include some sealing section of Wilberforce Road, please.

Thank you, Councillor Rasmussen. Look, I'm not going to include that here. I'm conscious of a couple of reasons. One is that this has come up as an urgency motion, and I don't know that changing our road sealing program would qualify as a matter of urgency. So we haven't given anyone notice of that. To take funding away from somewhere else and do this instead would require, I think, some consultation. So I wouldn't be willing to do that without just putting a motion up at five o'clock and then doing it that night. I don't think it's fair to the community. I also think it's worth noting that I don't think we would close Wilberforce Road to seal it while Greens Road is closed. So even if Council decided that was its priority, I think it can wait till the next meeting and come up via the normal channels.

I can tell you that, you know, I don't disagree with anything you've said there around the merits, but I can tell you that since becoming the mayor, sort of probably the most common request I get is for the sealing of dirt roads in the Hawkesbury, all over the place. It becomes really hard to make impartial, objective assessments of priority just based on the emails you get. And I think that's why we have a program of sealing and we do let the staff make assessments for us. Not to say we shouldn't have a role in reprioritising when it's required, but I think it's got to be done properly and with proper consultation, not just on the fly with urgency, no consultation. So I'm not going to include it tonight.

Have a look at it.

That's disappointing, Mr Mayor, but anyway, I'll let the residents up there know. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just in addition to what Councillor Wheeler has raised some very good points, particularly around what lies ahead of us and the potential for that community to still be isolated as such if we have another round of bushfires, which is not unthinkable. It's also the psychological impact and disruption, of course, for these people if they don't have an end in sight. And I do understand, of course, the process of getting the roads fixed, etc., but— I just want, I just think, could we just strengthen this a little to give it a little bit more urgency to get a solution for the people? Because just writing to the local MPs is not going to propel it along, perhaps as much as our community may expect us to.

But also because if we were to have a site visit, I would really want the person who makes the decision to come up with a solution to be out there and to have a look. Now, if that's someone from the state government who can get a response from the federal government to then deploy the ADF to do something, then I think that that is a measure that we can take. This is something that has arisen from a disaster, and I think we have to treat it in that way. It's been identified as an emergency, and I think that these things are good, but I would like you to, and I'm sure you can, ring Robyn Preston and propel this along, and maybe a follow-up letter, but I just think that it's something that has to be acted upon with some level of urgency.

If there is another solution that's outside our... You know, our jurisdiction that can be done, then I think we should make every effort to look at that as soon as possible to help the community out and to strengthen them again before any more disasters may befall us.

Thanks. Yeah, look, that's fine. I can tell you it's been happening probably the other way around. I've had Robin on the phone to me three times in the last week, pressing me for more updates and, unfortunately, I've been saying not much has changed. We are waiting on GA technical reports, and so she's fully aware that a solution is desperately needed and completely up to date with what's happening. Once we go back to her and, like I said, I think this request has already been made informally, but we should formalise it. I think that's a good point that Councillor Willer raised in her email this afternoon, that we should formalise that request by writing. So I think we should do that. I'll certainly ring Robin after the meeting and tell her we've done that and that she can push it along.

But I think, just in summary, one thing I sort of, I think everybody's really well-intentioned in what they're saying. I agree. I think it would have to have this situation that you wouldn't have a bridge till sometime next year, but unless there's other solutions there that people have to advance, it's probably not going to do any good just sitting here saying it's unacceptable, unless there is another solution that would be acceptable. I think our job as elected councillors is to make sure this council is doing everything it can to advance the interests of its ratepayers and to deliver the infrastructure we need. I'm certainly satisfied from the answers I've got that our organisation is doing that, and unless there's something else we could be doing, it's probably not too helpful just to be saying that it's unacceptable.

It can't be without identifying any other solutions. So I think we follow up the Defence Force and see if there is a temporary solution. And we keep the residents fully informed of what we are doing as an organisation to fix these issues. And I think, unfortunately, that's probably the best we can do. Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I do want to thank you for bringing this Mayoral Minute to the chamber tonight as a great sign to our community, and especially from all the correspondence we've got from residents who do live in that area of Lower Portland. It's very heartbreaking to read some of the emails and the stories that they let us know of what's going on, and I strongly encourage them to keep contacting us. I want everybody to know that the dialogue needs to be kept open, and please keep telling us what's going on. But this Mayoral Minute tonight is essential so that everyone does understand that not just the council itself, but the councillors prioritise getting this solution fixed. We definitely want to see this resolved, and it's not—I know it's not the answer that they want to hear, that it's going to take some time, but, you know, I don't think that any councillor in this room is a geotech expert or anything like that, so we do have to leave those sorts of expertise up to those who know what they're doing.

And I do thank Mr Organ for being— On top of that, and also for constantly answering all the questions that we do have in terms of what's happening down in Greens Road and also the Upper Colo Bridge. So I appreciate that greatly, to the point that there is a great champion in the local area there called Rochelle, who does contact all of us and make sure her community's voice is certainly heard. And we had a meeting with the Mayor and with Jeff as well and explained in detail what's been going on to the point I've now committed to that individual to contact her every single Friday. That's been going on for three weeks now, where I get a personal update from Mr. Organ as to what's happening with Greens Road, particularly where she lives, and I communicate that directly to her every single Friday.

And I've made that commitment to continue that until this situation is resolved. And unfortunately, as I said before, that's not going to be overnight, which is definitely devastating. I understand it's not just about the road being fixed; it's all the issues that therefore come with that, which is the phone lines, which is the email access, which is the rubbish collection. All of those issues are very much on our radar, and I do urge, if there's something that we can do to the staff in terms of those sorts of things, we need to get them sorted as well, especially looking at the garbage solution. I think that contacting the state member to make sure that formal request has gone into the Defence Force is essential.

The community needs to know that we have done that as a formality, that it's not something we've just said, and I think that needs to happen as a matter of urgency. I do think that this issue for our local community is so important and vital that it's definitely not a time for political point scoring. And when the responsibility does lie currently with the council to fix it, and where funding has been said shouldn't be a problem from the funding arrangement for the disaster situation, we're doing everything we can, as I've been assured by the Mayor and by staff, to get this problem solved. So I'm sorry again to the residents that they're in the situation that they're in, but please— Be reassured, especially with this general minute, that we are doing everything that we can.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thanks. There's no further discussion. We'll put the motion. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Gary, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmusson, Councillor Kotlash. Declare it carried.

Next is the items on block, so I ask the deputy mayor to read your interest and then leave the room.

For the items on block?

Yep.

Okay. And a significant non-pecuniary interest in item 99. I'm the owner of a property in the area identified for speed humps in Kurrajong. Thank you.

Thank you.

Somebody wish to move the items on block? Moved Councillor Richards, seconded Councillor Garrow. All those in favour? Against? Declare it carried.

Somebody please get the Deputy Mayor.

Item 93.

Move that, Mr Mayor.

Moved, Deputy Mayor.

Seconded, Councillor Wheeler. Any discussion?

Yes, one moment. I forgot my notebook, but I've been sent my notes on here, so just a moment

Thank you. Mr Mayor, I'd just like to thank the staff for the work that they've done on this. After bringing this as a notice of motion last year, I'm pleased to see that after the trial being done, that we've now gone on to make some allowance for a roving crew to do the additional cleaning in summer and on public holidays. I brought that in response to multiple people, and I'm sure we've all had the requests and emails from people for Council to keep up the cleanliness and have the rubbish removed in our parks and reserves, because these areas are, and since COVID, so heavily utilised by visitors and locals, not just through summer, all year round actually. But we've seen the patterns of influx of people coming into our area on weekends. In fact, last weekend it was just extraordinary. The number of people coming up on the Bells Line of Road, I think, did not stop for the entire day.

I think, and then on the Sunday, going back, of course. And we love that we've got so much to offer up here for people. We've got all the various things that people come to see, but of course that has an impact when we have so many people here. So it's really important that we keep the amenities clean in the reserve areas and in the parks, especially in our more remote areas. And it's also really important that rubbish is collected so we don't have overflowing bins and so on. So I think that the idea of the roving crew to get around and do additional to what is the normal day-to-day routine is a really good one. And I think that it's noticed by people. When we have people visit, of course, we want them to come back again, and that's wonderful.

I will foreshadow that another area that I spoke about at the time when this came up, and which we will probably have to move on and address, is to look at the parking situation around some of these areas. So the Bells Line of Road is a major road, as we all know. I can assure you not every visitor that comes here knows that. They are crossing the roads in really dangerous spots, doing U-turns in the middle of the place. Now, that's not our call to look after that, but I think that somewhere along the line, when we're talking about people going to our reserve areas and our parks, we just have to maybe do some sort of a review of where people are meant to park and some signage to just make sure that our area is as safe as possible.

I know some signs have been put up at Bilpin, but I think we need to do a bit more on that because it doesn't look like the number of people coming into our area is decreasing at all, and that gives us wonderful opportunities in this area. But I think we have a certain amount of responsibility to keep it clean and to keep it safe. So thank you to the staff, and it's very reassuring to know that we've got that extra funding. Allocated for the additional cleaning. Thank you.

Thank you. Just let the meeting know that Councillor Kotlash has just messaged me. She's having difficulty connecting. She's left the meeting for now. We'll try and rejoin if she can.

Any further discussion? If not, Councillor Wheeler.

Just briefly, Mr Mayor, there's a comment in the report that we didn't receive any significant complaints about waste. I'm wondering what we consider significant in that.

Refer that to Mr Organ.

The only complaint that was registered during that time was in relation to, on the first weekend, and that was Bilpin toilets. So that was the only — we didn't get any actually other than that one complaint. Yep,

Thank you. It appears that both the cleanliness of toilets and rubbish is functioning as a bit of a proxy measure of use of all of these facilities. And in some ways I think we're a little bit of a victim of our own success in that, you know, we've now, we've been discovered, and I think that's terrific, but there is this additional burden that comes with it. I hope we don't end up in the same state as Byron where they've, you know, got — I think it's, I can't remember how many times more visitors they have than residents and are collapsing under the weight of it. But I don't think anyone's going to complain about a bit of extra funding to keep our sites clean and well maintained. I think we do have to consider how we're going to manage these sites that have really taken a pounding in the flood.

As we come into the school holiday periods, that's going to be really hard to manage because we've lost some of the infrastructure in those spaces. Yarramundi and Navua in particular, I think, are going to prove problematic for us as we come into both the long weekend and the school holidays, particularly if we get good weather, people are still flocking to the Hawkesbury to enjoy themselves on the weekend because of our beauty and the things that people can do, but also because of our proximity to Sydney.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Not right of reply.

Not necessary, Mr Mayor, except to say that it will be wonderful when the new Bilpin Amenities Block is done. That should make a nice difference for people visiting up there.

Okay. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Sanprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Gary, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen. Councillor Kotlash has abstained from the vote. Declare it carried. Next item.

Item is item 96, the quarterly budget review.

Move the

Recommendation.

Deputy Mayor, seconded Councillor Wheeler. Any discussion?

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just thought reading through this, I thought it actually was a really good explanation of exactly how this particular quarterly reporting is done. There seems to be some misunderstanding around it, and of course it's very different in terms from accounting in the private sector and so on. I mean, this is local government accounting, and it uses terms in different ways and so on. So I just thought this gave a really good explanation this time of where it fits in with the operational plan and so on, and it explains a bit about the various impacts that Council has had to deal with in terms of natural disasters, COVID and the floods, etc., and it explains all the various things.

I did have a question, though, which was why I called it up, and that was around on page 32 , I think, yes, on the staff numbers. I was just wondering, I just noticed the other day, and I hadn't been, I don't know if we'd been advised of this, but we had an email from somebody called a marketing and media manager. I'm just wondering, is that a new position? Is that a new job someone new started? Has someone new started here?

Acting General Manager. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Yes, it's a position that has been in the budget for some time, and the position was filled in the last probably four weeks.

Okay. Can we just know what that job is, like what that position is? What does it do? Sorry. Thanks, Susan

Through you, Mr Mayor. The marketing and media manager is in the communications team, and so their role will be to primarily promote corporate communications, all about Council, events and the work that's done by the Visitor Information Centre. So the focus will be on tourism events and Council itself.

Thank

You.

Thanks.

Any further discussion? Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. This is a particularly unsavoury report, I might say, looking at the projected operating loss for the year.

Not only are we talking about a revaluation with attendant depreciation, which has its own implications in regard to asset management, or the lack thereof, but we're still plagued by effectively about 2.3 million, in my mind, of an excessive staff number over the year.

The other situation which is very disturbing is that,

Looking at it from the most severe point of view, only 26% of the capital expenditure program has been delivered after nine months. Or if you take the more Publicised a message view, 39%. Frankly, neither is acceptable, and it's certainly not what the ratepayers agreed to when there was an SRV where finally agreed to years ago.

It's very disturbing that the situation in regard to asset—I see the asset management as being a very grave area— and the indication that we have in regard to the backlog of works, I believe, is totally untenable. And we need to

Completely review our assets and the way in which they are valued and being managed, and the cost of doing the works that are necessary. All I can see after the most recent flood is that every road around the place has suffered a degree of deterioration in its physical state, and I would even say that as far as state roads are concerned. And I don't care where you speak of geographically, whether it's through Ham Common or up the Bells Line or wherever, on every road there is absolutely a situation which was not there. Twelve months ago, and certainly not there two years ago. And that, I'm afraid, is going to create a grave difficulty for us in terms of sustainability and being able to meet the

Reasonable requests of ratepayers. And I think we need to have a very serious look at that in terms of the longer term , and also in terms of the fact that we are not getting our capital budget put out onto the ground in terms of actual works. The result is really unacceptable,

And I would say also that as this is the first quarter in which the depreciation adjustment of 6.4, 6.5 million has been reported to us, I find that totally unsatisfactory as well. As a councillor, we should have been advised of this in the September quarterly review in 2020, and we weren't. As best to my understanding, the first we've heard of this was in March of this year, and I find that completely untenable in the role that I have here on behalf of the ratepayers. Thank you.

Any further discussion? Not right of reply, Deputy Mayor?

Not necessary.

Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Carbone, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmussen. Against, Councillor Ross. Councillor Kotlash is absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

Next item is item 98, the procurement policy. This has come back—oh, 97.

Is it?

Oh, okay. 97, the investment policy. Sorry, I thought that was on block. Councillor Wheeler.

Leave that, Mayor.

Sorry, seconded Deputy Mayor.

Thanks, Mr Mayor, and thank you to the staff for this investment policy. I think it strikes probably the best balance that we can, particularly in some moving into potentially some unstable or unpredictable economic circumstances, certainly with very low rates of investment return predicted for the near future. This is a balance, I suppose, between council and council laws meeting our fiduciary responsibilities, but also important for me at least, meeting our responsibilities as an organisation with significant spending and employment capacity to ensure that our money is not used for ill. And so where it can be used to signal to the markets that we demand better treatment of both people, workers, producers, and the planet, then I think this is a good policy.

It's not a radical investment policy. It doesn't say that we need to divest from fossil fuels instantly. It doesn't say that we need to make great strides that put our investments at risk. It says that we should behave in a prudent manner, putting the security of the investments and our investment returns at the forefront, and divesting where possible, where it doesn't cost us any money to do so. I know that there are other councils who have gone much harder on this. We are not a large council. We do not have funds to gamble with, and this policy is one that is quite conservative. And should leave us, I hope, and our ratepayers in a strong financial position going forward. I think there are legitimate concerns for us as a council that we need to maintain.

By law, we must maintain many of our reserves for particular purposes under the legislation. One of our challenges, I think, is to make sure that those reserves that we must hold don't run behind the inflation rate. And I think this , allowing us to invest in BBB-plus returns, for example, should hopefully allow us to make some safe but possibly some decisions that will give us slightly better returns for the money that we have invested. So I think this is probably a reasonable step forward at this point in time.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Not, we'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmussen. Against? Councillor Ross, were you voting on this one? In favour, Councillor Ross in favour, and Councillor Kotlash absent for the vote. Declared carried.

Next item is item 98, the procurement policy. Moved to Councillor Garrow , seconded to Councillor Wheeler. I might just speak very briefly to this and say that I'm very happy this has come back from exhibition. I think it's important that we get this in place as soon as possible

Seconder

Was

Councillor Wheeler, I think,

Yeah

I think it's important we get this in place as soon as possible. I did take this to the Hawkesbury Chamber of Commerce and to the Windsor Business Group and sort of put it out for comment. And we did get some comments. I think some of these submissions came from members of the Windsor Business Group. There were some concerns about the definition of a local supplier, as you can see from the submissions. I can see where those concerns are coming from, but I think the answer here is that that weighting for local suppliers doesn't have to be given or not. It can be weighted as to how local they are, which I think gives flexibility to the procurement panel that they can make a rational decision about whether someone really does qualify as local or not.

So I'm quite comfortable on that basis. I think we should adopt it as it is. So I commend it to the council. Further discussion? Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm really pleased to see that we've got to this stage with this policy. Mrs Galea and I met about it some time back, and I also discussed it at length with the Windsor Business Group a couple of years ago. And I think, again, this is another policy I think that strikes a good balance between us having to balance our fiscal responsibility and the fact that we don't have great globs of money to make profound ethical statements about. We can't afford to pay a whole pile of extra money in order to meet some people's ethical stances on certain issues. This strikes an excellent balance, I think, between the need to act both within Ethically within the limits of our values as an elected body, but also in a prudent financial manner.

And in addition to that, as a major employer and a major spender within our local community, and to keep as much as possible that money within our local community so that local people can live and work here without having to go through lengthy commutes, and that they can have an expectation that their children will be able to grow up and prosper here as well. And this is a policy for the long term, both for the long-term good of Council and the long-term good of the Hawkesbury, and I think it strikes a good balance. And so I am very grateful to the staff for getting it to this point. Thank you. Any

Further discussion, Councillor Ross?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to draw your attention, sir, to page number 50 of the business paper, which embodies page four of five of the policy document .

The first two lines of that document on that page are of concern, and what I wish to inquire of, please, is : does this document indicate a change to the multi-tiered procurement procedure that has been

Applied on earlier occasions? Thank you . I

Refer that to the Acting Director Support Services.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. No, this policy does not change the tiered thresholds that we have for the number of quotes required based on the amount. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Ross. Yes , as I

Understood it, there was a need for three quotations above, I think, $5,000 or $10,000 on a transaction. So we're saying that that's still appropriate

Yeah, I can see where the confusions come in, and perhaps that could be actually clarified in the wording. We're saying that there still needs to be three. There's a requirement that at least one of those three has to be a local supplier . Though I can see how you're reading it to say that, yeah, you have to have one, which I think is your concern. Yes. So I'll get confirmation, acting Director of Support Services. We

Can clarify the wording.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Further discussion

Sorry to take up your time, sir. But the last paragraph of that page also, in regard to tender means and offer , to me this makes the statement that no tender will be put out where the value of the tender is less than $250,000. Is that the intent, please? Refer that to the acting director.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Yes, that's correct. The legislated amount that Council has to go to tender for is $250,000.

Thank you. So what happens, just for clarity, between $50,000 and $250,000?

Thanks, Mr Mayor. We would get quotes. So for amounts above $50,000, it's a formal process very similar to tender in terms of the evaluation panel and the weighting and the criteria. For anything less than that, it's a little bit less formal, but there's still a process that needs to be followed. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thanks.

Councillor Ross. Thank you. Is that described in those processes to which the officer just alluded, are they described in corporate policies as shown on page 5 of 5 of this document and on page 51 of the business paper under the heading of corporate policies or not

Thanks

Mr Mayor. Yes, that's correct. So the amounts, the different thresholds for the number of quotes and the process are detailed in those corporate policies. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Thank you. My last question in that regard then is, are those policies available online for people such as myself to read and comprehend, please? Thanks, Councillor. Internal corporate policies are not available publicly, but should the councillor wish to look at any of those, we're quite happy to organise that. Thanks, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Thank you. You'd like those policies, Councillor Ross

Yes, electronically would be fine. Thank you. Noted

Thank you. Any further discussion? If not, right of reply, Councillor Garrow.

Not necessary, thank you, Mr Mayor.

Yeah . So just to be clear, we're just going to adopt it knowing that we're going to make that slight change to that wording to make that clear, having three quotes. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lines-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Rounds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Kotlash was absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

Final item is questions on notice, if there's any questions on those questions.

If not, no takers. Councillor Wheeler.

Sorry, Mr Mayor. I'm just, in response—sorry, I'm just struggling to find the page. Thank you . Thank you .

Just in response to question two , I think , where we said that it appears that a public hearing and a determination would occur by 2021, and then we'd have to go through a DA process. Given that, I think we need to be really careful with the information that we're giving out to the community. Currently we're saying that something's going to be happening at Fernadell Park soon. I don't think soon— given we know what local government processes look like, that might feel like soon to us. That's not the community's perception of something happening at Fernadell Park soon. So when we speak to the community about what's happening with these facilities, can we be either more circumspect or can we use far more definite language about what's going to happen to that site?

Because if people think that soon is November, they're going to be bitterly disappointed, because it looks to me like soon might be November 2023 if we're lucky, or 2022, sorry, if we're lucky. We need to be much clearer in our communications.

Certainly take that on board. I think in everything I've seen, we've been talking about our long-term plan, including various elements, so hopefully that clarifies expectations, but I think that's a good point to take on board. Any other questions on questions? If not, we'll—

We'll close the meeting at 7:37. Thanks everyone.