13 July 2021 - Ordinary

Welcome everybody to tonight's ordinary meeting. I'd like to start by acknowledging the Dharug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land of Hawkesbury and pay respect to all Elders past, present and emerging. I'll hand over to the General Manager.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I would also like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.1(a) of the Code of Meeting Practice, Council's meetings—

Sorry, if you become muted, General Manager.

I'm muted, and I unmuted myself. Apologies. I'll repeat that. I'd like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.1(a) of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this means 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 broadcast of the Council meetings. Provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary. 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, and the recordings are stored on Council's electronic management system.

The benefit of those persons who will be addressing the Council

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 in any answers given in response to questions from Council.

Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any apologies? I think— is everybody here?

One, two , three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten

Councillor Ross looks like he's missing.

Thank you. What about John Ross? Yeah, Councillor Ross, we'll assume he's an apology. I think everybody else is here. Somebody want to move that? Moved Councillor Rasmussen, seconded Councillor Kotlash. Carried. Any declarations of interest?

Yes, Mr Mayor.

Okay. Yep, we'll use our hands all night. Councillor Richards, the little blue hands. Oh yeah. Yep.

Go ahead, Councillor Richards, sorry. Oh

Sorry. Just to preface this, I have really bad internet. You're pausing every, I don't know, 20 seconds, so I'm just letting you know. I have item 134 and item 135. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Okay. Councillor Wheeler?

Item 131.

Okay.

Sorry . Okay. Somebody want to move the minutes from the last meeting? Moved Councillor Zamprogno, seconded Councillor Rasmussen. All those in favour? Carried.

We have one item subject to public address, which is item 136, but I can't actually see if those people are in the meeting.

Here we go now.

Okay, so Councillor Ross has joined us, and we've got our first speaker is Mr. Craig McKay.

On mute at the moment, but ready when you are.

Evening, Councillor. How are you this evening? Yeah, good, thank you. Okay, so basically I'm a resident in McGraths Hill, and basically we just wanted to have a chat this evening about the swamps slash wetlands along Pitt Town Road behind our properties.

Yep. So you've got, yeah, five minutes now to tell us what you want to tell us before we continue. Yep .

So basically over the last four and a half years, the maintenance of the area has basically deteriorated . We've had a fire on Melbourne Cup Day 2019, which without the rural fire brigade happening so quickly, our homes would have been in jeopardy. We've had snakes, a variety of vermin, rats, et cetera. Throughout the summer period, our backyards are almost uninhabitable. We can't live freely due to mosquitoes, et cetera. So basically it's, yeah, just the maintenance of the area behind us has deteriorated over the last four and a half years. So we're just asking Council if they can basically continue with the maintenance program, improve the maintenance program. They've acted recently and got in and cleared it to a degree, which is great, absolutely fantastic and made a vast difference.

But we just hope it could just— It continue and just be maintained a little bit more adequately if possible.

We take questions if councillors have questions.

Are we happy to take questions, Mr McKay?

Yes, I am. Yes.

Any questions, councillors? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr McKay. I understand the issue, but could you just tell us just exactly where it is? There's no detail in the notice of motion of the location. Right. Can you explain a bit better, please?

Okay, so we're in the Winifred Banks Estate. Okay. We're in Ivy Avenue, and my property is at the end of the cul-de-sac in Ivy Avenue, which is probably the newer section of Ivy Avenue, and our property backs onto the reserve or wetlands behind us along Pitt Town Road

Okay, thank you. That makes it clearer. Thank you

Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Mr Mayor, and thanks, Mr McKay, for coming along via Zoom tonight and talking to us. It can be a little bit daunting, can't it? Oh, absolutely. It doesn't take long. You'll turn into an old hand. You said that the maintenance has deteriorated over the last four and a half years. Correct. So was it better maintained previously? And if it was, could you tell me what that looked like?

So, for example, say for example, you were looking at a dam, for example, on a property. When it was being maintained adequately before, when the mowers, the mowers would go right up to the water's edge. As time has progressed, the boundary of, say, a dam has sort of increased, so the mowers and the tractors aren't going— into the area as far as what they were before. So, for example, the diameter of the—if you called it a dam—becomes bigger and bigger, and it just becomes unkept, and the vegetation just keeps growing.

And do you think, are there areas of—I'm not familiar with—I know where it is, but I've never wandered around it. Is there a lot of—we've had a lot more rain, obviously, so we've got a lot more standing water than we would have had during the drought. Do you think that there's an increase in the shallow area of the space? Is that where the mosquitoes are breeding?

I believe there is, yes.

Yeah , okay . And is it weedy?

It is weedy, yes.

Yeah, okay. Thanks very much. Thank you.

Okay, our next speaker is Paul Bernays.

Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Thanks. Yeah, good evening, everyone. Sound check, can everyone hear me? We can hear you. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Technology. So thanks for the opportunity to speak on this matter tonight, and Craig and myself and Adam, who I think hopefully is on the call as well, are residents of that estate that Craig said. I've been a resident of that estate for 15 years now, and... That said swamp has been growing for the last 15 years to a point where it had consumed the road signs along Pitt Town Road and was hard up against the fence line of the properties along Ivy Avenue. So Council have done some work recently. We've been working with Councillor Richards over the last 12 months on a number of items in and around that estate with Council, and they've made some improvements to the park at the end of that block of land.

And they have, as Craig said, they have started to mow into that swamp area over the last 12 months to a point where I think two of their machines actually broke about 12 months ago because of, you know, it's not a flat surface that they can get in there and easily mow. I think it's possibly a leftover from the Ivy Avenue development in about early 2000s. I moved into the estate three years after the home was built, but there was about 20 or 30 blocks of land that were developed in that estate in the early 2000s, so it could have been a lot of spoil because there was a lot of landfill that went into that estate. And it's just been let grow out over time, and there's not a lot of drainage in the area.

So I guess this motion is about looking at having a deeper look at the block of land, the drainage issues, and what can be done to maintain it for the lifestyle of the residents , particularly along the southern side of Ivy Avenue.

Happy to take any questions.

Any questions, Councillors? Thank you. No, no questions for you. Thanks. Got off easy. Thank you. And our final speaker is Adam Zara.

Sorry, you're on mute at the moment still.

Can you hear me now? Can hear you now. Yep, thanks. Yeah. Sorry, guys. Craig and Paul have basically covered everything I was going to say, but just to add to that, I've had eight to ten snakes over the ten years I've lived at 49 Ivy Avenue. I've had them in my garage. I've had a dog bitten. It was only that my wife was home at the time my dog got bitten that actually saved the dog. She was sitting out the back and seen the snake actually come from under the back fence and bite the dog when it attacked the snake.

Yeah. It's getting dangerous to go out there in summer, basically. My kids that are scared to go out there. My wife constantly checks. I'm obviously at work, but when they're on school holidays and then they go out the back, she's constantly checking and worried that one of the kids will actually get bitten by a snake. And they went to the garage to get in the car one day and there was two snakes in my garage. It was only for Craig's son being home helping her get rid of the snakes out of the garage that probably saved my actual daughter's getting bitten. They were probably a metre away from it. And like Craig said, me and Craig are constantly mowing the area. We put our own mowers and whipper snipper into the back of the ute and drive down there just to clear it, just peace of mind that if we were clearing, like sometimes it gets up to your knees, the grass actually gets up to your knees.

When a mower doesn't come around for four to five weeks in summer, it grows that quick. So yeah, so basically everything the guys have said, and that added to it, that's our worry at the moment with that area.

Thanks. Are you happy to take any questions? Yep, no problem.

Councillor Reynolds Yes, thanks, Mr Mayor. Thanks for that, Mr Zara. There's a playground in that area up near Ivy Avenue, is that correct? That's correct, yes. Yeah, so the problem area is further towards Windsor Road than the playground, is that correct?

Exactly, that's where the wet area is, up where you guys have cleared half of it already. It's quite dry there, where the wet area is down behind mine, Craig's and my other neighbour's house.

Right, okay. Is there also a— do children get picked up for school there? Is it a bus stop near that playground? It's a bus

Stop up near the playground, correct.

Right , okay. And it's at the playground, it's not down towards the swamp , the wet area? No, it's not.

No, it's up near the playground.

Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. Okay, thank you.

Yep, no worries. Thank you. Thanks for that, Mrs Zara. Barnel speaker, so Councillor Richards, you want to move the next motion?

Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Is there a seconder? Councillor Kotlash. Okay, Councillor Richards, discussion? Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. And I want to thank Paul, Craig and Adam for coming on today and letting the other councillors know of their situation that they've been encountering at McGraths Hill for some time now. And it has been my absolute pleasure to be working very closely, predominantly with Paul, to ensure—a great representative of your community, Paul—gathering everybody together and raising the concerns to me and making sure that your voices were heard. A lot of these issues have been ongoing and have been directed to the Director of Infrastructure to try and sort of those things out. Jeff has actually been on site with the residents as well, so I thank the Director for participating in that with the residents.

There's been improvement to the look of Ivy Avenue with some plants planted along the entrance there. I'm not sure when the park got the fencing, but it did get the fencing, and it's had a bit of a clean-up. And when I met with residents on site there a few months ago, we identified a few other issues. I think there had been some profanity spray painted onto the park, which we got cleaned up, and some branches left on the ground and things like that. So the area is looking better. Suffice to say for this, I called it vacant land in the notice of motion without going into too much detail about it being a swamp, because there is some resident conjecture on what the land is or should be called.

So I didn't want to offend anybody in that regard. But this is, to me, important that we get the report back to Council, letting us know what is with the land, if it is actually a swamp and if there needs to be some drainage issues around that, we need to have that in the report so we know what we're dealing with. We of course need to get an understanding of the costs involved in looking at options for this land to be fixed up for the residents. I do appreciate the council staff have paid extra attention to that place by mowing more and more into what could be deemed—I'm saying swamp, for want of a better word—mowing more and more into that area. And keeping that maintained, but we do need some sort of solution for that.

And if you do drive past and have a look where that is, and sorry if I wasn't more accurate on the description, but you turn left at the lights there from Windsor Road down to Pitt Town Road, and it's just past the pub there and before Ivy Avenue. And you can see that it's extremely overgrown, and there's just so many properties that have a back fence that comes right up against that overgrown area. Hence, as I said in the notice of motion, the increase from residents' reports of mosquitoes, of rats, of snakes, of the like. And, you know, we've got to make sure that we're listening to our residents when they bring those concerns to us, and they're greatly concerned and very, very worried about their families.

So it is utmost importance, I think, that we get this report back and actually have a look at the options and the cost in sorting this out. There is a bus stop near the park there, which the residents have also raised with me being a concern, and we have already requested a meeting with the state member, Robyn Preston, to look at options for a safer bus stop there for the children and possibly some sort of traffic island if they are crossing the road between the two different sides of McGraths Hill. So thank you again to the residents for coming on, letting the other councillors know of your issues living in that area, and I would look forward to support to ensure we could get this report back to council and have some sort of identifying way to move forward with sorting this out.

Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Reynolds. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I support the notice of motion, but I'd like to ask a question of staff through you, Mr Mayor. Looking at... The map of boundaries, it shows that that area is inside the RMS road corridor and is actually RMS property, not council property. So I'd like to ask, through you, Mr Mayor, to staff, who is responsible for the upkeep of that road, of that corridor rather, and if it is RMS land and council has been taking care of it, are we subsidised by the RMS when it comes to upkeep? And should any work there be funded by the New South Wales Government? Thank you. Back to the Director of Infrastructure Services.

Thank you, through you, Mr Mayor. Councillor Reynolds is correct. There's a section of public reserve immediately behind the houses in Ivy Avenue, so that's council-owned land. The remainder of the land and the area in question here is in fact part of the state road reserve, but council is responsible for areas beyond the road shoulder or four metres from the edge of seal to the table drain . is RMS, Transport for New South Wales, and beyond that, the road reserve is council's to maintain.

Anything

Further

Councillor Reynolds? No. Councillor Garrard

Sorry, Mr Mayor. Just a question through you, Mr Mayor, possibly back to the Director of Infrastructure. Just looking, my knowledge of the site and then looking again at Google Earth, there seems to be, I'm pretty sure it's some sort of an easement that runs along the very back of the very far houses at the cul-de-sac of Ivy Avenue. Can I just get some clarification as to what that is and what its function is?

Through you, Mr Mayor, I'm not sure what you're referring to. I said immediately behind the houses in Ivy Avenue, and from memory it's around about a 15 metre wide strip of public reserve, and from that edge of going from the back fences, 15 metres, and then the remainder of it is road reserve as

Part of Pitt Town Road. Sorry, Mr Organ, this is actually at the very end of Ivy Avenue, the far end, so the Windsor Road end of Ivy Avenue, where the cul-de-sac is. There's two houses that back onto what looks like some sort of a hardstand pit, which looks as if it then drains into that water, that dam catchment area. I'm just wanting to know if we know what that is and what its function is, and if that's contributing to the water holding.

And if we don't know, can we include that in the

Report? That'd be my intention, is to come back with full detail of that. We've done some work on the drainage system there, but generally the Ivy Avenue subdivision area drains back towards South Creek, and this area here drains back towards through McGraths Hill. So I'd certainly include that in the report and give all the details as indicated and requested in the motion. Thank you.

I had two speakers for. Do I want to speak against?

If not, we'll go Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Can I ask first what we know about the history of that site? Is this in fact spoil? Is it some sort of leftover

Wetland or something ? Do we know any of this yet?

That to

Director of Infrastructure Services. So I can give basic, a little bit of information there, but I'll bring it back in the detailed report if the motion's adopted . Essentially, even prior to the residential subdivision of all of Ivy Avenue, there were a number—the aerial photography shows that there are a number of, whether it was an old farm dam or a wetland that drained that part of that area there, and then there was obviously filling that was undertaken to do the Ivy Avenue. But it appears as though the area was pretty much untouched as part of the subdivision works, maybe a low area, I'll call it, remained.

Thanks, and that makes sense. I think if it's particularly if we've seen some sort of subsidence, even if it was filled in, for example, it's likely that it would drop if it was an original dam site or a wetland. I note that the note by management comments about the need for an environmental assessment, and I think that's really important in this instance. We need to get some handle on the amount of whether this is full of weeds and rubbish, or whether it's in fact full of some useful biodiversity that we should be looking at maintaining, and in fact enhancing, and having it as a bit of a drawcard or something that at least functions well, and highlights the fact that the floodplain of the Hawkesbury is made up of a series of chains of ponds or wetlands, and in this case potentially an ephemeral wetland.

Excuse me, these are really important parts of both our history but our ongoing biodiversity, and they need to be respected, but they also need to be integrated with our current uses of the sites. We could get a really good outcome out of this, or we could get an outcome where we just blaze through it and sign ourselves up to some pretty expensive ongoing maintenance that gives us nothing more than just another empty space. And I think that would be a real loss for the community as well, because this could be a site that they could really enjoy and benefit from, and perhaps has the potential to be a bush care and outdoor site that's well loved by the community, rather than it currently being obviously the bane of their existence at the moment.

So we need to get a handle on what we can do with this, and — what the best long-term outcome is for this space. So I look forward to the report coming back. I don't think it will be in the hands of this council, however, with the two-month time limit on it. So thank you to the speakers, and you might have to go around with the next council. Good luck.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you. I just also had a question. It was similar to what Councillor Wheeler

Was asking, and it was just in regard, I just wanted to know where we're up to or what our current status is with our planning around looking at the wetlands in the Hawkesbury. I know there was some work being done previously. I'm just wondering if we could have a quick update on where that's at

Refer that to the Director City Planning.

I'll need to take that on notice and provide that in the report or as a separate email. Okay,

Thank you, because it would be interesting to know if it is part of the series of chain of ponds in there somewhere in the wetlands, or whether it's an actual drain or something. So I think the report is a good idea to have that. I think that in the interim, I don't know if there's any information that can be given to residents, perhaps how to prepare their properties to minimise snakes coming onto their property and so on, because I think that snakes will always come out of areas like that where you've got a wetland area behind you. But I certainly understand why you would have concerns, and I also look forward to having a report come back on that issue. I guess if it's RMS land, we won't be the ones making the decision of what happens with it in the future, but I suppose we can pass it on to them.

So yeah, that's good, and also to the residents following up in the next council will be a good idea. Thank you.

Thank you. Right of reply, Councillor Richards.

Just briefly, Mr Mayor, again thanking the residents for coming on and sharing your stories with us, and hopefully their support tonight to get this report back for you, and then we can have some answers about the way forward and some costings to do with that. Thanks again.

So I put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Ross, Councillor Tree. Declare it carried.

Thank you. Our next item is the items on block. Now, Councillor Richards, you've got an interest in one of them. What kind of interest is it?

Sorry, Mr Mayor, which one's on block, item 134 or 135? 135.

Yes, I just had a less than significant non-pecuniary interest. I wasn't going to leave the room. It's just that the item discussion signage in Renbank, and I reside in Renbank. That was all, Mr Mayor. Okay,

Thank you. All right then. So put the items on block. Move that. Moved, Councillor Zamprogno, seconded, Councillor Rasmussen. All those in favour? Oh

Actually, sorry, raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Carver, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Ross, Councillor Tree. Declared it carried.

The next item is 131, and Councillor Wheeler has an interest.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. So I have a pecuniary interest in item 131. My husband is employed in a customer service capacity in Council's Corporate Services Division.

So you'll be leaving the meeting. I will. Need to be removed.

Does somebody wish to move something for item 131? Move the recommendation, Councillor Richards. Yep. Seconder for that? Seconded, Councillor Kotlash. Any discussion?

Yes.

Councillor Richards. Yep.

Sorry, I was just about to do my little blue hand. I thought if I moved it, I didn't have to. Sorry, Mr Mayor. Thank you. I just—it's great to see this one come back because I certainly supported the, I think it was a mayoral minute, Mr Mayor, when it first came up, as a great sign to the community that the new mayor had not only believed in open and transparent and honest communication with the community, but something along these lines would actually demonstrate and show the community that we were measuring those sorts of outcomes and customer service ideals within our Council. Reporting on the delivery of those services that actually affect them in their day-to-day transactions or dealings with Council.

Measuring that is important, whether that measurement be a decline or an improvement, because it can obviously go both ways, which would show the staff then where they may need to make those day-to-day changes with what they're doing within their roles to obviously have the end result of improving the customer service and experience for our residents. Also for councillors, it's a great way for us. To see whether those customer service standards are being met so that we can let ratepayers know what's going on, and then the ratepayers can come back to us and let us know whether they're having a pleasant experience or whether there's things that we can certainly improve. I do particularly like the part where we're looking at those metrics in terms of DAs.

As all other councillors would probably know, we get a lot of feedback to us on that process, and I think that that's going to be vital to have that information at hand so that we can see how that's tracking and how that's going, also where that expenditure on any legal fees or consultants is going. So I support this motion. I think it's a great start on letting our community know how we're going. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Thanks

I might just speak briefly to this item. Also, actually, I wanted to suggest an amendment that either Councillor Richards or someone else might wish to move. I did send that through to the staff; that could be brought up.

This report has gone back as a result of a mayoral minute, and the idea here is quite simple, that we all get complaints about these three things in particular: development applications, customer service requests, and our telephone calls to the council's call centre. And rather than just deal with these anecdotally, obviously we're only going to hear from people who are unhappy. We're going to hear more strongly the more unhappy they are. But I don't think there's any way to be able to combat these issues that doesn't give us the information we need. So the idea here is that we're going to be very transparent with the community, very upfront, and say these are the core things that affect you daily.

They actually affect your real life more so than anything else we're doing. We understand they're important, and we're going to publish this information so you can see how we're going. So that demonstrates, I think, faith to the community that we're legitimate about our concerns, that we realise what impacts them and are being upfront with them. It also gives councillors the information more regularly to know whether these complaints we're getting are reflective of the overall performance of the organisation, or whether they're just the complaints we're getting because these people are unhappy. And I think it's important for us to have that information. So are we able to bring up that amendment, that suggested amendment?

Essentially, the amendment, I'll just talk through it, and then if someone sees it and wants to take it up, they can. I think the only thing I would change here, I think looking at this, is around the development applications in particular. We have a lot of old development applications in our system currently. There is a backlog. If we were to fix the backlog next quarter, which obviously we can't do in one go, but if we were, it would make the statistics look terrible, because all those applications that were lodged years ago are going to be determined, and it's going to bring our averages way down. Even though we were making progress, it would have the reverse effect on the statistics, because all those old matters would be being closed off.

So what I'm suggesting is that we still need to look at the overall average processing times and statistics, but we also need to look at, I think, a separate statistic that shows how we're going with the applications that are current. So as you can see there, that point five, we look at, in isolation, those that have been lodged recently, so we can see that if we are dealing with the new ones more quickly, that we're actually getting a better indication of performance than if we just take the statistics overall, which might include some very old matters that are finally being closed off. So , Councillor Richards, I'm not sure if you or anybody else is interested in moving that, but I thought it would be worth putting up there for discussion.

That's fine by me, Mr. Mayor.

Fine with the seconder? Yes, Councillor Kalash. Okay.

Thank you for that. Any other discussion? We've got Councillor Reynolds.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First off, I'd like to start with a couple of questions through you, Mr. Mayor. When is a DA... Officially lodged, I know that the metrics are going to include, you know, time taken from when a DA is lodged until when it's finalised, approved or rejected. So is it a DA lodged when it's dropped off and handed in at the counter, or when all the requirements for a complete application are fulfilled? We know in the past that people would just come in and drop off plans and filled in a form, and then staff would wait for the person to come back and correct things that were wrong with their application. So I'm just wondering which date or which time are we going to use for the lodgement of a DA? Sure, I'll refer that to the general manager.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm not particularly familiar with the practices of Council in recent years, but formally an application is lodged once all the information has been submitted, the fees have been paid, and the window for which Council has the ability to reject an application, i.e. send it back, that has either expired or Council has determined that it doesn't require any particular information. So typically speaking, it's once the application has been accepted over our front counter, or these days through the online planning New South Wales planning portal, and that those fees have been paid.

So if, just further to that, if it's been accepted over the counter and the fees have been paid, and then it's found that more information is required. It's still part of the assessment process , even though all the information hasn't been submitted . Is that correct?

That's correct. If Council is of the belief that the application is not perfectly fit for purpose, it has the ability under planning law to what we call as formally reject an application. An application that is rejected formally is an application that has never been made. So that's the avenue if an application isn't fit for purpose.

Okay, so if an application isn't fit for purpose, then it's regarded as not having been lodged. Is that right?

If we have formally rejected it under the provisions of the EP&A Act, yes.

Okay, so they wouldn't appear. Okay. If I just speak to it now, if I may, Mr Mayor. I think this is a great idea. I think none of us can argue with making Council transparent and providing all the information to the community. We're no longer the closed shop that we were in previous councils. The DA thing is, like Councillor Richards said, is always a sticky point. And I know that some issues, as the Director of Planning said to us, I don't know, it must be a few years ago now, that applications were being made with plans that were substandard, incorrect, not all the information, and the standard

Of operation then was to just accept it and then Ask for further information and of course that added to the time taken to process the application. So I think that that's, it's important that that isn't included. And the other issue with, I know with a lot of DAs, and it would be good if this could be mentioned in the report somehow, is how many of the DAs are retrospective. I know that, you know, there used to be a philosophy of just build it and we'll fix it up with a retrospective DA, and I know that that's no longer the case. And I know also that some issues people are having with DA approvals are to do with retrospective DAs where they've gone ahead and built something without approval and then have thought to have it approved, and it's taking time and they're getting frustrated because they can't move in or they can't open for business, while staff try and, you know, undo what's already been done.

So it would be good to know how many were retrospective, because that then gives us a proper perspective on outliers such as lengthy approval processes due to, for example,

You know, the application being retrospective or being like an outlier. And I think we need to take that into consideration. Otherwise these oddball applications are just going to skew the results. So I'd like that to be considered too.

Thank you. Just a question for the general manager off the back of that. Is it possible that the data council currently has to separate applications that are, yeah , I guess retrospective or whatever the term would be?

Through you , Mr Mayor, it's certainly not an exercise I would like to undertake in having to go back to our old data and try to collect, because it's not data that we keep. That's not to say that we can't do a point-in-time exercise at the moment where we would do an audit of our, say, 400 current development applications and understand how many of those may or may not include seeking consent for retrospective building works. So it's not something we can collect data on, but it is something that I'd be happy to have a look at and ascertain what we've got on hand at the moment. So could that be taken on notice to work out if there's a way to do that? Happy to. Thanks. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

With regard to this issue , I think I support this happening too. And I think even though we get all this information in our annual report, if we're getting it quarterly, then that will be good for the public to see, because I don't know how many people read our annual report, but all that information is in there. And today I actually looked at the annual reports of a number of other councils, and I saw some really good reporting in there as well, which was quite interesting. But what was the overriding thing was clearly this is an issue in all councils around development applications and customer service requests, and all the various councils I was reading about their customer satisfaction surveys and things like that.

It's

Really

Interesting to

Look at it across the whole sector because I think it's probably an inherent issue for councils and probably needs to be maybe addressed more in the reporting framework overall because a lot of councils seem to be grappling with it. When I looked at the Department of Planning, this practice guides, the examples that they used were all the very big, very well-resourced councils with very high growth areas. So looking at what they were doing around this area was a bit difficult to compare us to because we're such a smaller council and we don't have that level of resourcing. But the one thing I did notice was that, of course, they were finding improvement when they had early on-site identification of issues and early resolution of issues because of well-prepared and complete development applications being submitted.

And I think this is a great time to tie this in with doing it because, of course, now we have the new planning portal, and that is, of course, requiring people to put in applications that are complete and dealing with it at that point when they're going in, so that there's not a lot of the back and forth, which may have happened in the past when people were still submitting hand-drawn plans and things like that that made it problematic for them. So I look forward to this being a new part of what's published on Council's website so that people can see the various statistics and so on. I just had a couple of questions. One of those was around, where this is published, will this include a link to the online data around planning proposal decisions?

Because the Department of Planning has a section where all the planning panel decisions and the numbers and the statistics of how many days it takes, which might shock some people because often it's 900 or something. Will that have a link to that so that people can see the whole picture as well for the issues that go on to the regional planning panels?

Refer that to the Manager of Corporate Communications.

Through you, Mr Mayor, I'll have to take that question on notice. We haven't identified the exact location of where these metrics will sit on Council's website at the moment, so I can come back to you on that.

Thank you. That'd be good. Just a link so that people can look onward to the other, because there are a number of online statistics around planning, around development applications that are determined by other areas, which leads to my second question: whether there would be a distinction between applications determined by a planning panel or those which are determined by staff. Further

To the General Manager.

Councillors, it's not our intention at this stage to capture that data, principally because it's such a small cohort of applications that we would be talking about here at Hawkesbury. That's not to say that we can't, and indeed Council will be required to capture that data annually as part of its performance monitoring data for the Department of Planning, but it's something that we would be intending to report on a quarterly basis with this type of approach. Okay,

Thank you. And the other question I just had was just around the wording of when additional information would be required. I'm assuming that that means that you would include information where there's a particular issue connected to an individual application, such as awaiting a State agency or some sort of stop work order or some sort of outstanding information from the applicant. Is that what that means, where required? Is that what sort of information would be put there? Further

To the General Manager.

Sorry, Deputy Mayor, I'm unclear as to the question. Are you referring to what we would be reporting on where it says outstanding? Yes. On the bottom,

Yeah, I think we're talking about the bottom of page 15. There's a second paragraph, and there's a sentence there which, yeah, I hadn't really, to be honest, hadn't really considered what that would mean either. Yes. Where required, additional explanation about the status of the application. Oh

That would simply be provide — Council staff would be providing commentary on, I guess, if there were any particular outliers or trends associated with particular data in any given quarter. That was the simple intent, was for us to be able to provide that commentary as part of the statistical reporting. Okay,

Thank you very much for that. Thank you.

Any further discussion?

If not, we'll go right to reply, Councillor Richards.

No thanks, Mr Mayor.

Okay. Also, just for the host, we're getting a couple of messages here, if you haven't seen that the GM's audios are hard to hear. I'm not having an issue here, but some people are, so we'll just address that.

It sounds quite robotic and there's parts of her dialogue are breaking up.

Okay, yep. If we could have this taken down from the screen so we can put the motion. Thank you. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Over to Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Tree , Councillor Richards, Councillor Garrow. Against? Councillor Ross. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, you voting in favour? Sorry, can you just take yourself off mute and just tell me. Sorry.

Councillor Conolly, I just had a call from Mr McElroy. In

Favour?

Yes, in favour. Thank you.

Declared carried.

Next item is item 132 , Upper Colo Reserve. Councillor Richards, move the recommendation. Seconder for that? Seconded, Councillor Zamprogno. Any discussion?

Councillor Richards? Yep.

I'm trying to get that blue hand up . Thank you, Mr Mayor. Our whole community has been hit hard, obviously, over the last few years, and I know that we've all said the same sorts of things over and over again with— Oh,

Sorry, I just realised we need to let Councillor Wheeler back in. Oh. Let's just pause until we can let her back in, because I didn't

Yes, okay. Sorry, Councillor Wheeler, we forgot you for a second, but we just had the motion moved and no discussion yet. So, Councillor Richards. Thanks

Again. Just saying that our community has been hit, obviously, with the, you know, that quartet of issues we've had over the last couple of years with drought, fire, flooding, COVID. But unfortunately, it seems that Colo and Upper Colo really have borne the brunt of a lot of those issues, including with the last floods where they lost their significant bridge. And, you know, all of us councillors know, and certainly our email correspondence the staff give out diligently every week to the residents, trying to keep them informed of what's going on. We're doing our best, and I thank the staff again for everything they're doing in that regard. Now , there were five councillors who went out and visited on site there at the bridge with some residents a few weeks ago, and we heard their concerns.

And amongst a whole range of issues they raised was the camping ground there at Upper Colo Reserve and what was going to happen with that camping ground. Now , I fully take their concerns on board, and I'm glad that this item has come up tonight because a lot of those residents were very worried about the fact that with one access road taken out of the equation to access that camping ground, being the bridge, there's only one way to access it, and that's through—I've just got to get my roads right—I think it's Colo Heights Road, the way to access that through, which is where we came and met with them the other day when we did that. Now, driving on that road myself when we did that, I can see that that certainly cannot take any extra traffic if we are having people come and visit that road reserve.

Now, I know that the report says there's significant financial cost involved in not having those camping bookings go ahead or the additional bookings go ahead. I think it says there's $9,000 so far in bookings already taken, and an estimated up to $75,000 in lost fees if we don't let that happen. But I think that as councillors, our first and foremost priority is to our ratepayers and therefore our local— Our local residents who live in that area, and therefore, if their concern is that camping ground being open creates more traffic on their one little road in and out of their homes, it brings more people into the area, it creates more rubbish, it puts more stress on our residents, then I'm certainly all for not allowing that camping ground to reopen on the 1st of September .

I don't know what the staff or the other councillors think about those decline in revenue that we will lose because of that, but I think there's a time and a place where, as councillors, as their local elected representatives, we have to draw a line in the sand and say that we're going to put their concerns first, their lifestyle first, their safety first, and, you know, they're already significantly suffering every single day without that bridge. I couldn't imagine us wanting to make that worse with tourists then visiting the area. So I'm supportive of this motion. Sorry, just, Councillor Richards, sorry to interrupt.

Just in regards to the motion, the recommendation is actually just to consider it, but I'm taking—I understood you were moving that— Oh

Sorry, yes. Can

I

Move an amendment then, I guess, to— Yeah . So

Have it remain—so the motion I understood was that Council close the Upper Colo Reserve camping ground until access is restored on Upper Colo Road, so just delete consider.

Yeah, you're right, Mr Mayor, it does say consider. Yeah I'd like to move that as an amendment then. I'm sorry, yes. The paragraph within the introduction to the item there does say that they'd like to keep it closed, yes, till the bridge does get fixed. And sorry, my ramblings then were actually supporting that sentiment. Yeah, and Councillor

Zamprogno, you seconded that. Are you happy with

That

Motion ? Well , I was going to speak to it and express my misgivings. I mean, I was happy for us to consider it. So

You'd like to second this? Okay then. I

Will continue to second it for the purposes

Of discussion. I'll let Councillor Richards finish if she wasn't finished, and then we can have a go.

No, I pretty much summed it up, Mr Mayor, and thank you for clarifying that for me. But the point I want to make is that when we've stood there and heard the residents express their concerns to our faces, I don't think we could go ahead and continue to put their lives at any further , you know, discomfort. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Yeah, no, look, I agree with that, and I'm happy to support this motion. Went out with some other councillors up to the reserve, and we spoke to a whole group of people who come out on a Saturday morning to talk to us, and one of the requests that—there was a number of requests—and one of them was that, given how hard it is for two cars to pass each other on that road, that they didn't want to have to deal with that traffic when they're already having so much extra travel. And I think, given all the inconveniences they're dealing with, this is probably one where we should just grant that request. So I'm happy to support that motion . Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor . I

Understand the reason for the closure. I'm not satisfied with the recommendation put forward . I believe it is less than satisfactory. There needs to be some indication in the motion, I would believe, regarding notification of those people who have made bookings. And where the advertising or exposure to the public of the closure of the reserve is to be made available to the public . And next, I would suggest that there has not been any consideration of what road signage would be appropriate, both on both sides of the river and also at the intersection of Colo Heights Road and the access laneway, if you would like to call it that. And I believe that needs to be given consideration, including

Near the Putty Road junction with Upper Colo Road, so that people just don't go and traverse, what, six or eight kilometres or something or other before suddenly turning upon a sign that says, Sorry, it's all closed, if they're just into the area. So I'm not prepared to support the motion as it stands, but

If there were to be some indication of some further thought to this as to what is actually going to be done to make this known, I would be most appreciative. Thank you.

I'm happy to add that,

Mr— I think they're probably all operational considerations, so I thought I might refer that to the Director of Infrastructure Services for some comment on what this closure would mean. Through

You, Mr Mayor, it could be incorporated into the resolution if that was Council's desire. As you've indicated, those things would be operational. We'd certainly conduct — notify all of the bookings that we've had so far, the website and social media, and certainly signage at all of the key points to overcome the issues that Councillor Ross has raised quite rightly. We don't want people driving down there to find the reserve's closed , but we'd certainly be doing those things as a matter of course. Thank you . Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you. I support the motion as it is now to keep it closed. I think we just need to make it very clear to the community out there that we have a commitment to reopening it when it's possible, and that closing it now and closing it until there's better access doesn't mean that we're closing it altogether, because I think that that's what they would like to hear us say, that that's our stance on the matter . I'm wondering if there's any way we can recover any of the costs of lost revenue or the costs of maintaining it while we can't obtain any revenue through any type of disaster recovering funding. Would that be possible to investigate that as well

That to Director of Infrastructure

Services . We'd certainly explore that. I'm not particularly hopeful that there's any avenue for that. It's generally related to the infrastructure damage, but we'll certainly explore that if there is any opportunities for lost income.

That would be good, just on the off chance that there's something there that we could recover. The other thing was, regarding the people being notified who have the bookings, is it possible to perhaps suggest some alternatives within the Hawkesbury area when that goes out, or is that going too far? Just that if people were planning to come to look at our beautiful area, if they still want to come camping, there are other, you know, publicly available areas. So maybe that could just be included, some sort of link to other places people could come out here and still enjoy the area, if that was at all possible . I think we did hear the community loud and clear on this, and I think that this is our only choice, despite the loss of revenue, that we have to go with this.

And I hope that we continue to keep them updated on the progress once the cleaning up and other things are done, because it looks like some time until they'll get any form of bridge replacement or whatever. I think it's really important that we keep discussing these sort of issues in their community, that, you know, things such as this might become forgotten about. We need to keep it on the agenda with discussions with the community so they know what's going on.

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash

Thank you, Mr Mayor . Whilst I understand that the residents of this area have been through a lot, I'm not that sure that I think closing this camping ground entirely is appropriate yet. I mean, it may very well be; it's just not occurring to me at the moment. So I just want to ask whether it was possible to have a restricted area, so we could still let some people use the area for camping. Is it just about the access via the road, or is it more about the facilities and the clean-up? Because it says in the business paper that it was due to reopen on the 1st of September. So if I could just get a comment on, is it just about the road and the bridge?

Director of Infrastructure Services. Yeah , I think I understand the question. It's currently closed during the normal winter season. We get very few bookings, although we do, as indicated in the report, we do do special bookings there. In fact, I think there was a wedding back at the end of June for 50 people in there. So again, we have had small special group bookings, which is our normal practice, but it's not open generally for camping during the winter season. So the September reopening is the normal period when we get those bookings . It's not economic to have the site cleaned for one or two campers during winter So that's basically what we'd be doing. But as the motion stands at the moment, it would be to keep the entire reserve closed .

It would be somewhat problematic. There may be day trippers that come in there and try and access it . But yeah, there would be no camping permitted, and we'd basically be putting signage up to keep the reserve closed as well as the signage referred to in the discussion from Councillor Ross.

Okay, so the facilities that are there for camping are okay, and we've managed to — they are ready to go. It's just the road and the access.

That's correct. The reserve wasn't really damaged at all by flooding.

Right. I'm not terribly concerned about the loss of revenue, but I was just also wondering, how many campers, how many people have made bookings that, like $9,000 in fees seems quite a lot. I mean, have you got any idea of how many people have made bookings and are expecting to use this facility? Post the 1st of September?

Through you, Mr Mayor, we've got, as I said in the report, we've got 50 bookings and about 350 people within those bookings . So representing 350-odd thousand. So we probably take around about three and a half thousand bookings a year, individuals camping there . Our revenue over the, up until the bushfire season, which of whichever year that was now , losing time , generally we've been creeping up from, with around about $100,000 a year in revenue up to 125, and the last full season wasn't affected . So it's been creeping up. The figure in there where we said $75,000 is the net cost, but we're taking probably around about three and a half thousand individual — keeping individuals in there per year

Sorry to labour this. So this is a busy time of year for this area. So normally those roads that are one-lane, you know, smallish roads cope with this in the holiday season

Normally?

Yep. Generally the principal access is across the now missing bridge. It's a longer route going up Putty Road and then coming back down Colo Heights Road to the site. So most people will access it from the bridge.

Okay. I bet it's still possible. So it's just the amenity to the locals who live there, just to ease the pressure on the traffic. Okay . Thank you.

If it helps, Councillor, I don't think it's so much easing traffic as such as it is the fact you just wouldn't want to very—you wouldn't ever want to have to have a car coming the other way when you're driving down that road, let alone going back over and having it. So it's not so much delay, just the fact that it's so hard to pass .

I was just trying to ascertain whether that happens every year, you know, people sort of, you know, getting their four-wheel drives and their little shimmies off the road, and that's—I just didn't understand, you know. I was just trying to weigh up that. Thank you. Thanks

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just to clarify for people who aren't familiar with that road, it is quite narrow in places, but both roads are narrow in places. Passing in many stretches of that area is very difficult, if not dangerous, and in some spots actually impossible. The locals know this, and they drive well to the conditions. It's the out-of-area drivers that come to use this space that are probably at higher risk in areas where the road is narrow, particularly if we're expecting large volumes of people, which I understand we get particularly around the Christmas period. The locals, for those of us who went out to Upper Colo on that Saturday morning, the locals made it really clear that they're finding this travel onerous enough themselves just coming to and from home, and they really needed this additional traffic off the road.

So if we remove the end point that people are travelling to and the impetus for them to go there, then we reduce some of that traffic. It won't stop everybody going up for a paddle in the Colo. People will still use areas of the river. There will still be increased traffic on that road in warm weather, but it will at least stop the people coming with fully laden vehicles, trailers and the like, coming up to the campground . I think we need to make clear that this is a temporary closure. There is a little bit of concern in the community that if we close this site, that leaving it closed will become appealing to Council because we won't have to maintain it. I think knowing that we make 75 grand a year clear out of it probably gives the community some confidence that we will be keen to reopen this site.

I mean, frankly, it's money for jam in terms of what we do for maintenance there. Can I just ask, we used to have a caretaker for that site, and there was some discussion, I remember, probably two or three years ago around having a live-in caretaker or an on-site caretaker. Have we ever pursued that

Infrastructure Services. Through you, Mr Mayor, so what it indicated, the net budget. So we have actually provided in the current year's budget for a part-time caretaker there for the peak periods . One of the issues at that site, though, is the lack of suitable accommodation for somebody to live on site. So there is actually some budget, some funding allocated towards looking at a cabin arrangement for that site . That's been a little bit problematic because trying to construct a suitable building there with the bushfire risk is quite difficult. So we've been going through all of the planning hoops to try and achieve that. So we try and bring those two things together. This probably gives us another year if this resolution motion is adopted to try and plan that out a little bit further about how we would manage that site, as well as trying to recover the, if it's Council's intention to reopen, to build that business back up again.

I'll call it business, but its reputation and how we actually manage it

Thanks. I'm really keen for us to, I think it would be maybe we need to add something further to the motion that we see this as a temporary closure only. I would hate for this to, we've got, I think in the motion it says, until access is restored from Upper Colo Road. Perhaps Councillor Richards would be willing to add a point that Council fully intends to reopen, that this closure is temporary. I would hate to see this just go into the too-hard basket down the track because what it provides is really vital access, low-cost access to the river, and I think that's really important. I would hate to see us get to the point where access to the river and the use of the river for people with young children swimming and canoes and that sort of thing is something that becomes the— That goes purely into the private domain.

I agree that having 12 months to get maintenance sorted on that site, we know we've got problems with rubbish collection there and in the car park. We need to have better planning around how we deal with this site, I think, for the long term, so that everyone can continue to enjoy it. And I agree too with Councillor Ross that there needs to be, the signage needs to be really clear that the purpose of closing this reserve is to get vehicles off that road. It's not the use of the reserve that's problematic; it's the use of the road. So we need to stop people before they get onto that section of road, and that is going to require some signage much further down before they get anywhere near it.

Not everyone books; a lot of people just go, and it's signage that will fix that. So if we could include something about this being temporary, I'd be really pleased. Councillor Richards,

Do you happy to include that statement? Yeah

Absolutely.

Point 1, Council closes Upper Colo Reserve; 2 , Council intends this to be temporary closure , temporary closure only . And yeah , that'll do. Everyone's happy with that

Councillor Zamprogno, do you have a change and

Then do you want a discussion? I am, but I'll speak to it . Look, I am still broadly in support. I had misgivings. They're largely with the way that this has been framed to us and the information that came to us in the staff report. I have been at a tentative listener, and I'll acknowledge that some of those questions have been answered along the way. But I wish that there'd been— In the report, and it relates to

Evidence that there's a safety risk. I understand that increased vehicular traffic on Upper Colo Road is inconvenient for those residents, but despite the anecdotal evidence to hand from some residents that they're opposed, I have no basis for concluding that a majority of residents feel this way. I've got no basis for assessing whether the reserve should be closed because there's a legitimate safety risk either for evacuation or for the response time for emergency service vehicles to the reserve. I have concerns about the fact that this is now being framed as an all or nothing proposition, that we either shut the reserve completely, whereas if the aim is to mitigate excessive traffic that is inconveniencing those local residents, we could impose a cap.

We could have that campsite open to a number of bookers on an either first-come, best-dressed basis or a lottery basis, considering that staff have also made it clear that the full maintenance regime will have to be maintained in terms of rubbish and mowing and so forth. So it's still a functional reserve. I think we haven't addressed the question that if any other dirt road where excessive traffic was inconveniencing the residents , if it was put to us that that road should be closed for largely that reason, but that it would come at a cost. To cancel of $75,000, we would want to look more closely at whether it was worth that amount. Now, in this case, it's an opportunity cost to Council, but it is still a substantial amount of money, and it still has a substantial impact on tourism.

So, you know, I would have loved to have seen those issues addressed in a staff report . They haven't been. Some of those answers have come out in this discussion. I'm still broadly sympathetic, but I wish that we'd had more information that would have allowed us to approach this in a more intelligent way. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Ross, you've still got your hand up. Is that from before

I'd like to ask a question of the staff, if I may, Mr Mayor All right . Yep. It's tangential.

Presupposing that this reserve is closed , what is the situation regarding the Commodore Road crossing of Wooni Creek and the

Land that is there near the convenience block, which I do on occasion see used for camping? Is that area open to camping in a formal sense, or is it purely informal? And would Council gain any revenue from it in view of a closure of the upper Colo Reserve?

Through you, Mr Mayor, that area there is actually National Park, and it's the Wooni Creek Campground, I think is its title. So bookings are done through National Park. The toilet block, however, one of those quirks that we have is Council's to maintain. So we maintain that, and National Parks do the park bookings.

Thank you . Councillor Garrow

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just through you, possibly to the Director of Infrastructure, just curious if we've got any feedback from any of our emergency services as to their concern to keeping this campground open with the limited access.

Through you, Mr Mayor. No, I've had no feedback from the emergency services. They've been advised of the closure of the bridge. So again, it's probably an issue for them, but we haven't taken this directly up with, in terms of the closure of the site, whether that would be of benefit to them. Okay,

Thank you. Thanks. Right of reply, Councillor Richards. No

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Okay, and that being the case, just wait for the motion. Perfect. We'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Rasmussen. Against: Councillors Ross and Kotlash. I think I read everyone's name out. Declare it carried

Councillor Reynolds

Sorry, did you vote in favour? Councillor Reynolds in favour. Declare it carried.

Next item is 133. We have the supplementary business paper. Move the recommendation, Councillor Zamprogno, in the supplementary business paper. Yep. Is there a seconder for that?

No seconder for the recommendation.

Okay. Someone want to move something else? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Yes,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move an amendment that I sent through. As I didn't see the supplementary business paper till 6.26, I'm not sure of all the changes in there, and because it's not on the council website and I'm using my iPad, I can't actually see it. But what I wanted to move was with the changes to section 11 regarding the vehicle, I put an amendment to clause 11.1 that I had sent to Mr McElroy, and I was happy for the other changes that I thought had deliberately been made in section 11 to stay. What I'm unsure about is the other provisions of the other clauses. I haven't had a chance to look at those, but mine related to clause 11, and I'm happy for others to suggest whether any of the other changes that were either errors or not changed clauses 7 or whatever, I'm happy for those to either be looked at, or I'm also happy to defer this to the next meeting if that would actually be easier given the confusion.

Either way.

Yeah, can I just ask before we get started, if there is time to defer this to the next meeting and still have it come back to the current council, I think that would be preferable if we can make it work, general manager or director support services.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. There wouldn't be enough time for this to come back and get to the last meeting before the election. It's a tight time frame at the moment, so it needs to be considered at the meeting tonight to enable it to go out on public exhibition for 28 days and then reported back to council before the end of August.

Just a follow-up on that question, is there a problem if it was out on exhibition and came back to one of the first meetings of the new council? Might be more appropriate anyway.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. That is possible.

Okay. Sorry, Deputy Mayor, did you want to—

I'll move to defer it, Mr Mayor.

Seconder, Councillor Wheeler. Any discussion?

Mr Mayor, could I instead propose a procedural motion that we adjourn for 10 minutes so that we can actually read the supplementary business paper that didn't arrive till 6.18.

We can do that. I mean, I'd still be inclined to go with the motion to defer it and defer it properly.

Just defer.

So we've got a procedural motion. Did you have a seconder for that?

No, I'll declare that lost, and we'll go with the motion. There's lots of hands up. The motion is to defer it to next meeting. Does anybody need to discuss that?

Mr Mayor, I would just say in moving that, that it is a very important policy and I agree with you that it should be considered probably by an incoming policy. I don't think even if it came back to the last meeting we'd be really doing things in the right spirit of things to pass something with significant changes if we're an outgoing council. So I'm happy to defer that.

That was moved. Councillor Lyons, seconded Councillor Kotlash. Councillor Zamprogno.

Yeah, look, I'll speak against the motion that's on the floor because earlier in June, when I put up the notice of motion to amend this policy, everyone was prepared to support that unanimously on the explicit assumption that if there was time to turn this around and bring it back to this council before the end of this term, that that was the point. That was the desirable outcome . And there was much commentary around the table relating to the fact that we, having been incumbent for some years, were in a good place to be able to bequeath the new council a better policy . And I was then going to go on and speak to the merits of this policy, which is based on a new template from, I presume it's from the OLG, and that melded our local and specific requirements, and I was going to address that.

But I mean, if it's merely to defer, I'm very keen to get this on exhibition tonight. I think if deferring means that we will not have the opportunity to bed this down, then we'll be going into a new term with a policy that mandates all of the expenditure that everyone was prepared to agree with me only a few weeks ago was potentially unnecessary, would cost council additional money, would commit staff to get the wheels turning to enter into purchases and lease agreements for devices that the new council may not need, whereas this policy, if we were able to bring it back. And have it in effect before the election would provide a much more flexible posture, and it was going to result in those new councillors being asked which resources would best suit them, and if that came in under the budget, there we go, council saved some money.

So I'm very much against deferring if deferring means that we won't get this done before the election. Can

I ask a question to the general manager on that point? If this had been put on exhibition but not come back and needed to come back to the first council meeting post the election, would council staff go and buy all the equipment or would they wait for the consideration of that policy?

We would wait for the adoption of the policy, Councillor.

Councillor Ross.

Thank you. I must support on this occasion the previous councillor and his representations, and I would further suggest also that the matter of training for incoming councillors within the next term of council, and as I understand it, a $2,000 annual allowance may not be adequate and I think should be reviewed. I would suggest between $3,000 and $3, 500 may well be required. And I also wish to incorporate in that, or have considered , in-house training to be provided for all incoming councillors. To enable them to carry out their duties in a more professional manner and be more

Able to understand the actual functions and legislative requirements that face councillors, which is certainly not covered when you just get a manual , shall I say, of documents, which seem to have very little relevance at the time of receipt.

I believe that there would be great benefit from the community's point of view if incoming councillors, and there will no doubt be a group of new, newly appointed people out of the community, which is great,

But they will not, I would think, have sufficient grounding or understanding of all of the ins and outs of local government and what that entails, and the legislative situations and so on, over a whole range of matters. And I think there needs to be serious consideration to trying to, frankly , uplift the standard of councillor knowledge to be able to handle what is becoming a more complex and intricate requirement of councillors, and more demanding, might I add. Thank you

Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett? Not necessary. Right, we'll put the motion. If we just wait for that to come down. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Favour of Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Rasmussen. Against? Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Ross, Councillor Calvert. Declare it carried. Did I, sorry, did I read everyone out? Yep. Good. Okay.

Move

On to item.

The clarent interest, Mr Mayor

Did you want to declare that, Councillor Richards? Yes,

Thank you. I'll declare a significant non-pecuniary interest. Since this committee meeting took place, funding for the third crossing has been announced and I was at that announcement, so I'll be leaving the meeting for this item. Thanks.

Okay. We'll just wait until you're out.

Okay. Somebody wish to move something? Item 1.3.4.

I move a motion.

Accept the minutes of the committee.

Moved Councillor Kotlash, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. Councillor Calvert, discussion?

Actually, may I put my hand up to move it? Okay, sorry I didn't see that.

Yep.

But I just want to say that I think that the, as an initial start for that committee, it went really well and we've come up with a lot of good recommendations from that committee meeting and I'm very happy that others have moved it and I'd be very happy to support it. Thank you.

Okay. No other discussion. Councillor Reynolds.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. There was just one

Point I'd like to raise, and that is in, I think it's— The recommendation to Council concerning the minutes is item 2, number 1, and that is Council urgently advocate

For the Richmond Bridge duplication. And I can't, my iPad has died. I'm trying to find the business paper again. Urgently advocate for, where is it? Richmond Bridge duplication include a bridge and approach roads that provide better access during a major flood event.

What does, how do you define better?

I'm not sure how you define, I mean, you would get a definition of better. I would have thought that was consistent with our position that we adopted last Council meeting.

Well, the position, our Council's policy on the third crossing at North Richmond, which we adopted last year, is for a bypass of North Richmond and for it to provide a one in 100 flood immunity. So that's Council's policy. And so also I'm pointing out, Mr Mayor, is that what we're doing here is we're urgently advocating for something that isn't our policy.

You know, it says better access during a flood, a major flood event. Well, for example, the new bridge is going to be higher and the approach roads to that bridge will be higher. So straight away, without even doing anything, there's better access. But better access to what? To Richmond? To Castle Ray Road? It doesn't, it doesn't really mean anything. And so I think we should personally think it should be more robust and it should stick to the policy and that Council urgently advocate for. The Richmond Bridge duplication to include a bypass of North Richmond and a bridge and approach roads which provide a one in 100 flood immunity, which is our policy. And I think that's what we should advocate for because that's obviously what the community would prefer.

Obviously, you know, I doubt we're going to get it, although for $500 million you'd think you'd get something close to it. But I'd just like to point out that we're going against our policy if we accept the recommendation as it is. Thank you.

Just to clarify procedurally, what we're doing here is endorsing the minutes of the committee. No, actually— and any actions that fall out of it. Yeah, the council actually resolved last— sorry, I was still talking. The council resolved last week its position, so that policy you're quoting is incorrect. Council resolved its position last week on the current project, and the position is it requires a solution that offers the best possible flood immunity and traffic flow. So this committee obviously met before the release of that report, and council has since considered the preferred options report and decided to take that approach forward.

So just to clarify, you don't think that the best possible outcome, or to use your words then, the best possible outcome, is for a one in 100 flood immunity?

That's not my words. It's council's resolution from last— many of council was, council requires a solution that offers the best possible flood immunity and traffic flow. Exactly. And this is the report— this is the minutes of a committee that met before the preferred options report was released. So we're not saying this is our new council policy. We're saying this is what the— all we're saying is this is what the community told us and we're noting it

Okay, and if I read this right, it says council receive note the Disaster and Emergency Committee minutes and endorse the actions arising from the recommendations. The actions recommendation is— the action recommended is that we should urgently advocate for the Richmond Bridge duplication to include a bridge and approach roads that provide better access during a major flood event. Now, better access isn't the best possible outcome, which is our policy, you said from the last meeting. We want the best possible outcome. The best possible outcome is a one in 100 flood immunity, and so also I'm pointing out that this is not consistent with our policy, our previous policy— Excuse me, I'm talking—and it's not consistent with the resolution from the last meeting.

So that's not correct, that one in 100 is the best possible access. One in 500 would be far better. So there is no best— No, one in 100 is the building level, Mr Mayor. It's not the best possible, though. That's what you just said. It's clearly not. There is no best

Well, make it one in 500. The point

Is— I think the point is we've already got a resolved position that was considered after this committee met, and the result—we're not suggesting, I just wanted to clarify for the committee, this is not changing our resolved position which we had.

You are, sir. You are changing it, sir. This is not the best possible outcome. Okay

Thank you. No worries. Yes, just, I mean, we can have that debate if anyone thinks that— Point of order,

Mr Mayor. Point of order. Can I respond to your statement you're making now? Sorry? Do I get right of response?

You haven't let me say

Anything

Yet.

No

That's what I'm saying. I'm just asking. If I said something that you thought was misrepresenting, yes, but I haven't said anything yet.

No, I'm not claiming misrepresenting

I'm contributing to the debate. I'm asking if I

Can

Debate the

Point with you

No, I'm contributing.

You're now speaking to the

Public. You're being disorderly. I'm contributing to the debate

No, sir, you're

Being disorderly. No

No, you're addressing people outside the meeting

This is a public meeting of Council, and I am contributing to the debate, and as a spokesperson of Council I wanted to make quite clear what is happening here procedurally, as is my role. You are now being quite disorderly. I am speaking. I let you speak. You paid your contribution to the debate. Please stop talking now, Councillor Reynolds. Thank you.

The point I was making was that if anybody does feel that our current resolved position is incompatible with a recommendation from a committee that we should lobby for a protracted provide better access during a major flood event, that they could clarify that via an amendment. I note that you weren't at this committee meeting, and I'm not sure why, but this is a committee of the full council, so it's quite strange we've been debating the recommendations that this committee of the full council is giving back to council. It's a committee that had the full council representatives from the New South Wales Police Force, the SES, Resilience New South Wales, as well as our staff on it, which gave this recommendation back.

Point of order. Point of order. The point of order I would like to make, because now you're addressing the community, is the reason that I wasn't at that meeting was because my father was recovering from having a brain tumour removed. Okay

It's not a point of order, Councillor Reynolds. You can respond, and that's fair enough, but it's not a point of order. The point I was making was that this is a full committee of the council that made this recommendation back, and that since this recommendation, the preferred options report has come out, and we have resolved a slightly different position.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I agree with Councillor Reynolds that council does have a position calling for much greater flood immunity, and as someone who was involved in the community consultation with Transport for NSW, we made that very clear to Transport for NSW and were told that that was not going to be delivered; that in fact the best we were going to get was one in five, and certainly that is what they have intimated to us. And I think — What we now see as a result of this meeting is a general pushback, I suppose, on community expectations and council expectations that we will get a better solution than the one we're being given. And that should be really concerning to this council, as the people who advocate and have a responsibility to advocate for the best outcomes for our community.

And I think that that is the point that Councillor Reynolds is making. I think we need to be very careful that we continue to advocate for the best possible solution and not take a budget-friendly solution, which is what was originally presented to us by Transport for New South Wales when there was a smaller budget for this project, and what continues to be presented to us by Transport for New South Wales with double the budget originally proposed. And that should be of great concern to this council, and we should push back, as we discussed in our last meeting. One of the things that I think this report illustrates is that now we spent whole time talking about flood, and under the previous committee system, we would have had three or four meetings by now of the floodplain risk management committee.

We have had one meeting of the Disaster and Emergency Committee, and I don't know when we're to have the next one, and we go into caretaker mode in less than a month. That concerns me greatly. We have had the largest flood that we've seen in more than 20 years. We haven't gathered sufficient information about that flood, in part because one of our mechanisms for gathering that information from expert bodies, including the SES, the Department of Planning. And other agencies has been lost under this committee reshuffle. We urgently need to address that, and we need to pass on the information to the next council that that needs to be addressed as council continues. What we're missing in this arrangement is the back and forth conversation that occurs in a more relaxed committee-style meeting, where experts and members of the public and councillors are all put on the same footing, all with voting rights, all with the capacity to speak, not once because they've requested to speak, but as part of a general committee discussion.

Council Wheeler, just a point of order there. We have made the comment before. We're not going to debate the committee structure every time.

I'm not debating the committee structure, Mr Mayor.

I think it's quite a valid point that the committee hasn't met. I think that's quite a valid point, but I don't think that going over the speaking, who can speak, who can vote again, we're not going to do that again. We've done that every

Time we have. I'm not debating it, Mr Mayor. I'm highlighting the fact that we have a serious and significant gap here, and we as a council need to address it. And I'm not sure how we do that in the structure that we have at the moment. And we need to acknowledge that before we have another flood where we haven't taken on the information from the community. So one of the things that I want to highlight here is that we have not had community input into this process. Now, whether that's because they haven't engaged with the new committee process, they don't know how to speak, we're not reaching the community with these meetings, or they don't feel like it's worth the input into these meetings, or they don't know how to have input, then that's something we need to address because that is really useful information out in the community about the things that would make a difference to them on the ground in terms of managing flooding.

Keeping their, saving their stuff, dealing with waste, dealing with the trauma of this event,

We're

Missing that. We need to go and find it. One of the other things that's highlighted in here is that Council is not going to continue to contact residents because we think that job's done. We've still got residents who are recovering from flood, who are not back to normal, who are not back in their homes, who can't get to their homes. We know that the residents, for example, of Lower Portland and Upper Colo are still significantly impacted. They are reporting that the information that they're receiving from Council is repetitive. They don't feel like they've been listened to, and they don't feel like the medium of the style of the information that's coming to them is sufficiently conveying Council's both actions and concerns for them.

So the job isn't done, I don't think, and we need to get urgently some feedback as to what these residents really need to hear from us. I mean, and I'm not saying that we need to tell them we're instantly going to fix stuff, because that would be nonsense. But what we need to do is listen to how they want that information presented to them. Receiving an email that largely looks the same week after week, that they have to pick through to find the changes isn't benefiting them. So while we have the best of intentions, we're not getting through, and that's concerning as well. So that's two gaps that we've got.

When are we going to have this next meeting? Can someone tell me?

General Manager.

That date on hand, Councillors, I'd have to take that question on notice and provide that advice separately.

Thank you

Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I endorse the remarks of the previous speaker. However, moving on to a two tangential matters, if you wish. The first is in regard to the meeting last week. I had understood that our General Manager had indicated that there had been a briefing session organised with Transport for New South Wales regarding this new project

That we've been talking about. Is there a date available, and has that been clarified, please? General Manager

The Director City Planning can correct me if I'm wrong, but that was and remains scheduled for the 20th of July.

Yes , that's correct. Thank you. That was different to my initial understanding. I do appreciate that. My second question is also, in a sense, tangential. I was able to sit in on the Environment Committee meeting, I think it was last week , and in that the Chairperson of that committee meeting indicated that the— Meeting itself was to be, I believe, podcast. I clearly heard that in the opening remarks from the Chairperson. I would like to question: is that the case in that committee? Is it the case in all committee meetings, or with all committee meetings, please? Can I have that clarified? Through the Director of Support Services.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just to get the Manager of Corporate Services to answer that. Thank you.

Through you, Mr Mayor. Yes, the committee meetings are recorded by way of podcast, and the recordings are subsequently published on Council's website. I can't be certain right now as to the timing of when they're published, but they are certainly recorded

For publishing purposes. Thank you.

Mr Mayor, I'd like to further question that response, if I may please, with your indulgence. My question is in that regard: from what date or time, however you wish to describe it, did the reporting of, or the podcasting of committee meetings become initiated, please?

The Manager.

Did you get that question, Mr McElroy?

Sorry, sorry, Mr Mayor. Through you. Certainly it was intended that they be podcast from the time that the committees were restructured. What I can't say is when the podcasts of the first committee meetings became available, but certainly it was intended that they be recorded and be podcast from the time that the committees were first meeting in the new form.

Thank you. Well , I'd be much obliged if Councillors could be advised, Mr Mayor, of when that is or was. And furthermore, maybe slightly off centre, but what is the situation regarding Councillor briefings in that regard, please?

As in, are we recording Councillor briefings? Is that the question? Indeed . Mr McElroy, is that you?

Through you, Mr Mayor, Councillor briefing sessions are not recorded. Thank you. Thanks

Councillor Calvert.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. This is a question, by the way. One of the recommendations in the minutes is that Council seek to facilitate the production of an overall review of the 2021 flood to provide operational information to a future Council and the community. Now, I think some of the services that were there, including the police service, offered to provide their input into this. I'm wondering, has any of that input been provided from any of the bodies and— Is the staff

Starting to organise themselves to be able to provide this report? Director of Infrastructure Services.

Through you, Mr Mayor, there was an after action review undertaken last week with all of the agencies present and undertaken under the direction of Assistant Commissioner Kuska. So we'll be getting, obviously, the report from that that will actually be incorporated into any of the actions that we need to deliver on. So that was done by agency and by task as to what improvements or learnings, to use that word, came out of it. We'll certainly take those out when that report is actually produced

Thank you. Anything further? If not, right of reply. So, Councillor Lyons-Buckett

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd just like to echo what Councillor Wheeler said. I too am very keen to have another meeting of this committee. I think we were told recently at a briefing it would be in July, and I'm certainly hoping it is, because we were waiting for the outstanding information from the bushfire review, which is well overdue. There is a huge amount of community concern out there, and... I really don't think that we should be told not to mention the previous committee system because, quite frankly, if we still had that committee system, we could have met twice since the floods to have discussed these things with people who know a lot about them. And also it would have given us an avenue to give feedback from the National Flood Conference, which had some very vital information and which the people who have attended should be giving their report.

And there's no avenue for that at the moment, which is most unfortunate because a lot of it was around the review of the Development Floodplain Manual. And I think it's really important that this council hears what's happening in that space so that we can keep up with our obligations around that. We have a very, very vulnerable community. We have people out there who are really concerned that we're not applying enough priority to really being prepared for future events in this respect, and it is our obligation. We really have to come up with evaluating how the whole process has gone, and I take on board that there are things in train around that, but we really have to keep the momentum up because we've seen the impacts that this has had.

And before long, we'll be back into fire season, and look what's happening in the Northern Hemisphere and the absolute horrendous impacts that are occurring over there. And we have to be ready to deal with this sort of thing. If we get a heatwave, we've got a pandemic, we could potentially have a flood, and I don't believe that we have committed enough to being prepared. So I think that we really have to up the priority to getting this committee to meet as soon as possible so that we can really start to ensure that we have proper things in place around evacuation, that we have proper evaluation of any of the gaps that occurred during the floods. of which we have seen some . We know it's ongoing, the recovery, that we have to have the recovery keeping on going.

But we also have to have moved back into the preparation phase, and that we have to really be having all of our various community-based initiatives. We have to have those people equipped to be dealing with this again. And there's so much information. We need to be drawing on the community. I've had some feedback from people, people who've volunteered, for example, in evacuation centres, people who have done things, and they've identified where there were specific gaps, where problems arose, and we need to be harnessing that information, even if that specific thing isn't our particular obligation as such. We still have to be able to be able to passing that on to any relevant agency that could improve, for example, how they're administering something or whatever.

We do have an obligation to do that, and I hope we'll fulfil that obligation in doing so. I also wondered if, just while we're on this topic, if we have any idea of when the briefing from Transport for New South Wales around the Richmond Bridge duplication may be occurring. Is there any word on that yet?

Yeah, we just had that question a second ago. So it's the 20th of July.

Oh, okay. Sorry, I didn't hear that. Okay, 20th of July. Oh, that's good. That's soon. And the other question was about the evaluation.

Will councillors be kept up to date on the flood response plan, which has been endorsed by the executive team?

General Manager.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yes, certainly that's our intent, and we can continue to liaise both through the committee and to Council on that updated plan

Thank you very much. Okay. I think that's all for now. Thank you. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

A question first. In the debate over whether the point one in Item 2, talking about whether

We were urgently advocating to provide a better access, I think it's pertinent to say that it says provides better access during a major flood event. And I was just wondering whether there could be some commentary from staff about what an actual major flood event is, because my understanding was the flood that we've just been through was a moderate flood. So saying, making that statement that the access would be better in a major flood is actually quite reassuring, and I just wanted confirmation about that terminology.

Director of Infrastructure Services.

I'm not sure that the , when we talk about minor, major, moderate and major, they're basically broad indications. There's no specific level other than the Bureau of Met gauge heights. Generally, that major flood level strikes at around about RL 15 metres on the gauge height. Right, okay . So something slightly larger than what we had, but as I said, you can have a flood that's at the lower end of the moderate scale and one that's at the higher end. So it's a continuum. Right

Okay. I just wanted to just get your thoughts on that, thank you. I have just some points to make. I think that I'm actually also disappointed that

This committee hasn't met more often. I think we really needed it to, and I think that's something that we have to improve in future. I don't think it's got anything to do with the structure of the committee about how effective it is. I think that what we have to do for the next committee meeting is that we have to advertise and get the message out to the community. I agree with Councillor Lyons-Buckett that there are many in the community that want to have some input into this. There's lots and lots of people who have information that is just, you know, insightful and valuable, and we need to capture that. That was the whole point of opening the committee structure up. So I don't—I think we can put that one to bed.

We have to advertise. We have to make sure that people know that we're having these meetings. The other thing that didn't happen last time, which I would like to see happen this time, is that we invite the people from the flood directorate, the people who wrote the Resilient Valleys— Resilient Valleys— [

Unclear]

Thank you. That odd title. They need to be there. They are the experts, and we have to keep the work that we did have going in the last floodplain management committee. That has to continue. There has been no change in that. We don't want to change that. We want them to come along and we want them to carry on as usual, providing the valuable expert advice that they have always provided for us. And that goes for all of the members of that old committee. So let's get on with that, and I think that I— I think I've just forgotten my next point. Now, so advertising , getting the right people at the table, and probably more frequent meetings because, you know, we have a lot to deal with and we have a lot to get through. So that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Rasmussen?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a quick question. I just heard that litany of things that weren't going correct in this area, particularly to do with our flood and flood proneness and floodplain, and I totally agree. We're probably the most vulnerable community in all of Australia apart from the Ord River scheme. But apart from that, we go very close to being top of the tree here. So what's going wrong? What is going wrong? Why can't we get something that is so important, so vital, so critical, that affects us so often? Why can't we get it right? Why are we missing all this stuff?

Thank you. Thank you. Right of reply, Councillor Kotlash?

Not necessary. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

All right, all those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Tree, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Garrow. Against? Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen. Declare it carried.

Next item is 137. Response to councillor questions.

Any discussion?

Councillor Wheeler.

Oh, thanks, Mr Mayor. Sorry, I couldn't find all the buttons. Can I just clarify? It says in response to the question that the awards on the wall are posthumous, and which, because I can't go and look at the wall because we're in lockdown, I can't remember who is on them, and I'm wondering if— so they're posthumous and they last for five years. So everyone who's on the wall has died. Is that right?

Or being on the wall, I think was the idea . Yes. I'll refer that to, not sure who, General Manager.

The Manager Corporate Comms might be the best person there, Mr Mayor

Through you, Mr Mayor. Yes, the people who are on the wall have passed away for— they have been passed away for five years, up to five years before they can be nominated for the award.

Thank you. Yeah, I wonder if we don't need to look at that. That seems, A, extremely dreary, and, B, that five-year period I think may mean that people slip from view. I'm not sure. Certainly the council will be gone if we're talking— I know Councillor Zamprogno raised this as a potential place to put a plaque. To John Miller, I don't think that John is the sort of person that we would have necessarily forgotten in five years. But I'm not sure that the impetus to put him on a plaque on the wall will still be around in five years. And so I'm wondering whether this policy of waiting for someone to be dead for five years is a bit self-defeating . Perhaps we could have a look at that. I think

What it does, I understand the point, but I think what it does do is make sure Council's not in a position where we have to make a decision on someone's worthiness immediately after their passing, which can be quite, you know, if you decide that someone's not worthy of being on the wall, that's quite a decision to have made to a grieving family . Whereas if someone's been nominated at least five years after their passing, there's obviously some real merit there in them being, or if there's not, it's not as hard to say so . Councillor Zamprogno? Yeah,

Thank you. Considering that I raised this, it's not as though I object. I was simply curious about what our protocol was. I will observe along the way that the rule is there to serve us. We are not there to serve the rule. The Catholic Church has rules about how quickly you can canonise a saint and how many miracles there have to be . I understand that the idea is that if a person's memory endures, you know, five years after their passing, when the emotion is calmer, then, you know, they would be eminently eligible for inclusion. But equally , it's not the kind of award where we simply have to bestow it upon somebody on each and every year. There have been many years in which, some years in which I've been serving on the Civic Committee, where we've chosen not to.

Not to bestow it because there wasn't an eminently eligible person put to us. So I'm happy to let the matter sit for the time being. I take Councillor Wheeler's point that we should be able to do whatever we want, but in this case, I think the general principle was soundly arrived at. Any further discussion on the

Questions?

If not, will someone move we go into confidential? Moved Councillor Zamprogno, seconded Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour? Declared carried.

Okay, we now come back into open session. I'll hand over to the General Manager to advise on our resolution in closed session.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. In regards to item 13A, regarding the lease to the Kirpa Family Pty Limited regarding 37 Macquarie Street, Windsor, whilst in closed session the Council resolved, on the motion of Councillor Rasmussen, seconded by Councillor Richards, that Council agreed to enter into a lease with Kirpa Family Pty Limited for the property known as 37 Macquarie Street, Windsor, as outlined in the report. In conjunction with part one above, Council agreed to surrender the current lease with Johnny O'Dea Show and William Coro for the property known as 37 Macquarie Street, Windsor, as outlined in the report. Point three, authority be given for the lessee, the surrender of the lease and any other documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council.

Point four, details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the current and proposed lessees together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as appropriate legal documentation to put a resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties. That was carried on the motion of Councillor Rasmussen, seconded by Councillor Richards, with Councillors Conolly, Lyons-Buckett, Garrow, Reynolds, Kotlash, Tree, Calvert and Zamprogno in favour, with Councillors Ross and Wheeler against. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. There being no further business, we'll declare the meeting closed at 8.54. Thank you, everybody, for your attendance.