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Welcome, Formalities, Apologies, Declarations of Interests and Confirmation of Minutes
Mary Lyons-Buckett
Good evening, everyone. Welcome to tonight's meeting. I'd like firstly to acknowledge the Darug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury. We pay respect to all Elders, past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of this country. I'd also like to welcome here tonight our new General Manager, Elizabeth Richardson. She's sitting here to my left. Welcome, Liz, to Hawkesbury City Council. And I'll pass over to Ms Richardson to read some procedural matters. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Emergency procedures. Members of the public attending this 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, 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 the meetings. The provision 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 are made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored in Council's record management system. For the benefit of any persons who will be addressing the meeting tonight, it is expected that you will 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 any answers given in response to questions from the councillors. Finally, it is also requested that any person participating in or attending this evening's meeting has a mobile phone that they either turn it off or turn it to silent.
Thank you. We have apologies tonight from the Mayor Patrick Conolly and from Councillor Peter Reynolds, Councillor Sarah Richards and Councillor Tiffany Tree. Could someone move those apologies? Councillor, move Councillor Garrow, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. All those in favour? Thank you. We have another statement to be read. Thank you. At the Council meeting on the 20th of April 2021, Council resolved
Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Someone to move the minutes of the last meeting. Moved Councillor Calvert, seconded Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour?
Those in favour? Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zambronio, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, and Councillor Rasmussen. Sorry, Councillor Rasmussen, just getting used to it.
We have no items subject to public address tonight. We'll move on. Someone to move the items on block, please. Items 1.04. Moved, Councillor Rasmussen, seconded, Councillor Garrow. All those in favour? Those—
First item is item one. Madam Chair, could I just move a procedural motion before you start with that item, if I could? Yes, Councillor Kotlash, please do. Thank you. I'd like to request that we deal with the contribution that Hawkesbury Council makes to Sydney Weeds Network as a separate item, and then move on to debate the operational plan without that particular item in it, please.
I'll just read out the procedural motion that the proposed allocation within the 2021/2022 Operational Plan of funding for Council's membership of the Sydney Weeds Network be considered separately to consideration of the balance of the 2021/2022 Operational Plan, and point two, that the proposed allocation within the 2021/2022 Operational Plan of funding for Council's membership of the Sydney Weeds Network be considered forthwith and prior to consideration of the balance of the Operational Plan. So the substantive—oh yes, so we're just looking at that bit now. So we'll just take a vote straight on that, given it's a procedural motion, no seconder needed. All those in favour of dealing with that first?
Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. The motion is carried. Absent from the chamber, and Councillor Rasmussen. Absent from the change are Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Reynolds and Councillor Conolly.
I'd be most grateful if the mover of this procedural motion would care to alter the wording from the Sydney Weeds Network to Hawkesbury River County Council, as I understand it, that is where the contribution is currently funded.
It's a separate— It's completely separate. So that motion has passed. We have a substantive motion, which is that the allocation within the 2021/22 Operational Plan of $1,500 for funding— Could I decline my interest? Yes, sorry, you better go. I have
So I will— Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. We'll leave the chamber, thank you. We'll call you back when we've done the substantive motion, which we'll deal with on its own first up. I'm sorry, we don't have a quorum. We do. We've got four
Okay, we do have seven. We shall debate the substantive motion. Somebody to move it. Should we say what it is first? Yes. The substantive motion is that the allocation within— oops, it’s gone.
Just give you a second to read over it. Can everyone see it? Can the gallery see it? No, I’ll read it out for you then, Mr Pettett. The substantive motion is that the allocation within the 2021/22 Operational Plan of $1,500 for funding for Council’s membership of the Sydney Weeds Network be adopted. Someone to move it. Moved Councillor Calvert, seconded Councillor Wheeler. Any discussion on that? Councillor Calvert.
To point out that it’s not meant to be a contentious issue. I think Councillor Kotlash would like to see the funding continue, but it is a definite clash with her because she works for the Sydney Weeds Network. And I think she wanted to be here to discuss the rest of item 102, so she didn’t want to leave and miss the whole item. So that’s the only reason this has been drawn out. There’s no controversy about Sydney Weeds or anything else. It’s a simple matter.
Thank you, Councillor Calvert. Any further discussion? No further discussion. Presumably no right of reply required. We’ll put the vote. All those in favour?
Madam Deputy Mayor. So it's not my intention that we just shut this off to the next meeting. I'm hoping that we can have a discussion of the operational plan as it stands and potentially get some further information at this meeting so that we can hopefully make some brief amendments to the plan that we can consider at the next council meeting, which I think is only next week. So I realise this is a very short timeline for staff, but following our visits out to Upper Colo and Lower Portland on the weekend and the information given to us by those residents, I think that there are some changes that need to be made in light of the recent floods. I've got a series of questions that I'd like to ask, if I could, Madam Deputy Mayor, before.
Perhaps some further discussion, and then maybe some. I haven't provided a lot of information about what we would like to consider. I'm hoping that some further information will come out in our discussions now. I've got some suggested points, but I'm happy to add to those once we, if we can discuss this. If this format isn't workable, I'm happy to move us into committee of the whole for further discussion, or to move that we move to committee of the whole to have further discussion. So I'll just await your direction there.
Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. I think if you proceed with your questions, which may be for this meeting, and then we continue for some that may inform for a deferral, if that's the case. Thank you. Thank you.
So I'll start with the information that we received when we were at Upper Colo on Saturday morning, and that centres around the bridge and roads and the reserve, or the parking reserve, as opposed to Upper Colo Reserve. There's, I presume that most of that work can be done without additions to the operational plan, and that the bridge repair is being done as flood recovery rather than a direct item in the operational plan. Is that correct, Mr. Alden?
Yes, that's correct. The applications for natural disaster funding arrangements be made under the restoration of essential public assets provisions, which will require designs and so on to be put together, and those applications will go off. We've already had discussions with Transport for New South Wales over eligibility, whilst that's not a promise or anything, I have no reason to doubt that there'd be no impact on our budget from that.
Microphone. Sorry. Sorry. There were some additional questions and issues raised by the community that don't involve the bridge, but have now become matters of great urgency because they have to use the bridge to get around. So vegetation clearing on Upper Colo Road and Hebron Road, do we need to include those in the operations plan, or can they be just done as a matter of course? Should we be setting those apart? And sealing of Upper Colo Road has become a matter of urgency for people who—there's far more traffic on that road now.
So the tree trimming on Colo Heights Road is being undertaken, I understand, today, so that's occurring, and any of those other issues in terms of vegetation clearance will be undertaken without impact on the budget. In terms of sealing of Upper Colo Road, that's not included in the current program from memory, so that's not on our program at this stage. Oh, sorry, the preliminary work to be done there, $80,000, that's design work only.
There's questions also about Greens Road. The residents have been told by both federal and state members that there is funding for betterment of Greens Road. I don't know if Council was in receipt of any of that information, but that appears to be information that we should seek in this instance. I'd also like to see some information about a permanent seal versus the proposed temporary seal. I think residents today were informed that there would be a proposed temporary seal for Wheelbarrow Ridge Road, and if we could get some information about the options for that.
There was also made mention by either the state or federal member. The federal member, I think, about unspent funds in the federal government Emergency Response Fund used to mitigate against disasters. If we could get some further information about Council's capacity to access that funding , and I'll provide words for this, that would be helpful as well, because I think we may be looking at using some of that to mitigate, particularly around Lower Portland.
Think these are probably best left to the deferral. I don't want to put Mr Organ on the spot to come up with answers that he may not have, but if he wants to, that would be fine.
At the top, I guess. In terms of the Betterment issue, so there are provisions under the Natural Disaster Funding arrangements for betterment of roads. That's under the, I call the stage three, so this is the permanent restoration. So where a standard or situation requires upgrading of an asset, that's the only practical way of doing it, then there are provisions for betterment. So typically, if a road had fallen into the river... Then , and you needed to go and do something else instead, then there's a possibility of applying the betterment principle for that. So it's certainly not ruled out and it's allowed for in the provisions. Similarly, those issues about bridge designs and those sorts of things, if you can't design to the standard of the asset that was there before, because the standard has changed, that's classed as betterment, but is allowable.
The temporary ceiling, I'll call it temporary dust suppression tech that we're going to be doing, which will give all of the appearance of a seal on Wheelbarrow Ridge Road, lower section, it's basically just covering the existing formation as purely a dust suppression activity, which will give the appearance of the road being sealed and will undoubtedly last for several years, but it's not a permanent solution. So we need to look at detailed design of that road to be able to put together a budget figure for that.
Could I just seek a clarification on that section of road? Is that the part that was allocated in the operational plan that was discussed, I think it was 700 metres or something, to be done in Wheelbarrow Ridge? Is that the Colo Heights end,
Correct. That's in next year's budget to do those works. So there's some design money in this year's, coming year's budget to do some design work there, but it's continuation from the end of the existing seal coming from the Putty Road end and extending probably about one kilometre, I think from memory, down to the last house at that end. Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. Madam Deputy Mayor, the other issue that I think we really need to look at very quickly is what we can do to provide access for residents that currently have to travel over the Wilberforce Ridge Road fire trail so that they can get some sort of temporary access rather than driving that very lengthy route that the Deputy Mayor and I drove it yesterday. It's—doing that at both ends of the day is a significant hardship for the people who live there, and we— I don't think it's enough for us to say, ‘You will have to wait until we fix this road.’ There's kids who are missing school and missing extracurricular activities. The residents are incredibly stressed, and we've got some residents who aren't willing to leave their homes. We appear to
Thank you, Madam Chair. At 6.51, the meeting was paused as the fire alarm here in Council's chambers were triggered and the premises were evacuated accordingly. We've now resumed the meeting at 7.15 p.m.
Thank you. I'll return to Councillor Wheeler. We're dealing with item 102 regarding the operational plan. Councillor Wheeler, if you want to take up with your questions that you were on before. Thanks.
Thanks, Madam Deputy Mayor. So, I think I'd started asking about some temporary provision of temporary access for residents on Greens Road, if we could look at some temporary solutions for them until we can get the road fixed, then I think that's necessary. It will become an untenable situation for them very soon if it hasn't already. And then the other thing I'd like us to be able to look at is the cost of a trial of garbage collection. So either the use of a smaller garbage truck or some alternative method to access areas considered that currently don't receive garbage collection on Greens Road and Wheelbarrow Ridge Road or in the Upper Colo area. Residents are putting their rubbish either into their cars and bringing it down the hill and leaving their bins down at the bottom of Wheelbarrow Ridge Road.
It's really unsightly. There's a lot of rubbish that's going into the lagoon behind that. It's not a situation that's workable any further. A couple of other— Questions. We've got some surplus from the emergency services levy of $282,000 that we look like putting towards the crisis management response reserve. Can we discuss the use of that for perhaps for temporary access on Greens Road? And another question, can we, have we asked for funding under the Everyone Can Play grants for accessible playgrounds? That's funding that's due on the 25th of June.
Your— Anyone Can Play grant, that can go on notice. And then I've got another question, perhaps on notice, is what progress have we made with the relocation of the Wilberforce RFS shed and fire control? My understanding was that that was going to come back to Council around the end of March with looking at options for relocation for both of those facilities, with a comparison of possible sites. That hasn't come to us, I presume because of the flooding, but that's still a necessary issue that this Council needs to get on top of. And another question that I just think is odd . I've never understood why we charge parents and carers a dollar each to supervise their kids at Richmond Pool. Do we think they might put their feet in the water and, or wear out the grass or something?
Is that why we charge them a dollar to enter the pool to look after their own kids? This seems really miserly to me, and I've never understood why we bother doing it. Okay.
Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. I assume those questions will be taken on board. I'll just go to Councillor Garrow because she looks like she has another question.
I did. I just had another question following on from the Wilberforce Road notice that went out to residents today. I've had a question from residents at Greens Road asking if they can get confirmation of the sealing of the end of Greens Road that goes to South Sydney Juniors. That was promised in the 2021 OP. Is that still going ahead, and when will that be done? Mr. Organ.
Through you, Deputy Mayor. Yeah, those funds are still available through Council, but obviously part of that road is now subject to the failures, so that's being deferred. But as soon as we've got a result for the restoration, we'll commence the program for the sealing. So those funds are not at risk.
Thank you. Just with regard from that and following up from the meeting that we did have with residents on the weekend, is there was some discussion around the geotechnical report . Is there any word on when that is going to be available? And I can see from that look that that's a question you might not like, but there was a lot of angst around the lack of time frame from members of the community, and they want to know when that report will be ready because obviously it will determine what sort of work will need to be done.
Unfortunately, I don't have an exact time frame. I'm hoping that sometime within the next week to 10 days that we will have a preliminary report back. We are pushing the geotechnical consultants to give us early advice, because that will be critical to say what the type of methodology, let alone, irrespective of the detail of how it's to be done in terms of restoration and timeframes. So again, it's very complex in terms of the underwater survey that was done, marrying that up with the surface investigations. I know that's probably cold comfort to the residents, but we are pushing as hard as we possibly can.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. If it's a delay of only a week, I'm not going to protest too loudly, but I think Councillor Wheeler was obliged to spend her time justifying, you know, why a delay or why this particular information should come back.
It was up to Councillor Wheeler to justify why any delay would suggest a remedy to her questions in the formulation of the operational plan, and I'm not sure that she met that threshold . Since it's generally known that the kinds of issues that are very pressing in Lower Portland are not funding-based, they're geotechnically based, they're scheduling-based, they're resource allocation-based . I'm not sure that any delay to the adoption of the operational plan is going to provide any remedy at all. Furthermore, when a change is suggested to the operational plan, it's incumbent on the proposer to be quite clear about where that money will come from. Certainly, she mentioned the reallocation of some funding that was supposed to be going into a strategic reserve, but that doesn't mean that what's been proposed comes to the same sum of money at all.
I suspect it would rather come to a very great deal more than that. So, at this point, I'm unconvinced as to the merits of a deferral, even while I acknowledge the very pressing nature of the concerns that are held by the Lower Portland community, and I'm very sympathetic to those. I'm just not sure that this was the appropriate mechanism to ask a barrage of questions that could have been more simply put as questions with notice.
Thank you, Councillor Zamprogno. I might just address that as I would have spoken on this issue, having attended the meetings on the weekend and then again yesterday. Councillor Wheeler and I attended a number of properties and drove the trail out there and spoke to a lot of residents who live in the Greens Road area. I think the issue of asking these questions, it comes from the fact that we're being told things that the residents are being told by other local members, so state or federal, and if a state member says to the community, the funds are all there to better the road, to redo it and make it wider or whatever, we need some clarity around that because these people are now expecting, when we do work, that they will have a much better road.
Now, if that isn't able to be done because there really isn't that money, I think we need to know now so that we can make a decision of whether any of the other money would have to be allocated to that. And I think because this is late down the track towards the operational plan, and much of this work will be covered, of course, by disaster funding, but I think we just need the specifics of what was raised to get the clarity around that from where the funding is coming from. There is one thing I'll ask Mr. Organ with regard to those questions, and it is whether something would be better as a notice of motion coming back, and if it were to be a notice of motion, could it be funded, would be the cost, the garbage collection trial for the areas that currently don't have a collection, which is a growing, growing issue in those areas.
And it might be Ms. Perrins, sorry, but would that be better as a notice of motion to specifically deal with that, or can we deal with that through the operational plan?
Well, in terms of, it can be dealt with through the operational plan, but it would be a budget bid that would have to be considered, and I'm not sure how quickly I can get the costings. Thank you. Yes
That was my concern, that there may be a problem in getting that ready for the business paper for the next meeting, something like that. I'm assuming most of the other questions can probably be answered and included, or even given to us in time for the revisitation of the operational plan. But the one about the trial, Councillor Wheeler, do you think we might remove that and bring that back as a notice of motion at the next meeting?
I think we can do that, but we don't have time now. The cut-off for a notice of motion for the next meeting was 5 p.m. today, so we've missed that cut-off, given that the next council meeting is next week. And I don't think the next council meeting is until the second week of July at this stage.
Then that's our first opportunity, I suppose. And that will be leaving it very close if it's to be a funding option . That's the only thing. Could we commit to it? Could we have it in as a question, and if you can't answer it, we can at least get a commitment at the next meeting that that's what we want to do? Okay, so we'll leave it there. Councillor Ross.
In addition to the suggestions you've just offered, Madam Deputy, if it's not possible to do a detailed evaluation, could council be kindly provided with an estimate? of a low and a minimum and a maxima for consideration next week, please.
Thank you, Deputy— Madam Deputy Mayor. I just have some questions about the notion that Councillor Wheeler was talking about providing people with better access because they've had their road disappear into the river and they need to use detours. Is that something that is covered under our emergency funding, or is that something that Council would have to fund out of its operational plan?
To my knowledge, there's nothing specific in the natural disaster funding arrangements between the state and the Commonwealth that would permit that. There is a clause within the guidelines that would allow an extraordinary claim or action to be proposed, but they would need to be submitted back through Resilience New South Wales. So, in terms of providing those temporary alternate access, we would be doing some work and having a look at what the options might be, what the costs were, and then we could take that to Resilience New South Wales. That would be the course of action.
Thank you. A follow-up question. It's not every day that your road falls into a river, so would you— Assume that that would be, you know, grounds for taking that extraordinary clause action, Mr. Olgan?
It's probably as good a reason as any. As I said, what the response would be, I don't know. But I think we need to work out exactly what the option is that's going to be viable, and for how long. It would be one thing they would want to know, and unfortunately that will come back to what the permanent repair of the road time frame is. Okay,
Thank you for that. The reason I ask that is that I'm a little worried that if it's not covered under that disaster funding, that we might be setting a precedence that if you don't have access to your normal road that— When there is a detour, you know, when there is actually action, so it's about the amount of time that it's taking people to go about their daily lives, I suppose. And I just wonder if the alternatives, you know, via the waterway or other things like that, aren't just going to be as time-consuming. But look, I'm happy for us to look at that, but I think my preference would be that it was covered under the emergency funding.
Thank you. I think if I could just respond to what Councillor Kotlash said, and having been out there and why that was raised, was that it's a reasonably shortish distance that's closed off, and the alternative is a very long and very cumbersome alternative. Even though the road at the moment is quite passable, it's apparently , you know, it's been graded by council and so on, but it's the impost on people who have to do it multiple times a day. I think that what they were bringing forward was that if they could have some access via waterway, so either a floating pontoon and have something come. It's to get— there's a man who walks every day with his children through the— there's all sorts of those stories that, admittedly, you know, it's just really difficult for those people.
And I think that this is an emergency. This is something that's come from an extreme event, so it's definitely something that falls within that sort of category. And I think to look at anything, I mean, there's a river there. It's not that long ago that that river was a transport route for produce and all sorts of things. So obviously we can use that sort of thing for moving people and goods around. When Councillor Wheeler and I went yesterday to see people who are too frightened to drive the other route, so they're literally staying home and haven't got things. Some don't have access to potable water. Some, you know, being delivered because they can't get a water truck in around that way, and various things like that.
I think because of the uncertainty, we have brought this up. If it turns out with the GeoTech report that the repairs can go straight ahead and it's not going to be that long, that's probably not as big an issue. Just a
Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I've just got a technical question, I suppose, for Councillor Wheeler. At the beginning of the motion, it says that we defer until information can be provided, whereas I was thinking we were deferring for one week. And point four about access via waterway, I don't think we'll have that by next week. So that would mean we'd be deferring this item until we can answer those questions in point four. So I think you need to have some kind of backup there so that something can be brought back next week, but we won't get that full answer, I wouldn't think, by next week. By next week you might get an answer which tells us how to proceed, but if you leave it as it is, then point four is going to mean that the operational plan will be deferred for quite some time, whereas I think you only meant for it to be deferred till next week.
Thank you, Councillor Calvert. Councillor Wheeler, the general manager has just advised that it's okay for us to defer it till the 29th of June meeting if that assists you with your answer.
If that's workable for the staff, I was under the impression that we needed to get this passed so that council can continue its operations fairly seamlessly. I mean, I'm well aware that if we don't pass it till the 29th and if something falls over again on the 29th, then we are leaving council a bit high and dry. I'd probably be happy if the, I don't know if we can perhaps separate the OP into parts where we pass enough to pay staff, continue operations. Levy fees? No, that's looking like a bad idea. Good. We'll move on from that. A lot of nodding and—I'll take that as a no. If we can defer this to the 29th, and if the general manager is comfortable with us doing that, that would, I think, allow us some time to discuss this further and come back perhaps with something that...
But I think we all need to be cognisant of the fact that when we go in on the 29th, we do need to pass a workable operation plan for council to continue. I don't think any of us want to leave council in a position where we haven't got a budget to function with for the next 12 months, and that's that. I'm aware that we have a responsibility for that not to happen. So if —look, I don't mind when it comes back to us. I think that's for the general manager to say when is workable.
Thank you , Councillor Wheeler. So on that, we'll leave it. Did you want to specify anything else, or are we just going to leave it as is and we're just taking that on
I think what would be a productive thing in the meantime is because this is quite an irregular way to approach this, but based on what the community feedback is, and the fact that the Mayor and Councillor Richards, who are also there, and Councillor Ross might want to be involved, we did go out to these communities and hear a lot of these things, and I think it would be really valuable for a discussion amongst either those councillors to look further at it and staff in the interim, if that assists staff with where we're coming from, because it's a bit hard to relay the whole thing here. But Councillor Wheeler has encapsulated that quite well in those various questions there. Councillor Garrow. Sorry
I had something, another question, which does affect our— is a funding-based question. Can we get a timeframe on all the outstanding resolutions? And I'm highlighting West Rock and Sports Council because they're noted, but not limited to those. We've got all these outstanding resolutions and our third-party agreements, and I find it difficult to pass this when we don't have a basic cost analysis on these third parties. Can we get a timeframe on that? Anybody?
I'm looking for a taker. I'm happy to take it, Madam Chair. I guess we'd prefer to take that on notice at this point, Councillor, and I guess query whether we're talking about the resolutions explicitly relating to those third-party agreements or whether Council's seeking an update on all of its outstanding resolutions.
On the third-party agreements, to my knowledge, we have outstanding resolutions on those third-party agreements. We've yet to have a response back on, so if we can get some clarification on that, even if going forward for passing the OP, if we can just get a basic cost analysis on each of those items, that would be beneficial. Thank you, Councillor Garrow.
Just another question about the alternative access arrangements. Are there any other alternatives other than the waterway? Because we've been quite specific in point four, and I was just wondering whether there were other — well, I don't know what they'd be, but—
Well, we did discuss the potential of, and this is like a liability nightmare, I would think, but the potential of having people have buggies that they could go this distance where there's half a road and they have a car at each end. But I'm not sure— has anyone fainted or anything? It was literally that there was such a conversation around all the things and ideas being thrown around, which is why, because this only happened on the weekend, it's quite difficult to translate it all into— Yeah, I used to— Well, just see if he wants to comment on that.
I think the question is, do you want to limit the point four to waterways only, if it was just alternate access including waterway access would probably read better. Then we can come back and I can put some of those risks, costs and other options into play.
Yeah, I just, I don't know what I was thinking, minibus, I don't know, golf buggy. Also, that point four possibly needs the provision of water, because if this does go on for months, which it probably is, I know it's raining, but if it does go on for months, then we're going to have to have some sort of— we need to know the costs of at least... Having accessibility for water traders to get in there. So, if Councillor Wheeler was willing to just add that to that point, that might be something that we need to know sooner rather than later. Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Councillor Wheeler.
So, I'm happy to have including Waterway instead of via waterway in that point. I think access is a two-way street in terms of getting stuff in and getting stuff out, and I think water probably falls into that. So, I don't know that it needs massaging any further, but I think we've made it clear that people need to get stuff in as well as get themselves out and back in again. Thank you. Councillor Ross.
The Lower Portland Road and Wilberforce Ridge Road and South Juniors Resort were able to be accessed more readily , is that a benefit to the folk further along that road, or is it a rather minor consideration in all of this, please?
I can't answer that, Mr. Organ. I think from the intersection with Wheelbarrow Ridge Road, there's a road block, and then there's a stretch to South Juniors which doesn't seem damaged.
Through you, Deputy Mayor, that's correct. So the section from the end of the seal north of Wheelbarrow Ridge Road intersection through to South Juniors, there, just approaching South Juniors, there's a five-ton load limit because of subsidence at that location. So it does still provide access to that area. Opening that to full load limit would provide some benefit in terms of loads of water and/or services up to the closed section, but that would be the limit of that benefit.
Rasmussen. The second part of that information would be, sir, could you give an indication of the distance between South Juniors building and infrastructure there to the group of residents immediately, if you like, on the downstream side of that, the nearest little group of residential properties, please?
Probably only guessing. So I know the section of closure, full closure is around about 400 to 500 metres long. So that's the area that's got some substantial subsidence and collapsing into the river. It's probably around about, I'm guessing, probably two to three kilometres, I think, from the South Juniors further on to that closure. Something in that order, but I could be off beam there. I haven't got a plan in front of me.
The reason I was asking that was that there was a proposition put by some of the local residents, and whether it's feasible or not, I do not know, but it was that possibly something like, if you like, golf carts or very small agricultural-type transport vehicles that you'd use normally on pastoral properties and so on, if they were able to be hired and be able to be accessed on a to and fro basis, with Souths Juniors looking after the equipment at one end and residents at the other, that that might assist in the movement of at least personnel, really with a very limited carrying capacity for shopping only, I would think, certainly not water.
Thank you very much, Deputy and the Director. In reference to the matter raised by my adjoining Councillor, I notice that the operational plan has included 1.3 million allocation to the Sports Council, which is a 377 committee, mind you.
Another Greens Road question. I'm just wanting to know through you, Madam Deputy Mayor, if we know what the immediate emergency response plan is for RFS, police, ambulance, while there's no access into Greens Road? Mr. Organ.
Through you, Deputy Mayor, the emergency services have been advised of the closures through there, and they would be making arrangements for their varied response. There may be some delays, obviously, as a result of that. But I’d have to take that on notice and get direct responses about what the impact is on them. Yeah
I think that the residents are greatly concerned as to the impact and the delay and how, you know, God forbid that there is an emergency, how quickly they’re going to get help on an isolated part of the Hawkesbury.
In addition to the question just posed by Councillor Garrow, have we also informed Hills Shire Council and the emergency bodies that would be associated with that in case they needed to use the Lower Portland Ferry to gain access to that area?
I’m not to confirm, but I’m almost certain that the Hills Shire Council are aware of that, and basically the resourcing would be coordinated through RFS if there was anything there. The Lower Portland, both sides have the same equipment on either side, so it doesn’t rely upon the ferry to be responsive. Thank you.
I'm hoping to have some preliminary advice back within the next seven to ten days at the outside. We're certainly pushing them for a whole range of early advice as soon as they've done any of the data processing and assessment, so we can actually look at issues such as: can we reopen, can we remove the five-ton load limit, has the area stabilised. So there's still a fair bit of work to do there, as well as survey and location of the actual road within the road reserve.
Thank you. So, in other words, just to confirm that that would then allow us to follow some of these other things that have been asked. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Ross. And
We've already engaged bridge designers to look at the various options at that location. We're also looking at a whole range of other issues or options to be able to get access back there earlier. I know some of those were discussed at the meeting on Saturday, and maybe some of them might be looked at favourably, but we'll certainly put that list of the various options together there. That includes restoration, temporary bridges, and I know they don't like the idea of causeways, but temporary causeway or temporary bridging. So we'll put all of that together as part of that. So that work is underway. Geotech has been completed on the route, so that was fairly straightforward at that location.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Chair. I appreciate you noticing me waving my hand at you. Look, can I just firstly say that what this all highlights to me—well, let me say this. Firstly, it highlights that what Councillor Wheeler has brought up tonight highlights the fact that we need to very quickly, I think, and we are doing it, and that's good to see, cobble together something that's going to work for our community quickly under these sorts of extraordinary, unprecedented, yeah, all the words we all use and know from fires and floods. What that highlights is that we need to do this. Now, we can all sit here and cobble together little bits of this and ask about that and can we do this and maybe we should do something else and maybe we should get an estimate for that and when can we get it back, and all of that is all good stuff.
But if we had embedded in our organisation, in this area in particular, given we are so vulnerable to these natural disasters and as climate change bites deeper and harder and more often, we are going to need an emergency response team group unit within our council who has this remit to deal with these issues so that we are not sitting down at whatever the time is, eight o'clock on a council night, trying to work out after a meeting on the weekend with our— Terribly , terribly suffering in our residents, that we're trying to put together what should be almost a standard plan where we know alternative routes, we know we've got a river, we know we have these issues, and we should have available to us through this sort of embedded unit some classic off-the-shelf responses that we can go, righto, we know what this is, this is what we've worked out, this is roughly what it's going to cost, we've done all the work and, councillors, here is the plan if you want to run with that.
I mean, it does beg us belief that in a council like ours that has suffered floods and fires and storms for so many years that we haven't got something like that. Now, that's not to say that, you know, the engineering area isn't trying to do its best, but it's got a real daytime job fixing roads and doing stuff. So it seems to me that we are really missing, in our organisational structure, a unit such as this emergency response type group . So I just put that forward , Madam Deputy Chair, as a real big weakness, and we've just highlighted tonight in our organisational structure, and I think it's time we grew up and addressed it in this council for the structure going forward. So, and I may well put a notice of motion to that effect a little bit later.
Thanks, Madam Deputy Mayor. I'll just respond to a few of the things that were mentioned. Councillor Zamprogno questioned why the delay or why this mechanism for dealing with this matter. I think it was very clear to those of us who travelled up to Upper Colo and Lower Portland on the weekend that we need to act. And this is the currently available mechanism for us to do this. I think we need to adapt the spending that we have forecast for the next 12 months to deal with what is, appears to us to be an extraordinary situation, and I suspect will not feel that extraordinary in the next few years. This is the second operations plan that we've had that's affected by a natural disaster. It's our fifth natural disaster in 18 months.
We have to be both reactive and proactive, as Councillor Rasmussen has said, in dealing with these matters, and this is the mechanism available to us. It's not enough for us to say, well, we'll just wave this through and we'll try and work out some way of dealing with this. The community expects us. They need us to deal with this now. I understand that this is a clunky mechanism for dealing with it. I appreciate that this is creating some extra work for staff, but I think this is, at this point, our best way forward. The floods have really highlighted that we need to reprioritise. And if I had all the answers to all of these questions, then we wouldn't need to defer. If I could blithely put up recommendations for where this money came from, then we wouldn't need to tide this over for two or three weeks while we come up with some responses that allow us to continue the general functioning of the LGA, but also address these very urgent needs.
We've got residents—to give you some context around this—we've got residents who are currently living in caravans because they have no functioning septic systems. They can't get the trucks or the tradesmen in to fix those septic systems because of the state of the roads. And consequently, they can't give their— one of the residents that we spoke to is currently dealing with his insurance company, who are about to offer a payout. He can't put on any contractors because he can't get them up the road. And he can't tell them when he will be able to get them up the road, so he can't fix his house. So his daughter has moved out of the family home, and the other three members of the family are living in a caravan using a camping toilet.
This is what we are living with now in this LGA. This is not over. This is not something where we've flushed out people's houses and we can just carry on. We have people dealing with really significant, life-altering impacts. And if anyone who's looked at that 500 metre stretch of Greens Road, which is painfully short in comparison to the distance that they have to travel, and parents with school children are travelling that twice a day, it's such an impost on families. It's extraordinary. Some of them are quite frightened of driving on that road. There's a lot of wildlife. There's blind corners, there's trucks coming in the opposite direction. We've got cyclists on that road using it for recreation.
It's the sort of thing that's keeping people awake at night and significantly affecting their mental health. We need to give them some timeframes so that they can function as well. We also urgently need to deal with the provision of water and how we're going to get emergency response vehicles through, particularly in the fire season. And I think we do need to have a discussion with the RFS brigades at both Upper Colo and Lower Portland about their capacity to service this LGA, because I think that should give us a greater sense of urgency. Upper Colo are very worried about getting vehicles, getting fire trucks across. Currently, Colo Heights have to come down to service the other side of Upper Colo.
That's a very long response time. They are very, very big distances. Lower Portland, if someone was to have a structure fire, their chances of getting vehicles on site in under 40 minutes are negligible, I would say. That's the end of your house. I mean, it took crews 30 minutes to get to a structure fire in Wilberforce. And then when they get there, there's no water. So if they can't take a Cat 1 vehicle with the largest water supply through to these properties, that's the end of their homes. This is an urgent situation and we need to find some solutions to them. We've got a sick child and an elderly resident who've moved out of their homes because they can't get in and out easily enough or they can't drive those roads safely.
We've got people getting other people to feed their horses. They've got trouble getting stock feed in. They're buying it by bale rather than by truckload. This is a huge problem for people and it behoves us to sort it out. In amongst dealing with our normal roads, rates and rubbish, this is the pointy end of us as a council. We need to stand by these people. This is our moment to actually go beyond. standard operational plan and really provide a service to the community that we represent.
In favour: Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zambronio. Absent are Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards and Councillor Connelly, and for it as well was Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you. We'll move on to the next.
RESOLVED on the motion of Councillor Wheeler, seconded by Councillor Rasmussen.
That Council defer consideration of the 2021/2022 Operational Plan until further information which may have a bearing on allocated resources can be provided, including:
1. Confirmation of State Government funding for repair and betterment (widening) of Greens Road as stated by local members to residents.
ORDINARY MEETING
Minutes:
08 June 2021
2. Cost of permanent seal versus proposed temporary seal for Wheelbarrow Ridge Road, difference in timeframe, and options to funding.
3. Clarification of unspent funds in the Federal Government Emergency Response Fund intended to mitigate against disasters, and Council's capacity to access this funding.
4. Projected costs of provision of access including via waterway for residents currently having to travel via Wheelbarrow Ridge fire trail, or other temporary solution to enable such impacted residents to avoid the additional travel.
5. Projected costs of garbage collection trial (potentially purchase of small garbage truck or alternative method) to access areas currently considered unable to receive garbage collection (eg. Greens Road, Wheelbarrow Ridge Road and Upper Colo area).
I think it needs a bit more work. So I would like to propose that we defer, probably not till next week, but the meeting after, which is the whatever the meeting after is, 29th.
Do you have a seconder for that? Seconded, Councillor Calvert. I'll just ask Ms Perrin if there's any issues with that timeframe. Through you, Deputy Mayor, no, there's no issues if it gets deferred. Okay. Thank you. Discussion?
Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Deputy Mayor. Look, I'm just curious as to what Councillor Kotlash is hoping to get back, which might provide a report that has the information that she needs in it.
I have to confess that I don't really know what the point of this report is. This is information that has been available to councillors for the last four and a half years, so I can't see that there's any new information here. I don't understand why this is coming to us or what would be required from a further report. There doesn't seem to be any actions in here for us to take. And I look at, for example, the passage on wetlands. This is the— we've just passed this back. You know, we started strong on wetlands, and we've just given it back to the community without us actually doing anything. And I guess I find this disappointing. This is the— we've not achieved much here, and I don't say that as a reflection on the staff.
I say that as a reflection on the council. I'm not sure what the point of this going to the Environment Committee is. I'm not sure what the point of this coming back to us is, apart from a collation of information that we've had for four and a half years. Anyone who has been paying attention on this council would know all of this information already. I don't—unless the purpose of this is to hand it over to the next council, I really don't know what this has achieved besides making additional work for staff. Thank you, Councillor Wheeler
Any further discussion? I might just speak briefly and say I agree. I wasn't quite sure why one bit of the Environment Committee was out as a separate report, but the other bits weren't. But anyway, if it's being— Deferred , but I think we... What are we deferring it for is what I'm a little bit not understanding.
Yes, so, Councillor Kotlash—oh, sorry, General Manager. We'd simply make the request, Councillors, that if you'd like more information from staff, that that
The reason for the deferral was that I actually was also confused, as was Councillor Wheeler, as to why this was actually brought to the Environment Committee, and I'm sorry I haven't got the minutes of the— we've got the minutes of the Environment Committee's meeting , but we haven't got the business papers. I can recall that the Environment Committee didn't have anything— there wasn't any direction as to what Council wanted the Environment Committee to do in this space, and I think this was why it was sent back. And I think the resolution was for Council to give the Environment Committee some direction as to what sort of issues they wanted to get advice on. So instead of just saying that we don't need this item, I suppose the words that I would add to the deferral are , and there's a list of things that it says on page 23.
of the item that a report outlined the activities being undertaken to monitor, protect and enhance the Hawkesbury River and its catchments, and we get a whole list of things, but it's not very clear from that where the decision points are. What does that mean in terms of the decisions that we would have to make as councillors? And I suppose that's the whole point. The Environment Committee can only give advice if we have some direction. And I guess I'm happy to not defer it and just not make a decision on this particular item, but I think there are probably decision points that we would have to look at, and that's what I was after. So we defer and get staff to work on, I guess, those things that are listed in the executive summary of the business paper and
Listed in the background . Councillor Kotlash, could I just make a suggestion? Just that I think that we are already doing all those things. I think that's what the point is. Would it be better to maybe frame it around listing that if there's anything that comes up that there could be advice needed to be given, that then we refer it to the committee, rather than deferring it for them to do more work? Because I think I can't see what that would gain, given that this work is all basically what is underway anyway. Yes
I agree with you, Deputy Mayor, but I think this has been lost in translation to a degree. And when we changed the committee structure, we did ask for the outstanding items that had been going through the Environmental Sustainability Committee, which was our old committee, that they'd be— Transferred to the Environment Committee, so I think we've lost something in translation. What were the things that the Environmental Sustainability Committee were working on, that needs to be rethought. So I don't care which way we do it, we don't necessarily have to defer it for staff to do that. But at some stage I can imagine that some issues will come up on this topic.
So if we defer it, the staff can quickly assess that, and it doesn't have to be a great deal of work. But I think we'll just stick to the deferral and get staff to just revisit that.
Thank you. Could I also—I'm sorry, Councillor Kotlash, I don't really see the point of deferring it. Could we, should we perhaps just not accept it in that format and just have it as part of the Environment Committee, or perhaps someone who was in the Environment Committee could enlighten us to what the discussion was around it, because there must have been a discussion for it to have a recommendation.
The discussion at the Environment Committee, from memory—I'm sorry, I haven't got that in front of me—was that we didn't quite know what we were being asked to advise on. It was just this, and again I say that there was a problem in translation. We didn't have anything to discuss. I mean, we could have discussed the topic. And we could have discussed that till the cows come home, but we didn't have anything that was particularly pertinent to any council decisions that needed to be made in the future. So we needed some more guidance. So without making too much of this, I think we just, from going back and looking at these various issues and aspects of water management, that we do that and revisit it.
Now, as I said, I'm happy to not defer it and just start again, but it's, I think it's just as easy defer and staff look at when we need to make decisions and what those decisions are about and how the Environment Committee can actually
Delve deeper into that issue and at least give council, the whole of council, some guidance about the decisions that need to be made in the future. That's the function of the new committee structure. And
I actually think that if on page 23 there is the resolution that came from the February 2021 meeting, which says that council consider asking the committee to look at specific issues in regards to water as required, should it revert perhaps to the as required. In other words, that we just note that's the work that council is doing, which the report outlines, and then perhaps as things come up. Otherwise, I think deferring it for staff to do more work without any specific advice that's required or anything in relation to anything specific, I don't see what else they could actually do.
Okay, we're going around in circles a bit now, but I'll say again, we're being— the Environment Committee needs to know the specific areas of advice that they need to delve into.
It says to look at specific issues in regard to water as required. From that, I would read that when something comes up, perhaps a strategy or an issue specifically around something that Council's doing, that if that had something relevant to water quality or management or anything, then we would refer that specific thing to the committee.
So we would assume that the issue that was being discussed in the Environmental Sustainability Committee didn't have any aspect of advice being needed for any Council decision. Can I just suggest that we ask a member of staff what advice might be coming in the pipeline so we can get a bit more of a handle on why this item was put in the business paper in this format? Miss Perrin?
Andrew Kearnes(staff - Manager, Strategic Planning)
Yeah, thank you. So I guess, you know, the report that went to the Environment Committee was responding to the Council resolution, which is obviously to look at the issue of water. So we were sort of highlighting the number of activities that Council was undertaking in regard to water, and particularly, I guess, water quality. The recommendation to the Environment Committee was to essentially note that information in terms of what Council was undertaking in terms of those various projects and activities. And then the last part of the recommendation was to essentially, for the committee to consider particularly the Hawkesbury Coastal Management Plan as that particular project progresses. So that's the project that's involving other Hawkesbury River councils that's proceeding and is funded, and as that project progresses, the idea is to bring that back to the Environment Committee for consideration.
Would that be to receive and note it, or would that be to review it in such a way that we either make a decision to carry that forward or to augment that program or not do it, do more? I mean, what sort of advice do you think that we needed to seek from the Environment Committee on that project?
Andrew Kearnes(staff - Manager, Strategic Planning)
Thank you, Madam Chair. So as that particular project progressed, it was progressed to stage two, which was determining the risks, the vulnerabilities and opportunities. So it was to bring that second stage report. Back to the Environment Committee to, I guess, ascertain whether that fully captured the issues that were relevant to the Hawkesbury LGA, and to progress to the next steps of that Coastal Management Plan program.
Thank you, Mr Kearns. And that, I would think, echoes what the officer's recommendation was within the Environment Committee agenda , clearly. Well, that's what's listed here. And then the committee has done an alternative recommendation. I think that the officer's recommendation is what you're trying to encapsulate. It's got an example of what's happening, and point two of it, it's on page 65. Point two is to support the current activities being undertaken by Council to monitor, etc., and then this matter be brought back for advice as the Hawkesbury Coastal Management Plan progresses. And I think in addition to that, the resolution still exists that any issues dealing with water be referred to the committee as required, which is an existing resolution from February. Correct?
Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll move an amendment. Yes That the recommendation in the business paper for the Environment Committee for this motion be used , but we substitute Council where it says the Environment Committee. So it would read that Council receive and note this report, support the current activities being undertaken by Council to monitor, protect and enhance the Hawkesbury River and its catchment, and this matter be brought back to the Environment Committee for advice as the Hawkesbury Coastal Management Plan progresses. From what Mr Kearns has just said, that seems to be the purpose of
Look, I don't think it's necessary. I think it appears that that's where this is headed, and that if it needs to come back for further discussion for Council, it will come back via the Environment Committee with additional information for the Coastal Management Plan.
Deputy—just concerned about this matter of the measurement of water quality in the river. We've heard nothing of any specificity through the course of this term of Council, and as I understood, there were possibly up to three years of readings that have been collected, but that information hasn't been disseminated, to my knowledge. So that also seems to be something that would be of much interest to councillors. I'll
Through you, Deputy Mayor. So yes, that data, as it's been collected, has been reported through the previous Environment Committee, which has then subsequently come to Council. But if there is a further or further details, we can feed that through this committee, and it will come back to Council that way.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. Really, like most councillors, we're struggling to work out what this recommendation was about. Seemed to be a very circular process where the previous Environmental Sustainability Committee had some issues or items that were left over, and they were to be forwarded to the new Environment Committee. And that's what I think that motion of 13th of April tried to do. But obviously it didn't tell the new Environment Committee exactly what it wanted it to do. What advice was it supposed to give? And so the Environment Committee turned around and wrote back and said, Well, what do you want us to do with this? What advice would you like? And I think what Councillor Kotlash was trying to do with the deferral was to say, Well, can we get some clarity on what it is that the Environment Committee was really supposed to be asked to do?
And I agree with that deferral because we just needed to clarify that. And I don't think it was designed to provide a whole lot of new work for council staff. It was just meant to clarify what is the decision, what is the advice that you're seeking. And if it is the Coastal Management Plan, well, fine, if that's the answer. But I don't think that was made clear to the Environment Committee. And if it was, it was misunderstood at some point. So I would think to a large extent we have clarified it here at the meeting. So, but I'll leave that up to Councillor Kotlash to decide what to do on that matter. But as far as the amendment goes, I don't have any problem with it as it stands. But I was just trying to explain what the deferral was about.
It wasn't about creating extra work. It was about seeking clarification.
Councillor Cutlash. Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. I think it is impossible for us to make any determination about The point A, that we support the current activities being undertaken by Council to monitor, protect and enhance the Hawkesbury River and its catchments, because we actually don't know anything about it yet.
I have no idea whether I support it or not, so that is a kind of irrelevant recommendation . And I think that that, sorry, it's coming back to me now , there's, unless you have some more information, and this is where this transitional thing is occurring, I don't know how we can make that. So I think that possibly a better motion would be to receive and note this report, and then this matter be brought back to the Environment Committee for advice as the Coastal Management Plan progresses, and leave out the second point.
Councillor Wheeler. I'm not sure how we can— It appears to me that the report, having not been in the meeting, it appears to me that the report is a wrap-up of where we are currently. If we, I think it's, I think if Council doesn't support the activities that it has put in place over the last four years to do these things, then we've got a real problem that isn't going to be resolved by just deferring this report or bringing back the Coastal Management Plan to the Environment Committee. I think if we aren't supporting our current activities when they're laid out in a report to us, that— We really have a problem. So I think we need to leave it in. If this fails because we don't support our current activities, then that needs to be on the record. Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Garrow.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to point out if you leave out point A, that doesn't mean you do not support the current activities. We don't have to say that we support the current activities. We don't have to say that at all. We could just leave out point A and be where we are. So I disagree with what Councillor Wheeler is saying. I think we can leave out point 2A and the rest of it could carry on normally without any problem. We're not then saying we do not support the current activities as Councillor Wheeler suggested. Okay
In favour of the amendment is Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Against the amendment, Councillor Ross, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert. Do I have
I'll move the amendment passed on the casting vote. Right of reply, Councillor Kotlash. Oh , sorry, absent from the vote. Thank you, Councillor Garrow. Absent from the vote, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards and Councillor Tree. The amendment is carried. We'll go to right of reply. Councillor Reynolds.
All right. I'll put the motion, which is in the wording of the amendment. All those in favour? In favour of the motion, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Calvert , Councillor Zamprongno, against and Councillor Lyons-Buckett, against Councillor Kotlash, absent from the chamber, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Conolly and Councillor Reynolds. Moved.
1. Council receive and note the information contained in this report from the Environment Committee Meeting on 13 April 2021.
2. a) Council support the current activities being undertaken to monitor, protect and enhance the Hawkesbury River and its catchment.
- b) This matter be brought back to the Environment Committee for advice as the Hawkesbury Coastal Management Plan progresses.
This page 8 of the Minutes of the ORDINARY MEETING of the HAWKESBURY CITY COUNCIL held in the Council Chambers and by Audio-Visual Link, on 8 June 2021.
SS - 2021/2022 Remuneration for Mayor and Councillors
Mary Lyons-Buckett
Moving on to the next item is item 105, remuneration for Mayor and Councillors. Somebody to move something? Moved, Councillor Kotlash. Seconded, Councillor Zamprogno. Discussion
I think that this is a reasonable— Are you moving the recommendation in the business paper? Yeah. Sorry, didn't I say that? No. Sorry, still flicking to it.
I think it's very self-explanatory. I think that it is good that we have been classified as a regional centre. I thought that was notable, and I think that those figures are reasonable, and I hope that they're supported. Thank you. Thank you. Further discussion
No further discussion. Councillor Rasmussen, have you got your hand up? No. All right, right of reply, Councillor Kotlash. Not necessary. I'll put the vote. All those in favour? Councillor Ross , Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno. Against? Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler,
Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. The motion is lost on the casting vote. Absent from the chamber is Councillor Reynolds , Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, and Councillor Conolly, and Councillor Lyons-Buckett was a vote for. Did I say them? Where's my list? The next item is item 107, Heritage Committee. Oh, we need another
Discussion? Councillor Wheeler. It's a pilfering amount of money. I think it's $490 each. It's less than ten bucks a week, even less after tax. I'd frankly rather see that stay in council's coffers than in the taxman's coffers. All up, I think it's about $7,000. I think we can probably spend that a little bit better for the $ 6 a week it would give us. I think the value— this is probably an instance where the sum of the parts is— the whole is greater than the individual parts for each councillor. So I think, and particularly given the pummelling that this LGA has taken, we can probably spend this money— it's not a large sum, but I think we can probably spend it somewhere better than just on us. Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.
Any further discussion? No further discussion, unless— no, right of reply, Councillor Wheeler, not necessary. I'll put the motion. All those in favour? In favour, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen. Against, Councillor Ross, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno. The motion is carried. Absent from the chamber, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Reynolds and Councillor Conolly. The next—
Thank you. Heritage Committee. Councillor Wheeler. I'll move the recommendation in the business paper. Seconded. Moved Councillor Wheeler, seconded Councillor Garrow. Discussion, Councillor Wheeler.
Thanks, Madam Deputy Mayor. Firstly, I want to thank the committee, the Heritage Advisory Committee, for their continued show of support. This is the only committee to have survived the rejig of the council's committee structure, and there were a lot of high feelings about the matter within members of that committee. It has been a very effective and functional committee, and they are a little bit dismayed to find that we spent an entire meeting going back over the work that we had already done, prioritising and setting deadlines on work that we already had in train. They have committed to getting this work done, in many cases by the end of this council term, and giving their free time to do this.
But I do want to highlight the fact that by going through this prioritisation process, we have lost significant time. There've been some real delays here. You can see now a lengthy list of priorities for this committee and deadlines. I'm a little bit concerned where we've got some items, for example item 8, which looks at... The council heritage study. It's a grant funded project to update council's heritage listings. We've done a lot of work with a working group, and that working group has committed to continuing this work. But the problem that we have here is that their current priority is for the 31st of August, which would allow the committee a little bit more time to get this stuff sorted out.
Bear in mind that they haven't been able to act until this came back to council under the constraints set by council with the new committee structure. And so council will be in caretaker mode by the time this study comes back. That is a terrible oversight by this council, and a real shame. There's , you can also see in there that there's advice that there's the progress of heritage funded projects like the Heritage Near Me projects and the works to individual properties. This has been a really popular round of funding. It was really fraught for Hawkesbury Council, where funding was not provided on a very transparent basis. I'm referring now to the Heritage Near Me funding, but it has been popular enough for people who have had absolutely no involvement whatsoever in heritage protection in this LGA to have their photo taken and posted on council's page.
Really insulting, frankly, to committee members who've worked hard on this, and I'm not referring to myself; I'm referring to members of the community who've worked hard for this work. Item 10, you'll see the Windsor Richmond Bridge duplication project, where the Heritage Advisory Committee, who had been consulted, had anticipated having further consultation around the options. Anyone who saw Monday's press release will see that the RMS and the state and federal government have clearly skipped this step, and council's Heritage Advisory Committee has been left right out. And item 11, I think, is now urgent, which is that the Heritage Advisory Committee provide further advice regarding the livability program, if that could come back to the Heritage Committee, those more detailed plans, as soon as possible.
I think that would be very useful. My major concerns here really are the loss of time.
Madam Deputy Mayor. So what we see here now is two months left for this very effective, very professional expert committee to complete this work. We've missed three meetings due to the restructure and more than six months of work. We are now asking community volunteers to run to get this stuff done so that it can come back for this council, who started this process, who asked for these things to be done, to ratify, in particular, large volumes of work like the heritage study. And I think that is really, really unfortunate. What we risk here is, and what we've had for the entire period that this council has been sitting here, a staggering lack of heritage protections in one of the most heritage-rich places in the country.
And what this process, this rejig of committees, this reprioritisation of the Heritage Advisory Committee's work, and frankly a six-month stuff-around of these people willingly giving this work for free to Council, is yet more time where these very valuable buildings are not being protected, and we're losing buildings. And as an example, the barn, highly significant barn on Wilberforce Road, that should be listed. It's in the Council's slab barn study. It's earmarked for heritage listing. We still haven't acted on protection of that building, and now it's gone. It was chipped. That's the level of heritage protection. There are very few of these barns left in the Hawkesbury, and this is the only place in the Sydney Basin that has them.
They are part of our cultural heritage. They are part of the Hawkesbury vernacular. The fact that they can be demolished with no protection, nothing said to the landowner, and put through a chipper is a disgrace. The fact that we have delayed this committee and the process of these heritage protections for a further six months should remain a deep shame for this Council by the end of this term.
Next item is item 108 , the Environment Committee, which I will just note that as we just had a previous resolution changing a recommendation within there, we would reflect that change within the recommendation 3. We would alter recommendation 3 as we change that via a resolution just now. Someone to move something?
Was not really clear with what you were just saying. I was just saying that recommendation 3 within the Environment Committee minutes is the one that we just dealt with, so it would have to be reflected to be the same now to pass this. Okay.
I have some discussion. I'll just raise a few points about—as it will be no surprise to anybody—that I would raise some information about the electric vehicle charging infrastructure. I think that it's a little bit disappointing that the councillors on the committee didn't do any research before they would have discussed this, given that the referral to the committee was about setting up a policy and getting a report done around electric vehicle charging. Now, what they have come back with in terms of the recommendation are things that are very, very readily available and well known. So, for example, last year the Electric Vehicle Council released a local government resource pack, which contains all of the information that could assist with doing a strategy or a policy.
The resource pack covers many aspects, explaining what EVs are, dealing with how local government can transition its fleet to electric vehicles, explains what charging and how that's done, shows the resources of charging locations around Australia, has chapters on local government policies and projects, including the Lake Macquarie Council electric vehicle charging strategy, the Hornsby Council electric vehicle charging on public land policy, policies and strategies about best practice for EV readiness in new developments, local government fleet transitions, and information sheets on all things related to electric vehicles. There's also an untapped resource that we can be tapping into in the city's power partnership, of which we have been a member since 2017, but interesting to wane in that at some point.
But we're missing the opportunities that it provides in shared resources, where other councils have done studies and they share this, and we can utilise the information that's there without having to redo it all ourselves, and then just tailor it to our local community. This is an area where we must lead by example. I can't really understand that there's a hesitancy out there about doing this. I have been accused in the past of speaking about this in self-interest, but I can assure you I've got my own charging station for my car and I don't have to utilise public ones locally, only if I travel a long distance. So we're missing out by not providing this infrastructure, and it would be really good to get on with it and just get the policy done.
I think sending it back to the committee again, reporting it back and then getting them to think about doing consultation and then bringing it back to Council and then back to the committee, I think this is all just being a little bit Monty Pythonesque. It's time that we I acknowledge that this is an omission in our, you know, our operations. We have to be moving towards the transitions in this area, and it would simply be easier to just use this recommendation, I would think, to direct the staff to prepare the report without it having to go back. The consultation would be obviously for whoever was interested in it in the first place, and if the resources that are available were tapped into, then that would provide a lot of that information from already accumulated from tourism operators, NRMA, and all the various automotive associations.
The zero litter to ocean policy. Well, we saw a great example of something that could be done straight away, and that is not having the bins at Lower Portland lined up along the river. When there was a flood, there was a huge amount, aside from all the other things that went into the river from the flood, but there was a lot that actually came from the fact that we had bins lined along a riverbank where the refuse was, you know, really significant, be quick. The people from the zero litter had stated, as I think I stated when the notice of motion came forward, that they would come out and speak to the council about what actions there are. In fact, that is what the policy is. If people read the policy document, it has various actions that can be followed, and we could just look at what we might possibly be able to do now, which can be very small things like relocating bins away from waterways, etc.
And we can also look at what neighbouring councils would be doing with that. I had a question written down here, which was a question for someone to explain. Could someone explain the South Creek nutrient offset scheme to me? Briefly .
By and large, these relate to point sources of pollution from sewer treatment plants, and there's basically an offset or bubble licence being proposed from 2024 for Sydney Water and our two sewer treatment plants for various stretches of the river to, one, reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants, but do that as a, I guess, the best analogy I can think of is probably an emissions trading scheme, a pollution trading scheme to say where do you invest your money best to get the best effect for the river quality. But we'll be coming back to Council with a report on that shortly. Okay .
Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I want to firstly congratulate the committee on providing Council with a whole lot of advice which we previously did not have access to, and that is the aim of the committee system, is to provide Council with advice. And if all councillors were invited to make submissions to the committee, and if councillors have information on things such as electric vehicles or bins lined up at certain places, then it would have been their job to make that information available to the committee so that the committee could provide Council with strong advice, rather than waiting for the committee report to come back and then chip away at what was said because they didn't have all the information.
And listening to what the new Deputy Mayor just said about committees, it sounds to me like you don't want anything to go through committees. You just want things to get done without committees. And that's the interpretation I gave to what you just said. I don't know whether you meant to say it that way, but that's the message I got. I believe the committees will work very well, especially if we all get behind it, especially if we have information and we provide that information to the committees so the committees can make a full and thorough decision on what advice to give us. And I'm hoping that in future all councillors will get behind our committees and make them work because the committee structure, whether all councillors like it or not, is a council decision.
Council has made this decision. That is the structure, and we need to work with it rather than chip away with it and try and sabotage it. So once again, I congratulate the committee on this report, and I look forward to even stronger reports in the future.
I agree with what Councillor Calvert has said. If we had the zero to litter oceans policy already in a form that was able to be delivered to Council, with all of the things that we could do and could be done quickly, then I think that that shouldn't have come to the Environment Committee. The Environment Committee is set up to add advice and to make possibly complicated situations more understandable, more palatable, provide an avenue for people that are in the community that are interested in those things. I would have thought that the zero to litter to ocean policy, if it was really ready to go, it should have come straight to Council and we should have got on with it. So, like with what Councillor Calvert said, did you mean that we should just get on with these things?
I'm disappointed that you didn't offer that advice about the electric vehicles situation. I think that it is a really good process to have that information that we've asked staff to compile to come back to that committee, because we can then have a really good discussion with members of the community who are interested in that about the locations, about how many we might have and what they see as the future of these installations. When that first came up in Council quite a long time ago, when we were discussing whether we should have a charging station at the information centre along Ham Common, there was a lot of discussion just in this chamber about, no, that's not a good place. Yes, it's good.
No, it's not, for all various reasons. So I think we really do need to have a little bit of consultation with interested parties in the community to bring that together, and that is the beauty of that Council and the function of that Council. And I reiterate what Councillor Calvert said: let's get on with this, let's embrace this and make this new system work. Thank you. Thank you. Any further discussion?
No further discussion. Is Councillor Rasmussen? No. Right of reply, Councillor Kotlash. Not necessary, thank you. I'll put the motion. All those in favour?
RESOLVED on the motion of Councillor Kotlash, seconded by Councillor Calvert.
That in relation to the Minutes of the Environment Committee Meeting held on 13 April 2021:
1. Council receive and note Item 1 - Election of Chairperson.
2. Council endorse the Committee Recommendation in respect of Item 2, namely:
'That the Environment Committee:
1. Receive and note this report.
2. Request that staff provide a report on electric vehicle charging that includes consideration of:
- The NSW Roads Act 1993
- Location and proximity to other vehicles of charging infrastructure
- Traffic related implications
- Source of electricity for charging
- Options associated with ownership of charging infrastructure.
- An appraisal of how other Councils are dealing with this matter
- Examples of other Council's Electronic Vehicle policies which are to be attached to the report.
3. Request that this report be brought back to the Environment Committee so that feedback and ideas can be sought from the community, tourism operators, the NRMA and similar peak bodies, and the Australian Electric Car Association for example.
4. Compile the outcomes of the report and consultation and recommend that Council develop an Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Policy and Guidelines based on these outcomes.'
3. In regard to Item 3:
That:
1. Council receive and note the information contained in respect to Item 3 in the report from the Environment Committee Meeting on 13 April 2021.
2. a) Council support the current activities being undertaken to monitor, protect and enhance the Hawkesbury River and its catchment.
ORDINARY MEETING
Minutes: 08 June 2021
- b) This matter be brought back to the Environment Committee for advice as the Hawkesbury Coastal Management Plan progresses.
4. Council endorse the Committee Recommendation in respect of Item 4, namely:
"That the Environment Committee:
1. Receive and note this report.
2. Request that a report be brought back to the Environment Committee, so that it can consult with the wider community on the following:
- a) What Council might have the capacity to do in the future to prevent litter going into our rivers and oceans.
- b) What future opportunities Council might have to partner with others to combat this problem."
