15 November 2022 - Ordinary

Good evening. Welcome to Hawkesbury City Council's ordinary meeting of the 15th of November 2022. Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Darug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury. We pay respect to all Elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of the country. I will now hand over to the General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you will be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I would also like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.33 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary.

If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored on Council's record management system. Meetings of the Council may be separately recorded with the prior authority of the Council. For 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 Councils.

Finally, it is also requested that any person participating in or attending the meeting has a mobile phone, that they turn it off or turn it to silent. Thank you. Timely.

Thank you, General Manager. Are there any declaration of interests?

No, then I'll just read out my two small ones, item 186 and item 192, which are both less than significant non-pecuniary, so I'll be staying in those items. I can see we have a full chamber, so there's no apologies. Can I please have someone to move the minutes of the last meeting? Thank you, Jill. Sorry, Councillor Reardon. Thank you, Councillor Conolly. All in favour? Thank you. Carried.

We have no agenda items this evening subject to public address and no condolences, so let's get on with our meeting. The first item is item 197, immediate flood mitigation, flood recovery and flood resilience in the Hawkesbury. Now this is the Mayoral Minute that I've been spending some time over the last few days putting together. Sorry about its late arrival this afternoon, but I did want to get it right because I believe that it's really important to show our residents here in the Hawkesbury that we have been advocating on their behalf and that we have been advocating relentlessly. And I think that this document puts it together quite succinctly into how much we have asked the state and federal governments to step up and help our community.

Now, as I say in the background information. There is no doubt that the rest of the state is going through significant natural disasters as we speak. There's significant flooding throughout New South Wales and, of course, other states as well. But I think we are a little bit different here in the Hawkesbury. We have had repeated flooding over the last few years, and I think that our message that we're trying to convey, predominantly to the New South Wales government, you'll see there is one element here, though, to the Australian government, is not necessarily being heard as much as we would like it to be heard. Now, the people of the Northern Rivers up in Lismore have received significant attention, and rightly so.

They absolutely deserve everything that's coming their way in terms of any assistance. But as the mayor and as the leader of our community, and as elected representative sitting here on the floor in front of me, I know that you'll feel the same, that we deserve that attention as well here in the Hawkesbury. By the New South Wales government's own documentation, prior to this period of flooding, we were identified as one of the most dangerous floodplains in New South Wales, if not all of Australia. That is the government's own language in their documentation. Now, that alone should raise alarm bells when we start writing as a council body to the state government to say that we need their help.

Now, if you have a look at the table that I have added there, which starts on page four of the supplementary item, we discussed the long-term flood mitigation, which, of course, is the raising of the Warragamba Dam wall, and I don't want that to be part of our debate tonight. We've discussed that. We have a position as a council. Let's move on from that tonight. What I think is more important is the immediate-term flood mitigation, flood recovery and flood resilience requests for help that we have been asking the state government for since the first major flood back in 2021. As you know, we had the minor flood in 2020, but the significant damage to our community started in 2021. And if you have a look at that table there, since the start of that flood and ongoing.

Especially throughout this year in 2022, there have been numerous amounts of correspondence to the state government, and just for the record verbally, so it's not just here in documentation, I'll quickly list those requests that we've been asking for. Now that's some information and some planning guidelines around riverbank restoration. We still now, this far into our situation, do not have planning guidelines for private property holders to be able to retain their riverbanks. Now they know they have to do that at their own expense, they understand that, but they don't have the legal guidelines to allow them to retain their banks, and that is just not good enough. The repair of the Cornwallis drain, which we know has now become a very significant issue for our farmers down on the floodplain, we're ready to go, and I will stick up for the council staff when they have done their job.

They have got those designs ready to go. We are ready to press the tender button. We just need clearance and assurance from the government that they are going to pay the cost of that repair. The ability for council to apply an emergency management charge. This was denied by the government, yet allowed for Blue Mountains Council. I can't reconcile that. I can't understand why we have been denied that. A request for an additional three million dollars to fund repairs of parks reserved and council-owned riverbanks. The minister had called the previous mayor to arrange a meeting, but the meeting has never eventuated. The use of Warragamba Dam for immediate flood mitigation. Now the general manager and I went and had a meeting with the water minister back in October, which has amounted to nothing.

We went all the way in. We're significantly loud advocates on behalf of the Hawkesbury, and we haven't had anything that was promised to us delivered. The Betterment funding to improve the resilience of our assets. It's an insufficient amount of money. That one's from the Australian Government there under the joint funding arrangements. The request to fund or deliver immediate repairs to the Pitt Town evacuation route. Now this one is part of the Upper House Inquiry's recommendations. The New South Wales Government has put out a response to that, which you all got a copy of over the last few days, to that Upper House Inquiry, supporting it in principle. Well, I'm sorry, as the 12 of us sitting here and living here in the Hawkesbury, our community needs that money on the ground now, and that evacuation route needs to be sorted out before we have another flood.

If you go to the next page, expedite a delivery of the improvements to the evacuation routes. Again, we need more than what was actually given to us. If you look at the documentation we previously had, there was an emphasis on the Penrith area. We need an emphasis here in the Hawkesbury. And the recent documentation, fair enough, they haven't been able to respond over the last few days, but I wanted to include it on the list to show the level of advocacy that we are doing here as Hawkesbury City Council for our community. And that is inclusion in the $50 million pothole repair program, which proudly we've stood by with Wollondilly and Blue Mountains councils to say that we sit on the fringes of the metropolitan area, and we deserve recognition for this as well.

And of course inclusion in the buyback scheme, which is also a separate pool of funding to raise people's houses who live on the floodplain and want to stay, and also to build their houses back in flood resilient material rather than in material that will just fall apart again on another flood. I think that last one there, which is something that has been quite topical recently in the media with the announcement for the Northern Rivers area, we need inclusion in that immediately. And I'm very strong about that because the stories that I've heard from people who live on the floodplain or live here in the Hawkesbury and have had three, four times they've had to clean out their house, the trauma, the effect on mental health that people are going through, they just can't do it again.

So if you see all of that leads to my conclusion of writing to the Premier, and I know you'll think, well, we've written all these other letters and we haven't got anywhere, but I think we need to ramp this one up a little bit as a collective. Write to the Premier and demand that he come personally here to the Hawkesbury and sit with us, as well as the State Member, Robyn Preston, and listen to our concerns and address them and give us an answer. Because we can't, as elected representatives, just sit here and have no acknowledgement and no response to our correspondence. I therefore present this Mayoral Minute, and I open the floor for any further. Further comments?

Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor.

It's really , I don't know what to say. When you go back as far as the first floods, and we have had a lot of support in different areas, but with things like the washout at Cornwallis, that's something affects a lot of people. And if it was Parramatta Road, it'd be fixed. It really would be. But it's not. Just something else on page four. The New South Wales Parliamentary Select Committee, apparently they don't know where Bennetts City for 30 years. Requests from Hawkesbury Shire Council to remediate Redeem Riverbank erosion. So there's a task force sitting there talking about us and don't know who we are even. That's concerning. Some of the other things, you know, we missed out on in November at the conference, there was an announcement of $50 million for pothole program, which I straight away rang our director about.

I need to find out that we weren't one of the councils, and there was restrictive councils involved with that.

And when I heard that, I was somewhat surprised. As you indicated, there's a lot of other councils that are in similar situations. I don't know that any of them's had six floods. I think we're probably on top of the list there. And things like potholes, we miss out on. I think the Premier, he was our member in the past. He's fully aware of what our city's like. He wasn't here during the floods. He was here in a drought. But I think that it is important for him to come up and be reminded that he was our member for some time, and that these things that you've addressed here need responses. Probably all of them aren't going to go our way, but we need to know where they are or not, and that's important .

The situation where we've got expectations, or the community has, to get projects done, as indicated in the report here, we can't fund them on the basis of a promise. There's one area here where it indicated the $15 for landholders that was rejected. I don't understand that, but somebody's got to do something. I don't know that people would object to that to fix up some of the problems that we do have. But, yeah, Madam Mayor, it's frustrating and concerning, but I'd only support your motion, and— And hope that our Premier takes notice and takes up the offer.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wish to speak? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for going through it. I hadn't read it all. I only got it when I got here. I'm happy to support it. However, I just, I really wish we could do something stronger. I actually think that all 12 of us should actually just appear down there. I really do. I think writing is futile. I don't understand it. I mean, does anyone have any reason why we are being ignored? I don't understand it. It's pathetic, and it's a real slap in the face to every resident in this community. And I don't understand why Mr Perrottet would turn his back on us in that sense. And I just, I find it really frustrating because, as an independent councillor, I've often had said to me that there's nothing I can do because I'm not attached to a party.

Well, here's a clear example of being attached to a party makes zero difference. There's no advantage in it when we're being ignored such as this. But it is insulting to our community that is suffering repeatedly, and I can't understand why it's us. As I see the Premier on the news all over the place. He's at every other flooded thing in helicopters and popping out to see people. So I think that unless we're going to either maybe go with some sort of media release , which I think you may be planning, or if we actually appear in person, I just don't think the message will get through. But I am happy to support this as it is. I am also a bit sad, I guess it is, that we have lost some years in our persistent advocacy around flood evacuation routes because we haven't been pushing as much as we should have when that started in 2017.

We could have been pushing a lot harder to get ourselves into that mix to make sure that we were, and not just Penrith, but that we were the people that were going to be getting some of the evacuation routes. And without a floodplain management committee, we lost that direct advocacy that we had had previously. With regard to the disaster recovery funding. That was a very big topic at the local government conference. So clearly, most councils are having quite a bit of an issue with having how the funding is given. So I think any efforts that are made to improve how that is carried out are really good, that we, you know, that we can push for those. I think a lot of this has been letter writing, and I just think it's totally unacceptable if we don't get a response from government about particular issues.

I mean, as a council, we have to be careful that we always respond to people, and to have another level of government essentially ignore a community in crisis is extremely disturbing. So I fully support your efforts. I thank you and the staff for the efforts you've already made, and I hope that we can do something a little bit stronger than just write to Mr Perrottet. But maybe he's watching tonight, and if he is, we can all give him a call out and ask him to do his job and come out and see this suffering community. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. You have touched on, which we have discussed loosely as a group, just for the public's knowledge, which is once, if we do pass this tonight, I intend to take this to the media and put the pressure on to demand his presence here and continue that advocacy as well. I think this is more the formal way to say— Here's an invitation to you. We're actually inviting you to our community. Come along, and these are the reasons why, and then we'll add that media focus as well. Any other councillors wish to speak?

Yes, please. Oh,

Thank you, Councillor Veigel.

Yeah, I agree with the sentiments of my colleagues and also the motion. So thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm overwhelmingly frustrated by the inertia and the difficulties giving council to get on with the job with fixing the flood issues. One point that Councillor Sheather raised was Cornwallis wasn't in the funding plan, and it's going to be a $40 million fix, if not more, and we're still looking at it. And I believe there was water that got into the flood—into the lowlands when they released some water the other day, at least that's one of the residents told me anyway.

Yeah, I'm being a little bit measured on this because if I was in a different area or a different forum, I'd be using a bit more adjective. But considering we're supposed to be professional, I'll keep it that way. But I just—well, we just need it fixed, okay? And it'll take money and resources to do it. We've spoken about Lismore, and grant you, they've got housing issues up there, and that was raised, I think Councillor Lyons-Buckett raised about the housing issue, and there's a lot of people that haven't found housing up there. And that's a priority as well, but I'm just saying our LGA with six floods, it's absolutely paramount that we get it fixed and we get it fixed now. So I really don't care what political party the Premier is, because you know where I lie. It's all about the community and getting it done. So I'll be supporting the motion. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. You do make a valid point there that, you know, we have five political parties represented in this chamber plus a suite of independents. And I think that an issue like this is well beyond party lines, and it's about the community. And we have to remember, first and foremost, we are the grassroots level of government, and that's who we represent. Any other speakers? Oh yes, Councillor Dogramaci.

I just have to be different and straight to the point. Good luck to you. I will support, but again, you are wasting your time. We are wasting our time. They'll just listen, take a few notes, and that's it. Good luck. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. As I said, I think this is the first formal step to invite him, and then I think we escalate from there if we're not getting a response. So I appreciate your comments. Any other councillors? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks. As Councillor Lyons-Buckett said, this was a key topic of conversation. As you would expect at the local government conference, you could sort of divide the room by disaster-affected councils and not disaster-affected councils. And the not disaster-affected councils are focusing on nice things. You know, they're putting in new equipment in their parks. They're running festivals. They're supporting small business. They're making positive changes that are really good for their community. And those of us who are disaster-affected are sitting around wondering how we're going to keep things running and how we're going to put Band-Aids on the gaping wounds that we've got left in our communities.

The state government failing to step up is now creating haves and have-nots councils across New South Wales, and we are rapidly falling further and further into the group of have-nots. And quite frankly, there was nothing that I saw from any of the representatives of the state government or Members of the opposition to show that they got it. They really didn't get it. So we had the usual session with various ministers, and I think we had the regional roads minister. Now, I asked him directly what he would do to help us. He got a big clap from all the regional councils when he announced his big pothole spend, and I'm sure that that shored up those seats nicely. You know, his pork barrelled them beautifully coming into the March election.

But when I stood up and said, How will you help us? Because we simply don't have the capacity. We don't have the workers. We don't have the materials. We don't have the money to fix the problems that we are left with.

All I got was blah blah. Blah blah traineeships. Blah blah potholes in regional areas. Fifty million dollars. Blah blah. And then he finished by saying, But you're not a regional council. You're not my problem. You're not my problem. This is the party that this state seat has been loyal to for seven decades, and a member of that government sat in front of me and 200 other councillors and said, You are not my problem. I hope people think about that when they come into the March election next year, because that's the attitude of the state government. So unless we sit down and we point out all these problems to them loudly and frequently until the next election, we are going to remain not their problem, because it suits them.

What they've done is foisted this cost back onto our community. Not all of the community, because not all of our community is flood affected. Some of us are inconvenienced. We can't get to work for a week. We can't go to the shops. Businesses lose money. But we have some homeowners who are so heavily impacted that they can no longer live in their houses. Now that has created great sympathy in Lismore, as it should, and in parts of Mullumbimby, and we're about to see that across large swathes of New South Wales, including Forbes, which has copped it again today. But here we have people who are affected to the same extent. Just because our whole community hasn't been underwater for a week doesn't mean that our community isn't hurting, and they need to hear us.

I think they're just hoping that we'll go away. I think we've lost traction by focusing on the dam wall when that proposal was resurrected some years ago. I can clearly recall saying that the state government was putting all its eggs in one basket, and lo and behold, here we have it. The basket has been trashed, in fact. What we are seeing are the real and ongoing costs of climate change, which I don't think that we've been prepared for. The state government certainly hasn't been prepared for it, and that's probably a direct result of their fantastic denialism over the last decade. We need buybacks here desperately. We need some riverbank to help with the riverbank, because the lack of this legislation is just leading to non-compliance, greater environmental damage, and increasing costs to both landowners and council, because we've not been provided with anything useful.

The flood evacuation route out of Pitt Town desperately needs reassessment because it's been used as an access road, not simply as an evacuation route. But we also, I think, need to emphasise the fact that this isn't a matter of magnitude for us. This is a matter of repeat, and it's that repeated impact that has caused people to lose confidence now in the place that they live, as well as losing their mental and financial resources that allow them to stay in houses that, to a degree, had some flood resilience previously, but after, for some of them, four floods, for some of them six floods, they no longer can stay in those places, and those people need to be offered some reasonable means of exiting them with some financial capacity to relocate.

That's what we're seeing in Lismore. We urgently need it here. I'll support this motion. Can we stop talking about the bloody dam wall and just focus on helping our people? There's no need for that to be dropped in the background of everything. You've got your agreement on a casting vote. For God's sake, move on and help this community.

Thank you, Councillor. Any other remarks wished to be made? No? All right. I thank Councillors for their contribution, and I do hope that, as a group, as a collective, we can step up our advocacy and let the community know that we are consistently working for them. We're not just writing a letter and putting it in the bottom drawer. We are going to continue stamping our feet and screaming until we are heard. I'll therefore put the vote. All those in favour of the mayoral minute, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors M. Progno, and Councillor McMahon. Carried unanimously, and I thank you all for your support, and I will keep you in the loop as that advocacy continues.

Next we'll adopt the items on block. That is items 182, 183 and 189. We'll move the confidential on block items in confidential. Can I have a mover for that please? Councillor Reardon, seconder? Councillor Calvert.

All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno and Councillor McMahon. Okay, we'll now proceed.

In the order in the business paper, item 18. Leave

The recommendation.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Seconder, please? Councillor Kotlash. Wish to speak, Councillor Conolly? No

It's okay.

Councillor Sheather? Yeah

Thanks, Madam Mayor. In relation to the ordinary meetings, there's a recommendation that it be the 14th or 21st November. The local government conferences on from the 12th to the 14th, and sometimes that's quite involved for the councillors that are involved. To have a business paper that particular week would be uncomfortable . I'd suggest that we go to the 21st of November rather than the 14th.

Did you want to discuss that, Councillor Conolly? Yeah

I kind of assume we'll leave that in case something changed, but that's fine. I think the 21st instead of— I'll just

Get a staff comment on that.

It's got in there that the Mayor or the General Manager can change it if required anyway

Through you, Madam Mayor, the date of either the 14th or the 21st was designed to directly avoid the conflict that Councillor Sheather has outlined, so I don't foresee there would be any need to change the recommendation

Any other speakers ? Councillor Wheeler

Thanks.

I'm still not convinced that we are meeting frequently enough and that the drop to one—I didn't support the drop to one meeting a month at the time, and I can't support it now. Also, a question: we used to have a separate meeting to adopt the operation and delivery plan, and that seems to have dropped off the radar. Can I ask what's happened to that? That used to be the subject of a meeting by itself.

I'll hand that to staff, Councillor Willis.

Madam Chair, yes, they were called extraordinary meetings, and you can't call an extraordinary meeting unless there's a process of going through that. So they're now fitted into the council meeting dates that are listed in the attachment one.

So they're just sucked into the general meeting.

Yeah, so they're just part of that general council meeting, yes

So we only have one meeting that month, and it's got a deal with the operation and delivery plan when it comes, which I really don't think is satisfactory. And I know that by 11 o'clock we will be at the eye rolling. I saw the eye rolling when councillors observed that some of us had called things up . I'm sorry that democracy is time consuming and is inconvenient, but that's the way it goes. So I'm going to move an amendment that council return to the previous schedule of the second and last Tuesday of each month, with the exception of school and public holidays. A

Seconder for that? Seconded. Councillor Lyons-Buckett

We wish to continue speaking, Councillor Wheeler.

Sure, and look, I don't have much hope of this getting up, but

We are not paid to have swift democracy. This is the place that we make our decisions. We should be doing it in a deliberate manner, where we can discuss issues and— And the public can have faith that we have given our time and energy to making those decisions. Now we've got an extra meeting this month, which I think is—you can see that this additional meeting is quite full. I'm assuming that the next meeting will be quite full as well, in order to get us through to the end of the year. I resent sitting here trying to make a decision on an issue and feeling like

Speaking is an—listening is an inconvenience, that people being able to speak is too time consuming.

I also feel we meet—often our meetings last for too long, which I don't think helps our decision-making capacity either. I don't know that we have gained anything by dropping the number of council meetings. I didn't support it then. I can't support it now.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone wish to speak on the amendment? Councillor

Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. I agree with the comments of Councillor Wheeler. The meetings we've had have gone late , and it's not fair to the issues we discuss. The effort the staff goes to to put those in when we're discussing stuff that people probably feel that they would be in a better place in bed . It certainly doesn't worry me if we're at three o'clock in the morning. I don't normally go to bed early anyway, but there's other people and— that around the table that probably don't stay up that late. And I don't know that you make decisions well when you're tired. And aside from that, if—and I know there's a financial implication with having other meetings— but I think as councillors, we're obligated to do the best we can.

And if it means short meetings and informal meetings, that's good. If it's long meetings and, you know, they're not discussed well, I think that's unfair to everybody involved, including the councillors sitting around the table. So, and the comments that Councillor Wheeler made about our work programs and the like, they're worthy of a meeting on their own . The requests that we make individually should be discussed and heard by all. And with a meeting like tonight and having those sort of things involved, we've got an LEP and stuff like that we discussed . If it all goes to plan, it might be a short night. But if it doesn't, it impacts on every other thing that comes after it. So, Madam Mayor, I support the amendment and, you know, I think, you know, we've got obligations as councillors to get things right.

And I don't know that, you know, 11, 12, 1 o'clock meetings, you're going to get that right.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wish to speak on the amendment? Councillor Dogramaci.

I also support Councillor Wheeler. We have tried. To me personally, it didn't work. I had to go out and see as many people as possible, and I have piles and piles. Like I said, we have tried once a month. It did not work. To me, at least it did not work. So I fully support Councillor Wheeler to have twice a month. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I also support this amendment. I think that , as Councillor Sheather said, I would rather have two shorter, smaller meetings a month than to be here very late. Being here late was a criticism of when we still had two meetings a month . But we did, since we've had one meeting, we've had one very late meeting, and that's very unfair on our staff when they have to drive home after a very late meeting . I think there's an assumption that we'll have something every Tuesday anyway, so we could always do something after a short meeting. We could also gather and have our Councillor discussions, or we could always look at something. There's a lot that we need to be doing.

There's a lot that we need to be discussing. And we could also, you know, we could always move into an impromptu state of bringing up something that we could discuss if we had an early night, which I think would be very beneficial so that we increase the dialogue, and that I do agree with Councillor Wheeler that this is the place we make the decision, and this is where we should be telling the community why we're voting for what we're voting for. We shouldn't come here just to tick things off and have everything rushed through because we're elected by the people, and they should see why we're voting what we're voting for. And I think that going back to two meetings a month gives us that opportunity.

We can always cancel it if there's nothing for the agenda. I mean, that wouldn't be a crisis. And I definitely think for the draft operational plan, we know that we've got a lot of things happening. We've got a lot of projects that are coming up, so we're going to have a lot of discussions around that. So I fully support this amendment, and I hope everyone else does as well, and take it from there.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I said at the time, in around March, April, when the Chamber decided to halve the number of Chamber meetings, that that was a bad idea, that it failed the pub test, that the community had a clear expectation that we earn our keep, and that there was clearly enough business before Council to justify two meetings a month. That remains my view, and I'd ask councillors who were prepared to vote for the reduced number of meetings what kind of feedback they got from the community. I would be extremely surprised if any member of the community bowled up to a councillor at a public event and said, Good on you for halving the number of meetings that you hold. That's exactly what we expected. I think that we made a mistake, and this evening we have an opportunity to fix that mistake by scheduling a more reasonable number of meetings for 2023, and I hope the amendment passes.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I'll speak against the amendment. I guess it's probably the appropriate time to rehash this, but it's almost disappointing we have to do it again so soon. I think that, as we said at the time when we went to this schedule, that we're just bringing ourselves in line with almost every other council in Sydney. We're bringing ourselves in line with every other board structure I can think of for any community association I've ever been a part of, any not-for-profit. All those boards meet monthly because that's appropriate. That strikes the right balance between governance and trying to get involved in management. So I'm quite happy to stick with that. I also said at the time that the reality was if we had too much on, that we could always have a second meeting, and I don't think until this month that's ever been required, and we can see this month that works fine.

So I can't see why we would go and change that. None of us can speak for the staff, but this was a staff recommendation in the first place to move to monthly. So I don't think that we can sit here and say we're being unfair to the staff and they should come back to us a month, because that's what they would prefer without having asked them . And one comment I do agree with, though, is that sometimes we've gone quite late. I would actually be very much in favour of stopping at 11, as per the code of meeting practice. If we get to 11 at a particular meeting, we stop and come back the next week, I think that's probably going to lead to better decision-making. And actually that would result in us having two meetings a month when it's required and not when it isn't.

So I think the current system's working.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor . I'm speaking against the amendment as well, but I'd like just to ask a question. Councillor Lyons-Buckett said that if we adopt the second and the fourth Tuesday of every month, that if we don't have an agenda item, we can cancel those meetings. I just want to seek some clarification because my understanding was that

That was not the process. You had those meetings, and it was quite a big deal to actually cancel them. Can I get some clarification? Yes

Thank you, Councillor

Thanks, Madam Chair. My understanding is that once you've allocated the meetings, that the meetings would need to go ahead

Thank you for that. I agree with Councillor Conolly that if we do indeed need extra meetings, then if we keep the monthly cycle that we have, we just can go to have extra meetings, and that way we are efficient. We do our business in the most efficient way. If we go back to having two meetings each month and they're very short meetings, that isn't an efficient way to run things. So I think we should keep on with the one meeting a month . We have the same amount of business that we have to get through, but we just do it more efficiently. And I think— That we owe that to our community as well. Thank you.

Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I speak against this amendment . Several years ago, the state government took away from us the need for councillors to look at DAs, and council meetings up to that stage had been full of discussion about the DAs that were coming through. When that was taken away, much of our business was taken away with it. So I think the concept of moving to once a month has actually worked very well. I've heard a few other councillors say that it's failed. I don't see that it's failed. I see that every councillor who wanted to speak has been able to speak. No one has been hurried up. No one's been told to keep quiet. It's all been everyone who wanted to speak could do so. I don't see what the problem is with once a month.

And as Councillor Connolly's pointed out, if, as in this month, if there's more business than we seem to be able to handle in one meeting, we just call another meeting, and that works well as well. This concept that we failed at this, I think is totally wrong. I think it's been a great success.

Thank you, Councillor Calvert. I'll just speak now for a moment, and I'll be voting against the amendment. I fully believe that the change to monthly meetings hasn't had the most dramatic effect that has been discussed tonight by those supporting the amendment. And in fact, as the Mayor, my first meeting that I chaired obviously went well into past midnight, and the second one was finished within the hour. You can't say we need meetings because we have a lot of business to deal with, because every single month is different, so you can never say that. So I think that sticking to the monthly meetings is a professional and accepted standard that we do, and if we have more business, we just have another meeting, rather than scheduling an additional amount of meetings and then possibly having no business.

So I believe that that's the best way to do it and the best way to not allocate all of our staff time when our staff are right now spending their time in a flood recovery situation rather than preparing an overload of business papers. So I believe we're still getting through our business, and as I said, you can't make this decision based on workload because every single month is different, and that has been demonstrated very frequently just in the last couple of months. Does anyone else wish to speak on the amendment ? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I've

Just got a question, Madam Mayor. Sure. So is there an assumption that every Tuesday there will be something on here? So are we to assume that every Tuesday there'll either be a committee meeting or a briefing or a workshop ? I

Do believe that that's the schedule that's intended. The General Manager may wish to confirm the monthly schedule.

Through you, Madam Mayor, yes, certainly that's the intent. So we would be holding one ordinary meeting per month, two briefings, so be it either a briefing on Zoom or a council workshop where we're all face to face. And then the, I think there was a council resolution that on the fourth Tuesday of the month was now to be the date for committee meetings to be conducted. And then we're also just scheduling in and around that the council roundtable sessions as well. Thank you.

Thank you. If no one else wishes to speak, I will vote on the amendment. Just double checking my stats here. Yes , so I'll put the amendment to the vote. All those in favour of the amendment, which is on the board, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Sheather, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Zamprogno. All those against the amendment, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Cottlash, Councillor Calvert, and Councillor McMahon. The amendment is lost on the casting vote of the Mayor. The motion on the floor is now the motion as per the business paper. Was there any further discussion?

Councillor Zamprogno. Yes

I just wanted to take this small opportunity to just point out that Councillor Conolly said that by meeting monthly we simply bring ourselves into line with best practice or with other councils. But it was also the case that other councils, including our near neighbour in Hills Shire Council, have reported for years on their individual attendance at meetings, at committees, at workshops, and in relation to expenses, and that was regarded as best practice. And there was a majority that voted against that initiative in this chamber as well. So it depends on, you know, which kind of best practice the Councillor wishes to endorse at any particular moment. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Any other speakers for the motion? Councillor Wheeler, you have spoken on it previously. No, I've

Spoken on the amendment.

Oh, you spoke briefly before you then put the amendment, but that's fine, yes.

So, look, and this is unsurprising but disappointing regardless, because Councillor Zampronio is right, it doesn't meet with the expectations of the community. It doesn't bring us in line with councils across New South Wales. Many of the councils who meet monthly have delegated their work to committees of the whole council that act to deal with particular areas of interest for their second meeting of the month. And it may not be said out loud, because that would go against the code of meeting practice, but there is certainly pressure in here when councillors speak, and there are remarks made under people's breath. There is eye rolling and there is general grumbling. I've heard it from the community.

I've heard it when I've been into other professional spaces that people have whinged about how members of this council have whinged about how long council meetings take because some people just keep asking questions , was the quote that I was given not that long ago. So there is pressure on councillors to be silent in these meetings. Don't kid yourselves about that. I will make the comment that efficiency is not the same as effectiveness. A fast meeting that does away with democracy, or that doesn't allow open debate because of the time pressures, is not a good, open, effective meeting, and it's certainly not a democratic meeting. We have great lists of outstanding tasks that we could get on with as a council .

And I note that an 11 p.m. finishing time is preferred. I'm a bit of a night owl, so I can function past 11 o'clock, but if that's the standard, I'm happy to adhere to it, and I'm happy to come back next week.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. Look, I just want to say that I found your address, Councillor, very useful, and thank you for giving it to us . In regards to the other points raised, certainly from my perspective, I don't think there's ever been any pressure on anyone to stop talking. There's certainly been frustration around the chamber when we do spend, you know, 20 minutes, half an hour, an hour agreeing with each other, and the vote is unanimous, and it was just a really good opportunity to have a chat. And that's where effectiveness, that's where efficiency would have been more effective in that situation, that if we were all going to agree, if we all knew what we were doing, we actually don't need to all sit around and talk about how much we agree with each other for the best part of an hour.

We could just get on and do it, and that's sometimes where the frustration comes from. Like the Deputy Mayor said, there's never, the code of meeting practice does not allow anyone to not have the chance to debate fully, as was suggested. It's just not possible. Well, sorry, that's a good point. When you're interrupted to say that, it does. It would if someone moved to say we should stop debate, but that doesn't happen. We haven't had that happen, I think, I don't know if we've had it happen this term of council. I don't think we have. Pardon

Well, if the motion is put, if someone puts a motion—

When was that

Well, we've had it. You've done it a couple of

Times. I said in this term.

It's January maybe not, but yeah, in the previous

Term. Perhaps, like for example, right now, I'm not feeling too much pressure to be quiet, but I'm being interrupted and not even correct. So you're not listening or engaging in debate, are you ? Because I said it hasn't happened in this term, and you interrupted to tell me that it has, and then I asked you when, and you said, Oh, maybe not . Like I said, I don't recall that, but if it's happened, it's happened very rarely, and it's been the democratic will of the chamber. And

There's a distinct lack of respect very often from you, Councillor Wheeler, and I find it really disturbing. Point

Of order, Madam Mayor.

What was your point of order?

Comments that be directed through the chair, not directly, particularly insults,

Across the chamber. Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. I'll take that on board for next time, Councillor Conolly.

Yes, next time I've got something to say like that, I'll make sure I direct it through you. But I will point out it's not an insult. I said there's a distinct lack of respect, and that's just the case.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly. I do believe there are two standards, and we should try and all get to one standard. I'll put that to the vote. The motion, sorry, is as per the business paper. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor— oh, sorry, I've got to tick my boxes here . Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, and Councillor McMahon. All those against? Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Zamprogno. The motion is carried.

The next item is item 184. Oh, sorry. Yes, 184, because the next two items were on block. The September 2022 quarterly budget review statement. Do I have someone to move the motion, please? Councillor Conolly. Seconder, please. Councillor Veigel. Councillor Conolly, you wish to speak?

No, that's okay.

Any other councillor wish to speak?

Councillor Sheather. Yeah

Just a question I'd like clarified, Madam Mayor. During our briefing, we spoke about allocation of funds to fix up our roads, and I think from memory, I just can't see it here at the moment, I don't know whether it's in this, it was $450,000 or something along those lines. Sorry? Yep ,

$402,000. That concerned me a bit. It was indicated to us that there could be more funds made available, but when I looked at the road program and the works we've got to do, there's been $300,000 allocated for Sackville Road, similar for Grono Farm Road. I'm guessing there's probably half a K.

$402,000 might do a kilometre, and we've got thousands and hundreds of miles of roads that's bad. I just wonder how we're going to fix that with $402,000 and the sort of funds that's likely to be required. To fix up, in reasonable time, the devastation to our roads, could it be clarified how we might go about that and how we might pay for it?

Thank you, Councillor Sheather. I will ask the Director of Infrastructure to answer your question.

Thank you, through you, Madam Chair. The 402,000—pardon me—the 402,000 is for additional maintenance as opposed to rehabilitation. So some temporary fixes aimed to try and take us beyond, for some of those roads, beyond the current market conditions, which are seeing it a very significant challenge to get materials, labour and other supplies. They're not intended to be permanent 20-year repairs, and it's essentially to facilitate, I suppose, advanced pothole patching, if you will, to get us beyond, as I said, this hump. In terms of the job ahead of us, that's going to require more time. We're undertaking a condition audit of our roads at the moment, procuring that service. That's going to be the basis of our future transport asset management plan, which will essentially set out the work ahead of us over the next 10 years to not only undertake the immediate repairs, but then to bring us back to something of a more even keel when it comes to our road asset management, considering both maintenance and operations as well as long-term renewal.

Thank you, Councillor Sheather, continue.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. It just concerns me with the amount of work we've got and what's in front of us. And we talk about funding and how that might be likely to happen. We discussed it in your memo a minute about a 15 percent increase to residents because of that event. Which has created probably the very thing we're talking about now, a road maintenance program.

Within our program, we're proposing to seal, pack a road, and I mentioned that in our briefing too. It really concerns me that where we might be sealing a road that can be well maintained with grading, as it has been and is at the moment—I was up it the other day again—when we seal it, and by the time we get around to fixing some of these problems, you can bet your life pack a road will need that sort of service as well. So, and we're going to be looking for money in the future, and I'm guessing that—

Well, I won't speak for the other councils, but I'll certainly speak for myself—that if we go seal and pack a road, I'm going to get skinned, when there's so much degradation to roads around where we're likely, if the products become available and the opportunity for tender and the like steps up, as I hope it does, then we say, well, we haven't got the money to do it. And that's why I asked in the briefing whether or not that money should be set aside for just the purpose of rehabilitation of the roads that are

Really bad state at the moment. Because with all the things, as the director said, we're not catching up, and it can't go on like this. Something's got to happen to increase our resilience in fixing these roads. And the last thing I want at the end of the day is to turn around and say, we've got no money. So that's why I asked the question. And

I would ask another one. If, first when, if Paco Road is programmed in, I think it's in the fourth quarter,

How late can that money be redirected for the purpose that I'm talking about, if it's to happen?

Thank you, Councillor Sheather. I will direct that question to the Director of Infrastructure, but I do believe because it's part of the operational plan it would need a motion, but it may not. I might be wrong. I'll leave that to the Director.

Through you, Madam Chair, thank you. Yes, it would most likely be dealt with through a quarterly budget review process and essentially Council would resolve to re-vote the funds into another project or program.

In terms of timing, I'd have to go back and refresh my memory on the timing of Paco Road, but it would have to occur prior to the procurement of materials, labour, etc. So generally something in the order of a two to three month lead time.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the item? Oh, Councillor Dogramaci. Yes,

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't know where to start. You all know my feelings about, especially this sewer matter, which was a confidential meeting last week. Now my question is that I gave my word to, especially to Councillor Zamprogno, that I would keep that meeting confidential. Now what happens if I decide to go public? That's my number one question. Shall I carry on?

Do you want

That answered first, or you want to just

Finish? Yeah, please, if somebody could answer me. I'm sure you're

Aware, Councillor, that you have obligations in being a councillor under the Local Government Act and, of course, under the Code of Conduct about ensuring confidentiality is kept when we are in a briefing. We are briefed on information that will then come to a business paper. That's the point when the information becomes public.

But what happens to transparency? The people out there, ratepayers, you know, don't they have any right to find out, you know, how much certain people, certain directors have wasted the incredible amount of money? I don't know the reason. There will

Be a time when that item comes to the chamber, and that's the correct time to debate that issue, Councillor.

Any idea when?

It'll be before the end of the year.

Okay. The next question is that, of course, we are behind work. I don't know what's going to happen. The other question is that, if I may ask, Madam Mayor, why my inquiries have been stalled and I'm not getting, as a councillor, I don't know whether I'm allowed to receive answers to my questions. For example, one of them was the hot topic, then Pitt Town Road, which I have the email saying that the work was done from Windsor Road all the way to Charles Street.

Councillor, I will just remind you that you do have to speak to the item on the business paper

Okay. All right. If it's on the work again, we were told that certain departments could not find workmen or companies to carry out the works. If I may remind

Six people, I think, that I have provided a list on the 6th of June. And I have given one of the copies to Councillor Sheather as well, for companies willing to start and complete the works, including this one. And to my surprise, well, maybe not my surprise, but hopefully, I was hoping that something would happen, but every single one of those six copies were lost.

Again, Councillor, I thank you for your remarks, but it has to stay relevant to this item, which is the favourable and unfavourable movement of funds as distributed in the business paper

Well, it's indirectly related because it's money. At the end of the day, it's money that— Councillor

We're under a very strict process by the State Government about tendering or procurement, and those companies need to enter that process if they want to engage in that work.

Well, I was not asked that. I was asked if we could assist infrastructure management, that section, with names of the companies and individuals who were willing and able to assist.

I believe those names have been submitted to the staff. Well,

I was told that they were lost.

Well, those companies would have to contact either the council themselves or work out the process that they need to be able to tender or put in their documentation to be a qualified contractor under our guidelines. We can't just give a job to someone on the street without them going through

The checks and balances. Certainly, yeah, I understand that.

I understand your frustrations,

Councillor. Very much so, yes, very much so. I don't know what's happening.

Our whole community is frustrated, though, with a whole range of things, and just getting on with the job of meeting our community expectations, I fully appreciate that, but we do have a lot of constraints right now, including a State Government who's not answering our pleas for help.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Does anyone else wish to speak?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think it's really important that we draw attention to this particular item so that the community can be kept up to date with how Council's travelling and what things impact the budget and what changes occur where we either save some money or where we spend some more money. So each quarter this is reported in this format, and I think it's a really good mechanism to show the public how ratepayer money, and also via all the grants that we've received, our taxpayer money, how that's currently being spent. So I thank the staff for their reporting and keeping us abreast of this in the manner that they do, because I think this is set out in a very good way, that the staff set this out as a good way to have a look at the various favourable and unfavourable adjustments, and also to have a look at the grant funding and where that's being allocated to.

There's also other issues around our reserves and so on, and some information about staff numbers. As everyone knows, we've had multiple and cumulative challenges going on for some time, and it's fully understandable that ratepayers, our ratepayers, prioritise road and facility repairs from the disasters. That's at the forefront of their mind, and that's mainly what they focus on. But of course, in amongst all of that, we've got to continue our business as usual and still deliver the other services and upgrades that are required. So whereas we acknowledge that the public want to focus mainly on road and other repairs, we're also the recipient of large amounts of grant funding, and we've got many proposed projects which will be challenging to deliver, but we've still got to get on and do that.

So I think pointing out some of these favourable and unfavourable adjustments is very pertinent in this economic climate for the benefit of ratepayers to understand.

Ratepayers can see the explanations about the variations, and we can see that we have had some, have to have some expenditure around sewer repairs. We've had some recruitment costs and increased costs around a restructure within the organisation, and we've had some favourable adjustments which relate to the increase in the general rates, which was from the special rate variation . And we've also had some unfavourable adjustments around the number of staff that we have now employed. So the number of staff positions has increased by 14.4 full-time employees, or equivalents, I think the word is. Some of that's grant funded, but others are at additional expense to the organisation. So it's imperative, as I've always believed, that we have the staff required to allow us to carry out our functions and responsibilities.

And I'm really pleased to see a shift in the attitude of some councillors within here who, a few years ago, we had some councillors carry on with the most amazing song and dance about the numbers of employees we

Had. Thank you, Councillor Conolly. What was your point of order?

I don't think anyone carried on with a song and dance. No, I think there's constant referrals to other councils and it's disrespectful.

I'm sorry,

You're sitting there laughing

And giggling with Councillor Kotlash, and you just called Councillor Wheeler out for being disrespectful.

I think that, Councillor Conolly, your point of order is valid. You are casting aspersions on other councillors who made valid points at the time when we were not in a disaster period. And I don't think it's fair to be calling out one councillor for laughing when you were doing it just a minute ago.

Well, I'm not sure. Let's just carry on. Those comments were directed, I believe, to me, but Councillor Lyons-Buckett was looking at me, but I assume she was talking to you, so I'm not

Sure. I assume they were about me as well. Your point of order is— I'm sorry

But that's a double standard. To sit there and carry on like you just have when you're trying to tell me not to do it.

I'm saying that you've called Councillor Conolly to account as you sat there giggling about him in two items ago, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I

Was not giggling about him.

You were interrupting. So why don't we all just decide right now we're going to pick up our standards and carry on with our debate. Please carry on with your comments, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you. So a few years ago, there was a lot of fuss made about how many employees we had, and I'm pleased to see that that resistance has now gone. So there was a lot of carry-on about it, and that just simply is the truth. When we tried to get additional project management staff to help us to do projects. Anyway, regardless, now we have hopefully adequate staff to be able to deliver the very big program that we have ahead of that. The other area around grant funding is an area where changes can occur, and there's an outline of those adjustments. So of course, sometimes we get other money that assists with something we've already allocated a project to, and this sets that out for the general public to see.

So I would encourage people, if they have questions about what's going on with the finances of Council, to contact councillors and ask the questions so that we can follow up and provide the accurate information so people understand how these things are changing as the projects... evolve and as the year goes by. So we're going to have very challenging times ahead as economic conditions shift. We know that that will be in councils as well as in businesses and individuals, of course. And again, I thank the staff for the concise and good reporting that they've put here so that people can read it and hopefully understand where their money is being spent. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wish to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I think there's a few things going on in this quarterly review, and I think it's very helpful. There's been lots of comments on social media about council not being up to the task that currently faces us in terms of our ability to fund recovery, our ability to carry out that recovery in a timely

Manner, but also in a manner that lasts the distance long term. Everyone is instantly a pothole and road engineering expert on social media, and some of that I think is unfortunate because what's happened with the— and I think, you know, in part because we've not had the assistance from the state government that we've asked for, the community is pretty depressed by the state that they're seeing around them. I think if they, for some people, I think if they travelled a little further afield, they would see that this is not a problem localised to the Hawkesbury. Certainly, we saw in the local government conference that potholes was the main conversation at every meal break. There were even show bags of pothole filler that you could bring home.

So there was, you know, pothole glue, basically, with warnings not to open the black bottle, which I forgot to pass on until quite late in the evening. So there are, there are— these are challenges that local government is facing, and I think the only way we can move forward and give the community some degree of confidence is to be very open about how we're dealing with this from a financial standpoint. There is some good news in this quarterly review. It's not all awful. I notice we've managed to pay off what, for us, is a small loan, but for most people would be a fairly hefty loan. What we are seeing, though, is the beginnings of the cost of a changing and unstable climate, and they are going to continue to cost this council where we deal with heat, flood and fire.

They're going to continue to cost us money, and we really need to begin not just recovering from those isolated disasters, but really adapting and planning for the future as these become— we're not going back to the way things were. We have to be really clear about that, and we have to start preparing for what is the new normal. And I know we use that term a lot with COVID, but there is a new climate normal as well, or not normal, I think is going to be closer to the truth. I also want to make note that flood insurance does not cover the true costs of flood recovery. They don't cover our staff costs, and they don't cover our full costs of the items that we can claim. Our insurance is capped, and our expenses are well over that cap, and that leaves a hole that we're going to have to fund from somewhere.

I also want to note that illegal works, when people do them, under this idea that persists in the Hawkesbury that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, have ongoing costs to ratepayers, and that adjustment for asbestos removal at Peel Park is a fine example. So not only did—now, I'm sure that was great fun for all the people who've played there, but it's cost council a lot of money to remediate the site, and it's also left all those kids who played on that site vulnerable to a very, very miserable death. Years down the track. There are reasons that there are laws about compliance, and people really need to start adhering to them. Council needs to—we need to step up our compliance measures in order to do that.

And I note that we have recently

Increased our capacity in that area, and we've increased our capacity in some other areas that you can see from this document, including around recovery and business improvement. Packer Road—the idea of shifting Packer Road out in order to fix Sackville Road, I think is a dangerous precedent. Those residents have anticipated that work since 2017 when we went out and asked them about the SRV with a works plan. If you reallocate that funding, you'll still be skinned. You'll just have to drive further up the hill for it to happen. The road service has deteriorated with wet weather. It's dangerous, and it functions as a fire access route and as an access route for Lower Portland and parts of Cumberland Reach during flood. I would urge you to reconsider pushing for that money to be shifted. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wish to speak?

Councillor Sheather, I think you've spoken. Just

To clarify something.

You can only ask a question.

It's clarification.

Okay.

There's a comment made by Councillor Dogramaci that there were some papers lost. One of them was given to me.

Okay.

At the time, he gave it to me, I gave an assurance what would happen to it, and that's exactly— And I'll follow through on that.

Okay. No, thank you for clearing that up, Councillor Sheather. I appreciate that. I might just make a couple of quick remarks before right of reply. That's just to say that these kind of quarterly budget review statements are essential for our transparency as a council and what's happening with our funding. I think that the community, while I know that we all individually get a bit of heat from people about their expectations around roads and potholes, we have to be quite clear that there are actually council staff employed to do other things than fill potholes. And that's to obtain grants, and that's to mow our lawns, and that's to do all of those sorts of things. So our staff are getting on with the job under exceptional circumstances, and that goes to the very heart of my mayoral minute about what our council staff are dealing with on top of what would be considered their daily duties.

And that also therefore comes into— make a quick comment about the full-time equivalence. And very publicly in this chamber, I made the point years ago under a former general manager that I did not believe that the staff at that time were adequate, but we must admit now we are in a very different environment. We've said multiple times tonight, six floods in around two and a half years. We're dealing with a very tired and exhausted community and tired and exhausted staff. There's a lot of grant funding out there for these different positions to implement programs, and we have taken them up, and I'm proud that we have. And we are building a much better culture right now within our staff, or so I'm told, and so I can see, sitting in the mayor's chair every single day, workday in this building, and that's good to see.

And I think that despite the extra workload, despite the pressure, being in a disaster recovery phase, that we are building a good culture here and a place that people do want to work at. When you look at those figures, they're about full-time equivalent roles. So I'll leave it at that. If there's no further remarks, I'll go to right of reply, Councillor Conolly. Not necessary. Excellent. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Amprogno and Councillor McMahon. Those against?

Councillor Dogramaci. The motion is carried.

Next item is item 185, the investment report. Do I have someone ready to move something, please? Councillor Wheeler.

I'll move the recommendation in the business paper.

Seconder, please. Councillor Sheather. Over to you, Councillor Wheeler.

Just very quickly, I called this up because I just wanted to clarify. There's some comments in here that Council will need to change some of our practices and urgency to pursue strategies and a shift to FRNs, and I just needed to clarify that we have the policy systems in place in order to facilitate that, that Council doesn't need to resolve to do anything else.

Sorry, was that a question that you'd like answered? Yes, thank you.

Through you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, that's correct. It's already covered off within the policy. So we've been looking to establish FRNs and invest in them for a while. We have now the practices in place ready to go. Unfortunately, in the last couple of months, we've not had the cash flow available to actually take up any available FRNs. They're not something that happens regularly, but they do happen. Sort of, I get one across my desk probably once every couple of months. So it's just a matter of waiting for that cash flow to be available to take advantage.

And there's no additional risk to Council from moving? It's a mitigated risk,

Yeah. So it's a mitigated risk, but with higher returns. So it's still within the policy frameworks, which is a conservative framework. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other councillors wish to speak?

No. No right of reply needed, Councillor Wheeler? No. I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Improgno, Councillor McMahon. Carried unanimously. Okay . Item 186.

Next, and I will just read my declaration into the microphone. I'm declaring a less than significant non-pecuniary interest, the form being submitted for this item is mine. But obviously no pecuniary interest, I'm just submitting a form. So does anyone want to move the motion, please? Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Seconder, please? Councillor Reardon. Would you just speak, Councillor Conolly? Anyone else? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Can I ask a question through you? Why are our returns still not online, and what date, by which date, will they be put online?

Thank you, Councillor. I'll hand to the General Manager.

Oh, sorry.

Yes, I can deal with that through you, Madam Mayor. The returns, I can't give an exact date to the council as to when they'll be online. It will happen soon. We've had some issues with the availability of staff due to leave and other things who would normally carry out that task, which is one of the reasons why it hasn't been attended to. But it will be done shortly. I suspect that they will be able to be loaded onto the website within the next fortnight.

So by the end of this calendar year, our returns will be online? Yes. Thank you, because at the moment we are not compliant. Section 6 of the GIPA Act says that mandatory proactive release of open access information must be publicly available free of charge on a website maintained by the agency. Now this

Change happened in 2019. We're coming to the end of 2022. We are not compliant. It is not free and simple access for people if they have to make an appointment, see a staff member, and then stand and look at a book. I don't think anybody here has a problem with having their form online. I'll happily sit there and scan them in myself if that's the hold-up. It isn't good enough that these aren't online, and they should be. I don't care whose they are. It just happens that this is the mayor's return. I'm not raising it because it's the mayor's return. I'm raising it because we are not compliant, and that should concern us greatly. I'm hoping that the mover of this motion will take an additional point that they be online by the 22nd of December, or some such date.

I think I'm fine with that. Can I just ask for comment from the General Manager or Director Corporate Services on just commenting around our compliance and if there is an issue that council should be aware of there?

Thank you, Councillor Conolly. General Manager? Yeah, I'll take that. I think Councillor Wheeler is correct that this is information that should be publicly disclosed on the website, and we've clearly had some resourcing issues that has led to our inability to display it. I'm more than happy to give my commitment that that'll be done by the end of the year. Thank you.

Happy day, that is point two. Yep Happy with that, Councillor Reardon as the seconder? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Councillor Kotlash.

Just a quick question on that. Have we had people apply to come in and access that information?

Over to you.

Through you, Madam Mayor, not to my knowledge.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? No. I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Impragna, Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Dogramaci. Declare the motion carried.

Okay, item 187, draft naming of roads and places policy. Do I have a mover for that motion, please?

Councillor Wheeler, are you moving it? I'll move it, but with a couple of changes.

Okay.

We might just see those changes before we get a

Seconder. Look, I haven't sent them through because they're— because I

Didn't know how to draft it, basically. But the changes are to point 2 of the policy and point 5 .2, which is the same wording, where it refers to all names. So there's a reference to— 5 .1 and 1 is that First Nations people will be consulted on names that are First Nations names. It should be the practice of this council to consult with First Nations peoples on all names, because we , as white people, aren't the best people to be making the decisions as to what First Nations people would like to comment on or have an ability to comment on. All names should be run past them. History has thus far been written by white colonisers, and there's a lovely example in the Hills that I've referred to in this chamber before, where they have a street named after a white man that wouldn't be flagged under our policy.

That is enormously problematic to the Aboriginal population there, because he ran a mission where children were systematically abused for decades, and they're having real trouble now renaming that street. So all names need to be run past the relevant First Nations communities. So if we could have some amendment to the policy that does that, and then when we come to point 6 or section 6... It talks about consultation as usual. I think we need to move beyond as usual consultation with relevant cultural groups, particularly First Nations groups, to an active consultation model where we actively go out and say to them, What do you think? Are you comfortable with this? Not our as usual model, which basically says that we're really good at it already and we'll just move along, and that really isn't the case.

So if we could make those changes to the policy, I would be happier with it before it goes out on draft. I would be happier with it. There's also a typo in 5.3, have needs to be removed from that sentence because it doesn't read well at the moment.

I'd also like flagged in the resolution that the policy will require updating when the RAP is adopted, and that I think needs to be flagged so that it happens and it stays on our books, rather than this being adopted, because it may not come back to Council. If there are no public comments, it may not come back to us. The resolution allows for it to just be passed into policy. I think we need to have a resolution so that it comes up again whenever the RAP is adopted, so it can go into that not quite finished pile that we get each year or so and look over and decide to do something with. I'm sorry that's not as easy to process as it could be. Do you want me to come up with some words?

Yeah, I think we need to. So are you happy with points one and two as they are, and then you wanted to add point three with the changes that you wish to make before it went to public exhibition?

Yeah, look, maybe point one attached to this report be placed on public exhibition for 28 days with the following changes. With the following changes. Two, all names require consultation. Just for

The staff's purposes, Councillor Wheeler, where are you referring to? Point 2

In the policy. Yep. And which paragraph? It's the— sorry , I haven't got it, I'm online so I haven't got it in front of me.

Oh, you mean 5.2?

No, well, 5.2 and 2, purpose. So, yeah, so second paragraph of purpose says First Nations names are to be chosen in consultation or validated with First Nations groups. I'd like that First Nations name to all names are to be chosen.

And then the same applies to 5.2, where

It says First Nations names are to be chosen in consultation, which is the same. So again, to all names.

And then point 6 is

The third paragraph: Local Indigenous groups will be consulted on proposed names as part of the usual consultation process. Will be consulted on proposed names using an active consultation model.

Just for clarification, is that something that we would know what model that means? Just to give the staff some clarity, I

Would imagine that there is an active consultation model which involves going out and actively seeking input in a safe, supported space, rather than— because our usual consultation process is not necessarily for First Nations people, but our usual consultation processes are to advertise in the Gazette and on social media, and that isn't going to reach the people that this, that it necessarily needs to reach.

Okay. Any other changes,

Council? And then a final point three to the motion, that the policy be

Flagged for updating

When the RAP is adopted.

Thank you. I think the staff are aware of that now. Do I have a seconder for that then?

Anyone wish to second that? Councillor Lyons-Buckett? Have you finished speaking, Councillor Wheeler? Yes, thank you. Any other councillors wish to speak? Councillor Conolly.

I'd like to move an amendment, which is the recommendation in the business paper, but with a change to point two, that at the expiration of the public notification exhibition process outlined in part one above, the matter be reported back to Council , regardless of submissions. I don't have a particular problem with anything that's been suggested on the face of it, but I don't like the idea that we're just going to make a decision with absolutely no thought at all on the floor of the chamber as to how that might actually work in practice. And I'd like the opportunity to talk to the staff that would be involved and to get their advice and to look at what that might mean before I had to make that decision, given that I've just brought it up right now.

I think by putting on an exhibition as is, we've had this conversation, which should flag our intentions. We can, when it comes back, if there's a submission to that point, that might help. Even if there's not, we will have a chance to think and talk about it, and we can make that change when it comes back if we want to.

Thank you, Councillors. So just to be clear, keep it as it is, but come back no matter what.

Yes.

Yeah. Is there a seconder for that amendment? Councillor Reardon.

Do you wish to speak further, Councillor Conolly? No. Speakers on the amendment, Councillor Kotlash.

Okay, thank you.

No, I won't speak on the amendment. Can I just ask a question? This is pertinent to both the Councillor Wheeler's changes as well. In the reconciliation action plan, have we discussed the issue of naming? And it seems—I just wanted to know whether we've asked the Aboriginal community what they want to do. I mean, we're making decisions about what they presumably, what they want to do. Have we had conversations around this issue? Thank you, Councillor. I'll refer to staff. Thank you

Through you, Madam Mayor. The Reconciliation Action Plan working group have actually highlighted naming specifically as a draft action. At the moment, I believe the action is worded to explore opportunities for recognition of Aboriginal cultures and histories through naming of— I don't think it was actually specific in terms of sites of significance, but it was literally just to explore opportunities for dual or Aboriginal naming to recognise cultural—yes, cultures and histories.

A follow-up question, if I may, Madam Mayor. So, was the—I read the naming policy, but just to save me from flicking through it, was that taken into consideration, and is that listed as an opportunity in the naming policy, or was it just about asking the Aboriginal community about specific Aboriginal names?

Over to you.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. As I understand it, the Aboriginal community were recognised in there as a key stakeholder for consultation. It wasn't specific only to Aboriginal names, but they are broadly identified as one of the key stakeholders to be consulted with as part of the policy.

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash, you wish to continue?

Yeah, I'll leave it at that.

Does anyone else wish to make a comment on the amendment?

Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I refute the idea that this has come with no thought at all. Frankly, this highlights the need for Council to have a reconciliation action plan in place, and I understand that it's currently with the relevant agency for approval.

What I'm asking for is for us to do what Councillor Kotlash has just asked whether we're doing. No one's making decisions for First Nations people here. I'm asking that we facilitate their capacity to have input into those decisions and, in fact, make those decisions where they choose to. The policy as it is currently written, pigeonholes First Nations people to First Nations names and First Nations issues. I'm asking that we expand the process so that when it first goes out to the community, not after it goes on exhibition, which is what the amendment is asking for, put it out on exhibition, tell the First Nations community that we only want their input on First Nations names, and then when they are either not happy about that, we deal with it, or we wait until, or they go, well, good, same old, same old, thanks for coming, and they choose not to participate, because that's what happens when you've been comprehensively demoralised in a society for 200 years.

So I can tell you what's going to happen unless someone is really angered by this, it'll probably just stay the way it is. So let's not go out and insult the community. Let's make these changes now. They're the right thing to do. Let's open this up so that we carry out what a reconciliation action plan will actually recommend to us, which is to consult with First Nations people from the outset on all things, on what is still Darug land.

It's not very efficient to send it out the way it is, frankly, and have it come back again so that we can have the same discussion that we've already just had. We have the opportunity to do the right thing from the beginning. Let's not put it off for a couple of months and then rehash it again with all the pain that that potentially causes. Let's just do the right thing. We know it's the right thing. Let's just get on with it.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment? Yes, Councillor Conolly.

To make the point, if councillors felt really strongly that way, we could always just defer this till next week. I think the only objection at all is coming from the fact that we just found out about this potential change and had 30 seconds to think about it, and it is a change to the document. So if there's a fear that putting it out as it is is somehow offensive, then let's just, why don't we just wait seven days and have time to think and talk and do it next week.

So you're changing your amendment to defer the item, or

Can I do that?

I don't know if you can. I'm just thinking the same thing in my head as the wheels are spinning. I think we might have to vote on this amendment and

Then— Well, if it fails, then I'll foreshadow that one.

Then you will foreshadow that. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you, Councillor. Oh, you can withdraw the motion. Do you want to withdraw your amendment, sorry?

All right. Well, I'll withdraw the amendment and then move an amendment, if I can, that we defer it till the next meeting of Council.

Do I have a seconder for the deferred amendment?

Councillor Reardon.

Does anyone wish to speak on the amendment to defer? Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

Yeah, just to say that I can't believe that you need to think about whether— Consulting with First Nations people is the right thing to do or not? Seriously? What decade are we in?

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Conolly.

I just, I don't want to keep going back and forth, but I hope that we can all expect to come here and not be yelled at, Madam Mayor. We're just having a discussion about something and we've just got these outbursts and it's not right.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Just for clarification, is the— when you're intent for it to come back next week with the debated changes or as is?

I think the same report can just be submitted to save any time, and Councillors would have made up their mind by then what we want to do.

Okay, based on the proposed changes. Yep. Are you wanting to see those proposed changes in a format, or you understand what they

Are? I don't think we need to ask staff to do anything. Yeah, I mean, Councillor realises our one what she wants changed in terms of which clause, and I think, like I said broadly, I can't actually see a problem with that. I expect that it'll be fine. I would just like a chance to actually look at how that would actually work. Okay,

Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak? Thank you, Councillor

Lyons-Buckett. I'll speak against the amendment. I agree with Councillor Wheeler. I think it's preposterous to defer. So often when we want to defer things, there's this resistance to defer anything. But I think in this situation, it's been made very clear. We do often bring things just on the floor of the council, particularly amendments, and I think that we should just proceed with it. It's going out on public exhibition. If there's any real issues with it, then people will raise it then.

Thank you. Any other councillors wish to make a comment on the amendment to defer? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm going to support the amendment, but with the comments made by Councillor Wheeler or anybody else around the table, that I would expect there'd be a line item if it comes up next week from the staff along those lines from the discussions that have been around the table tonight.

Yeah, or anything else that comes up in the week leading up to that. I don't think there's any dissent in what's trying to be achieved here at all. I think it's a matter and a process. You can be insulting sometimes by trying to go too far, I guess, and I don't mean that disrespectfully at all. But I expect our staff to be professional enough if there's issues that need to come to our attention, that's been addressed by the councillors, that that's exactly what would happen.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm going to support the deferral. I want it noted that in doing so, I'm doing this because I actually want to do a bit more research, and I want the agent from the Aboriginal community to be the ones, or the people that give us our information. I don't think it's right for somebody in this chamber to say that they know what that community is thinking. I want to have those discussions and that consultation myself for my own benefit. I don't think it's insulting. I don't think it's insulting to defer this in order to get that information directly from the Aboriginal community. So that's, I think by next week, I'll be able to have better information and ask people directly what they want to do instead of presuming that we know what they want. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Dogramaci. Yes,

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm going back to the meeting last week, the confidential meeting.

Is there any suggestion from anyone that we should maybe go to KPMG again, you know, get them to go through?

Councillor, we are talking about our road naming policy, and that is not directly relevant to the item on the business

Paper. Well, I think, to me, I think that is just going around and round. I mean, here we are, we are telling everyone and every meeting that they are the custodians of this land, and here we are, you know, discussing and going up and down, up and down. That's what I said. Maybe we should spend a few more hundred thousand dollars or get them, you know, to do the job. Thank you.

Thank you for your remarks, Councillor. If no one else wishes to speak, I will just add, I'm happy to support—it's a night for phones tonight, isn't it? I'm happy to support the amendment to defer, but I also have no problem with the proposed changes either. But I do take Councillor Kotlash's remarks on board that I'd be very happy to have a representative of that community come and address us, and I don't know if that needs a formal invitation from us as Council, or perhaps if councillors are aware of someone that they can personally invite to come and speak to the item, I think that that would be of benefit. Again, I'll be supporting the deferment, but also I don't have an issue with the changes at all.

I think that they're minor, and if that reflects the wishes of the community, I would love to hear that from a representative myself as well. So if there's no one else who wishes to speak, I will put the amendment to the vote, which is to defer. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor McMahon. All those against? Councillor Dogramachi, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Wheeler. The amendment becomes the motion. The motion is to defer the item as we just clarified. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor McMahon.

All those against? Councillor Dogramachi against, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Wheeler. Declare the motion carried.

Okay, that was item 187. Item 188, Disaster and Emergency Committee.

Do I have anyone ready to move the recommendation, please? Councillor Sheather.

Do I have a seconder for that, please? Councillor Reardon. Councillor Sheather, you wish to speak?

Yeah, just briefly, Madam Mayor. I received an email from Karen Hodges that there wasn't enough councillors that could make the date that had been set. It was, I think it came about from a question that I asked about exactly where the location of the trail was and the like. I proposed to have discussions with Bilpin and Garvan, have a look personally, just so I know where it is. It was described to me, but I guess feet on the ground is something that I'd like to do up there.

Bilpin, in particular, has done a lot of work to achieve that outcome, and it was good to see and hear the comments in that regard and the work that's been done by Bilpin to achieve that outcome with that fire trail. So, Madam Mayor, it's just that. Could you take on board and thank Karen Hodges for the work and effort she put in to try and make that available for the committee?

Thank you, Councillor. Yes, I did actually thank Superintendent Hodges in an email that you should have seen a copy of, so it was reply all. So I did offer our thanks to her for trying to arrange that and also indicated that we would all probably be interested in it with just a little bit more notice, I think. Very busy diaries at the end of the year . Anyone else wishing to speak on the recommendation or the motion? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was also disappointed that that was cancelled too because I think rather than seeing it on a map, actually seeing it in person would have been really advantageous, and hopefully we still will . I just had a question around point 2 on page 59, point 2A, where it says Council endorses the committee recommendations, provides feedback to the— that Council provides feedback to the Bushfire Management Committee in respect of any fire trails that it is aware of that requires upgrades. I was just wondering, what does that mean by Council in that? Does that mean councillors, members of the public? How will that mechanism play out?

Director of Infrastructure, thank you.

Through you, Madam Mayor, the Bushfire Management Committee has a sub-working group that looks at fire trails, so we'd feed that information back through our staff member who represents us on that working group.

So who is it via you to contact if there's a trail that comes to someone's attention? It's through you that we would pass that on if it comes to our attention.

Yes, that would be the most appropriate way, and then we'd triage it in terms of the work that's already been done to identify strategic fire trails and whether it has merit in being put up to the working group.

Okay, all right. So if someone on a private property has a trail at the back or something, they can raise it that way. Okay, thank you. It was beneficial to have the information around the fire rating, and I see that the RFS has got quite a good program of promoting that through advertising and online and so on, which is really good because probably before long we'll need that. I just also wanted to update those in the community who contacted me about their interest in participating in the floodplain management subcommittee, which we resolved to set up some meetings ago. And I think the general manager might confirm this, but I did have an email. The expressions of interest for those who may be interested in participating will be going out shortly, or director of planning. Yes.

Through you, Madam Mayor, yes, that's correct. We're anticipating that the expressions of interest will be advertised either this week or next week. Okay,

Thank you, just clarifying that, and also that the meeting of the working group and the subcommittees will commence in February next year. That's correct. That's anticipated, yes. Thank you. I just wanted to double check that. I'm really keen that the working group looking at the issues around the security of electricity, in particular, starts to meet soon. There's a lot going on in those areas, not just around electricity supply, but as well as electricity and combined with electricity, are solutions around water supply as well, which are emerging. And we really need to keep up on those. They could be very useful, particularly in this time of post-disaster. We could be utilising and trying to get money for these things if we had some, you know, sort of plans done around that.

I think that a recent report of the Autonomous Resilience Project from the Total Environment Centre contained a lot of really relevant information around that. And I know we've got in here a motion to have Endeavour Energy do a briefing, but the idea of having a working group was to look at the things outside of the formalised electricity supply. It was to look at innovation and to look at things that are more mobile solutions that can go out to the more remote areas. And whereas there's current capital costs with those, there's a lot happening, and the more that comes out, the cheaper they'll become. But also, we can see in so many areas how handy it would have been to have some forms of remote solutions in those areas, particularly around power and water.

So I'm very much looking forward to when the working group commences, and thank you for the expressions of interest going out soon. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

No, right of reply, Councillor Sheather, not needed. Okay, I'll get you to raise your hands if you are in favour of the motion, please. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vaigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Dogramaci, you voting? No? No vote. Abstain. I declare the motion carried.

Okay, we now move into notices of motion.

The first notice of motion is item 190, operating guidelines for Council's advisory committees. Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd just like to make one alteration before moving this. Down in the bottom of page 79, in the last two lines, it says existing committee members to continue as committee members, when actually it should have said existing committee members to participate within the new structure. So if I could make that change, and I would like to move it then, thanks.

Councillor Calvert, do you have a seconder for that? Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Over to you, Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. This, what I'm asking for in this notice of motion is that we create a document. I'm not putting this motion up so that we can have a great debate about our committee structure or something else. But when the structure of the committees was changed in 2020, there was a lot of information provided, but a lot of that information tended to be by word of mouth here in the chamber. We did have a constitution published at some point, and that provided some information about how committees should be running. But we've never actually had operating guidelines for the committees. And over the last year or so, I've noticed there's been a little bit of confusion by community and also by some councillors about how these committees should be running.

What I'm hoping to do here is by publishing this document, to get rid of that confusion so we all know exactly how they're supposed to run, and we can all then get behind the new committee system and make it work. So I know that some people will be quite anxious to debate other things, but all I'm asking here in this notice of motion is that we get this document published to reduce confusion, and I hope all the councillors can support it.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the notice of motion?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I agree that we need a document like this, but I don't— can I just ask a question? Who wrote this? Through you, Madam Chair, who wrote this document?

Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Would you wish to answer that, Councillor Calvert?

I wrote

It, Madam Mayor . Thank you. It's just I found some bits of it quite confusing, particularly on page 81 around the resolutions about chairperson deciding whether suggested resolutions are in order, etcetera. I don't know if that is all meant to be about recommendations in that section, but it was confusing. And I think there were a number of aspects of it that were contradictory and confusing. So I will just speak against it, and then I may move an amendment. I think that there's a few things concerning me around this, and it is that within the Code of Meeting Practice under clause 20.28, we're supposed to review the structure of these committees annually, of advisory committees. And back in January, I brought a notice of motion seeking for us to all work together to have a workshop in a group to work out the operational guidelines for these committees.

That was lost on the casting vote at the time, and that was also to allow the newly elected councillors to input into how the committees could best engage with the community and so on. I think in that 10 months since that happened, we've had one meeting of some of the committees and two of another, and three of the disaster emergency management. And we've received a lot of information through those committees, but there's very, very few tangible actions coming out of them, aside from generating some working groups which are yet to have met. And I think that what really I think it comes to is that we have to think about how we get the information into the community about council matters. So we're never going to have hordes of people turn up here and come to committee meetings.

We just aren't. But what we can have is we can have people who move in different circles within the community who go to different groups, whether that's your church group or your sporting group or your community organisation, and those people spread the word about what's happening in council. And they could be people, they don't have to be voting or anything like that, but they could be people who come as representatives onto our committees with special interest groups. I think that— I did watch the recent half hour Innovations Committee meeting, and I thought that was very disappointing in that it did not achieve anything and it did not engage the community. I thank Mr Snedden, who's in the gallery tonight, for being the lone member of the public present at that and for his input into that committee.

But I think we're seeing the deficiencies in that system, and I think before we do any guidelines and before we give the staff more work to do with it, which of course was one of the original reasons we changed it was to stop giving the staff work about it, I think that we should have a proper workshop and look through where we're really heading with these. Not change what they're called or whatever, but there's some of the things that we need to clarify. Now , the setting of the agenda in particular needs clarification. We've had all sorts of things from doing it via council resolution to introducing a section in council meetings where you could put it, to what's proposed now, that it can only be a response to a request for advice, but members of the community can refer agenda items directly to the chairperson of the committee.

I just think that's really peculiar, and I don't think that's workable. Overriding this is a contradiction within our code of meeting practice, which states at clause 20.10 that a councillor who's not a member of the committee can attend meetings, but is not entitled to give notice of business for inclusion in the agenda of that meeting if they're not a councillor on that committee . So in the January meeting, Councillor Kotlash said that she didn't agree to have any community participation into the agenda setting. So I don't understand now how it can be so strongly objected to before, and now things have changed. So I think that we all need to understand why that's changed, and the fact that we were told that the lack of community members was because of the pandemic.

Now we've seen since the pandemic and the lockdown finished, nothing has changed. So we want it to work and we want it to be better, but I think that the staff— I think giving this as the outline for the staff to translate into a document is not a satisfactory way to go ahead. I think there's too much contradiction in it, and I think that there's some confusion in it. We are bound, when we're in the disaster and emergency management, we're bound by the code of meeting practice because we're a council; it's a committee of all councillors, so we fall under that particular clause.

Councillor's bucket, your time has expired if you want to wrap up. Okay,

Thank you. I just think that, I think I'll move an amendment, Madam Mayor, if I may.

Sure. What's your amendment?

I'll move an amendment to have a workshop reviewing the operation of committees so that all councillors can have input into how the committee system guidelines should be shaped.

Do I have a seconder for that? Councillor Wheeler.

Continue on the amendment, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think if we did it that way, we could use some of the points that are already in here. We could let the new councillors, who have yet had an opportunity to really tell us what they feel the objectives and so on should be around the committees, and we could really work through it. I mean, it clearly isn't working, and I know this debate isn't about that. But if we want to set up some really good guidelines of how we want it to work, we need to sort out, go over how the agenda will be set. We need to have discussions around how we do get community involvement, and we need to have discussions about whether we should schedule these meetings ahead of time so that we can actually work with our community, have our community know when these things are on.

We cannot have a meeting called a couple of weeks before and expect people to turn up when they don't know what's going on. I think that we could have a productive workshop on this on one of our spare Tuesday nights, and we could work through it really sensibly and maturely. I think that if we don't, I think if we go with this, we're going to have an ongoing sort of tension around this because there are flaws in this that need to be ironed out. So if we were to pass this tonight and send this on to the staff to deal with, it's not having all the councillors' input, and I think it deserves to have all 12 councillors have an input into it.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you. I just need to ask if I could, through you, Madam Mayor, Councillor Lyons-Buckett referred to something that I had said. I just wanted the details of that so I can look that up because I didn't really know what she was talking about.

Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Could you clarify what you're referring to, please?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was referring into the meeting in January, I'm not sure of the date, 25th maybe, where I bought a notice of motion, and during the debate you've said that you did not agree with community input into the agenda.

Councillor Kotlash. Thank you

Thank you.

Councillor Conolly.

I'm going to support the amendment. The idea doesn't fill me with much joy, to be honest, but I agree with the conclusion, if not the arguments, that this is just, for whatever reason, we can't all get on board with it, and we need to all get on board with it so we can stop talking about it before we all go insane. So I think we need to have it out, have the conflict, but it needs to be on the basis that at the end of the day everyone gets on board with Council's decision after that. Everyone gets a chance to speak for as long as they want, to say whatever they want, but we all need to, at the end of that, just get on board with it. Whatever decision Council makes and move on from it, because the amount of time that this Council has spent discussing its committee platform is hard to understand.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Sheather.

Yes, Madam Mayor. Just a question through you to Deputy Mayor. In relation to the format, the support to

Offer the outcome, was it from your lounge room?

Sorry, I don't understand the question.

The support you had in formatting what you got here. And was any of it through the staff as well, or outside the structure of the council?

All the information here, or most of it, came from documents that were provided in 2020 and earlier, when we had workshops on the matter. I went through all that and compiled it into this. I didn't sit in my lounge room and make it up, if that's what your question is. No. And I had a general —I believe that everyone had a general understanding of all this, but I'm finding out even more tonight that maybe they don't, and that's why I think we needed the documents so we could all have it written down and we could all agree what the rules would be. And I hope that answers your question.

Thank you, Councillor. I certainly was insinuating that it wasn't Andrew's effort by the Deputy Mayor. The effort and work that went into this didn't take five minutes at all. I read it and I briefly discussed one thing with the Deputy Mayor about it when I read it, and I would commend him for the work and effort that he's put into it. And I do support the motion. I haven't —if someone else wants or thinks that there's a better opportunity, fine, but there needs to be a format, and this is one. It's probably not the only one, and, well, it's not. There's a lot of others. But I commend the Deputy Mayor on the work that he's done to put this forward.

Thank you, Councillor. Any other councillors? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I agree the amendment is a better way forward. We do need to have this out because currently it isn't working, and I'm pleased to see that we have at least something we can build on now because I don't think we've had an adequate set of guidelines for committees. I find it interesting to see, clearly articulated in here, that the whole process that we went through with committees was to expand community participation, provide community-based advice to Council, and make committees more relevant and functional. And I'm glad to see that written down because otherwise, apart from that, this is currently a document of the most extraordinary revisionism. Because the committees to date have done exactly the opposite of those three things.

And so I agree that we need to get in a room and work out how to move this forward. One of the things that needs to be done, and this document currently really doesn't acknowledge, is that the Heritage Advisory Committee does not function like these other councillor-only committees. And I would hate to see yet again us have to defend the Heritage Advisory Committee so that it maintains its continuing capacity to function with members of the community and experts on it. It's really important that that committee isn't encumbered by some of the things in this structure, and that's another reason that we need to talk about this. The Heritage Committee continues to function well. We had a 12-month hiatus where we got caught up in the committees rehash and didn't have meetings laid out for the 12 months, and that has run on into this year.

We nearly lost a significant grant as a result. That committee is incredibly busy. It has a lot of work ahead of it, and it needs to continue to function with the staff that are involved and the people that are involved in order to get that work done, because there's actually a lot of money and a lot of work riding on it. So this document doesn't reflect the needs of the Heritage Advisory Committee to stand not completely separate, but apart on a number of things. So I'm happy for this to go to—I'm happy to support the amendment, but I certainly couldn't support the current—sorry , the initial motion .

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Any other councillors wish to speak?

No, I'll just— oh, Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Look, I'm a bit perplexed by this because we have been talking about this structure for ages and—

Sorry, hold on, you have spoken on the amendment. No, you were asking for clarification

Don't worry about me. Continue. Is that right? I had to think twice myself. If particular councillors aren't actually willing to move and try innovative new ideas, and it sounds to me like Councillor Wheeler is happy that the heritage council doesn't change, that's sort of okay, but I'm just a bit worried that we'll go into a workshop situation and we'll all have exactly the same ideas that we have now. And if there's no appetite for any changes and there's no appetite to try different things, and I think Councillor Calvert's attempt here is to fine tune what we've agreed to is our new committee structure. If there's no appetite for that, I'm a bit worried that the workshop will just cement our differences, and I think that will be unfortunate.

I can't see— we have— When Councillor Lyons-Buckett said that I had said that I didn't think that the community should be—I don't know what she said—setting the agenda, you know, my basis for supporting this new council structure was to get the community more involved. If I did say that about setting the agenda, it was probably not from the notion of I don't think anybody from the community could have a good idea. It was probably from a process or practical idea. My understanding and my wish for this new committee structure is that we involve lots of people in the community, and we heard from Councillor Lyons-Buckett, people who are in different church groups, sporting groups, community groups, or even individuals that are interested in particular things.

I want to hear from—I want them to have access to all of our committees and all of council's, all relevant council issues . So that's where we fundamentally disagree. So I'm not really quite sure whether having a workshop is going to nail this, because who's going to design how we go about it, how we structure that discussion? I think that can only happen in the chamber, and I think we're here now, and we have an opportunity to

Iron out some of that confusion. And I think if Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Lyons-Buckett have any issues with confusion, maybe they should bring them up in a more positive light instead of saying it's all too confusing and bring up another mechanism. Maybe we could just work on this document and get it right and then move on from there. Thanks.

Question.

Yes, Councillor Sheather.

If Council was to adopt this policy tonight, that the staff would look at it and look at any ramifications that may need to be squared away, I guess for the want of a word, in relation not the intent of the policy, but how that may be legally or properly profiled. Yeah,

Thank you, Councillor. I believe the staff have already looked at it before it's made it to the business paper, but I will confirm with the General Manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor. Certainly, Councillor, the motion itself actually states that a document be developed by the staff based on the motion that Councillor Calvert has put forward. We would certainly then take that opportunity to revisit some of those points that are set out in that, edit as need and flag to the Council where we thought there were tweaks that were necessary, and indeed input any of our own wisdom and learnings at that point to present back to the Council. So that was why there was no officers' comment placed on the motion.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll use the opportunity then to seek some clarification around it in case it goes through, because it would require changing. On page 81, it's got a number of points under meeting procedure, and it is about a matter may be discussed either with or without a formal resolution being put forward, and a resolution can be put forward by anyone present. And then followed by the chairperson will decide whether suggested resolutions are in order. Now , resolutions are things you arrive at when you've had a vote on something. So you can't just put forward a resolution. You can put forward a recommendation or a suggestion or a motion, but you can't put forward a resolution. So is there some reason why it's written like that?

Like, is that something else that is intended? Like, I don't understand it. That was my confusion. The other point, just while I'm speaking, is that, of course, we are committed to working to having a workshop around this, which was why I brought a notice of motion in January around it, was so that we could come up with the guidelines and to actually work through it so we could make it a better system. But if we could have clarification about the resolution thing, that would be good, or maybe perhaps have it changed to the proper word.

Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Councillor Calvert, would you like to address that?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would say, obviously, we've used the wrong word there. It should say motion. Motion and motions. That's why this is really a draft document that goes to staff, and staff are going to fix it up. So changing that is not a problem. We can change that here tonight and make it go forward with that change.

Thank you, Councillor Calvert. Anyone else wishing to speak?

So the amendment on the floor currently is to take this document to a workshop. I will just make a few comments. Look, I'm happy for it to do that in the vein of Councillor Connolly's remarks, that it closes the debate once and for all, because I think it's fairly obvious which councillors in this chamber believe in the new committee structure and support it, and which councillors don't. And there's a majority that do, and that's the system that we're going to be working with, and we all need to get on board with that. And this consistent and repeated argument, to me, in my opinion, doesn't get us anywhere, because we've got the system that we've got. This document here, I thank the Deputy Mayor for his—clearly a lot of work has gone into this in an effort to clarify the current committee structure so that it can work better, because the desirable outcome is that increased community participation.

And while I'm happy to sit here and say it hasn't been perfect so far, the merit and the intent behind it certainly is a much better system than a closed-door policy , where the rest of the community aren't invited to committee meetings, they're unable to participate, they don't know what's going on, and the only reflection of what has gone on is minutes in a business paper. So I'm very supportive of it in that regard, but I'm also happy to support the workshop in the vein that we get the documentation right. Councillor Calvert has put a lot of effort into this as a starting point. I don't want to drain the staff resources, though, in another workshop over something, and I would like to think that we're all adult and mature enough that maybe the 12 of us can just get together and set that time to do so without having to burden the staff, which, of course, has ramifications within the organisation.

And I don't think that we need to take up a — entire Tuesday night doing so either. I don't know whether another idea could be bouncing it around in emails amongst each other to try and get it right for those who want to have that input. I mean, I'm happy to support the workshop. I'd like to just communicate between ourselves after tonight that we could possibly just arrange to do so, as I said, externally without the staff. I'd also like to put on the record that I personally don't have any intention to touch the heritage committee. I think that we've also had that debate, and that debate has exhausted. We will leave that alone. But we also, in saying that, need to get on with the fact that we have a resolution of a new committee structure.

This is what it is. Let's clean it up through this workshop, get this documentation to support the committee structure correct, and then I think it is all up to us to get out there and say to the members of the community that we speak with regularly, come and participate in these committee meetings. That is the whole point, because I want to see them be a success, and I want to see them be a legacy moving forward for increased participation and transparency. So I will be supporting the motion tonight, and I'll ask any other councillors whether they wish to speak

Before we put that to the floor. Madam Mayor, I'm just wondering if councillors would be happy. It was not my intention to burden staff at all. And in fact, when we say workshop, it should often be councillors only, perhaps with the staff member present just for some guidance, but not to prepare a whole lot of work. This is just simply working through a document to try and iron out the issues and to try and make the committee system better. It's not intended to be a steadfast thing to change it back or anything. In fact, I don't know anyone who wanted it back to the old system, but I'm happy if you want to call it, Oh, it's already changed. Or just a councillor-only workshop or a modifier. I want the staff to understand they don't have to go and prepare. Well, there's not much you could prepare, but we'd use this document and build off it.

Correct, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, and I might just clarify with the general manager. I had asked a question, I can't remember whether it was today or tomorrow, so much has happened in the last two days, about the fourth Tuesday of this month, which was a briefing, and I had intended that to actually be, if there was nothing on the agenda, a councillor round table because we are due for another one of those. Is there potential for that or is there too much to be briefed on for December?

No, I think the November 29th briefing spot, there may have only been one item on that agenda for us, so I think if you were looking to hold a workshop on that date, I think that's probably a pretty good date.

Okay. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, would you like to amend your— well, I'm asking if you would be amenable to amending your motion to include that date as the date to do it, and that way we can just get on with it.

I'm happy to do that, yes, subject to anything, not making it a priority if something else is more important, obviously.

Thank you. We might just get that amendment on there.

I think we all understand, though, what's being changed on the screen. In that respect, I will put the amendment to the vote. All those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor— no, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Those against? Did

I get a right of reply?

I'm just putting the amendment before it becomes the motion. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Those against, sorry? Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert and Councillor Dogramaci. The amendment is carried. The amendment now becomes the motion. Anyone else wish to speak on the motion? No? Right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Yes, sorry for jumping the gun there. Look, I'm actually happy with that outcome. I want us to talk about it, but I would have preferred that we didn't actually have to have a workshop. I think we could have done this with the staff doing a draft document, going out to us, and then us emailing back any changes that we might want to make. But if a workshop is what we want, then okay, I'm happy with that as well. The thing that this document really tries to point out is that we changed the committee structure for several reasons, but the number one reason was to increase community participation. And I know that hasn't worked, and I think that is our challenge, is to make that work. I think we all want the community to be involved in our committees and to have input.

And I wanted to make it clear, as I did on the bottom of page 79 there, that the previous members of the committees were never meant to be dismissed and sent away. The idea was to invite them to participate in the new structure. And some of them were invited, but there was an understanding between many of them that they'd been dismissed. And I don't know where that came from. It didn't come from me. And we've had a lot of trouble with that. And we've even had certain people making public comments about why does Council not want to listen to the community, when actually the whole change was so that we could listen to the community more often and better ways. So it's been— Very ironic that the thing we tried to do has been the thing that people have criticised us for.

So, look, we really need to address this challenge and get community involvement, and the normal ways of doing that through, you know, Facebook and web pages, whatever, doesn't seem to be working. And I take on board what Councillor Lyons-Buckett said before. We have networks in the community. Maybe we need to go out individually and say, ‘Look, there's a committee meeting on in two weeks' time. We're talking about this. I think it probably would interest you. Why don't you come along?’ I think that's the kind of personal approach that we may need to have to take. And eventually, when people do start to come along, then other people will hear about it, and then the numbers will build. We're sort of at this stalemate at the moment where we haven't got over that first hurdle.

So I'm looking forward to us being able to do that. And I thank all the speakers tonight for their support. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I'll put the motion to the vote. Those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor McMahon . Declare the motion carried.

We now move on to the second notice of motion, item 191, Safety March and Chapel Streets, Richmond. Councillor Wheeler, this is your notice of motion. Do we have a seconder for that? I'll second it, Madam Mayor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Over to you, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. So just a quick amendment to remove point 4. The note from management shows that taking this to the Traffic Committee isn't either productive or actually possible, and so I'll just remove that from the motion. This is something that's been going on for a couple of years and has been exacerbated at this site, which is the Uniting Care site in Richmond, with the extension to that facility. So it's now got 79 dwellings. Some of them are single resident dwellings. Some of them are couples. I went and met with the staff and spent some time myself trying to get out of Chapel Street, which is an adventure in peak hour. The residents are really concerned that they struggle to get in and out of that street.

It's almost impossible to turn right for a good portion of the day. Really troublingly is that they told me that they plan their medical appointments on whether they think they can get in and out of Chapel Street safely. So some of them, of course, are on restricted licences. They don't travel far. They're no longer confident drivers in some cases. And some of them, if we're lucky, will all be in their position where, you know, we are no longer as nimble or as quick in our reflexes or as good with our eyesight and hearing. So driving does become a challenge, and many of them told me that they don't drive as much as they used to, but they really don't drive as much as they would like because they can't get out of Chapel Street.

I want this to be—I want us as a council, when we—and we're about to reconsider our planning documents—to make sure that they include safe crossing provisions whenever we expand or put in retirement facilities or care facilities for supported accommodation for anybody who needs to use it, because somehow we've ended up with this expansion here that has made this worse. But the other thing that they report has made this worse is the increased traffic heading towards North Richmond with developments like Redbank. So we see yet again another knock-on effect, that stopping these people from getting safely in and out of their homes, it's affecting their confidence. It's also affecting their ability to enjoy Richmond.

So currently their crossing point for March Street, which is what becomes Bells Line of Road, one of our busiest streets, particularly in peak hour, is down at Bosworth Street. Now, that's great if you're young and sprightly, but it's much more difficult if you don't get to walk a lot. Many of them said they'd like to wander down to Pughs Lagoon and feed the ducks as part of their daily routine or once a week. They can't do it, because in order to get across that road, they have to come all the way down to Bosworth Street and then come across and then go back up again. It's hot, particularly now the trees have been removed to change the intersection at Bosworth Street. And they don't feel comfortable or confident doing it.

So they're not enjoying the place where they live anymore. Now, this is a RMS road. There's very little that we can do to fix this, unfortunately, because it's not our infrastructure. But we do have a role as advocates to go into bat for these people who don't necessarily feel comfortable interacting with another tier of government, to ask for some solution. Now,

It's probably too close to Bosworth Street and too expensive for them to expect lights. Some sort of facilitated crossing would help. At least a blob in the middle of the road that they could land on when they do the sprint, like we have at West Market Street near the library, would help. It would signal to the traffic that people do cross there and that they should pay better attention than they currently do. It may also have a traffic calming effect for when people are trying to turn out of Chapel Street. It's unreasonable to expect these people to drive all the way up to Inalls Lane and come back around again. They got in touch with me today to say that they have a meeting with Robyn Preston on the 21st of November.

It would be nice for us to have this resolution in place for them to hand to the local member to say that council also supports some work done on that site. And we don't get any better opportunities to ask for some funding out of our good friends at the RMS than we do in the lead up to an election. So I think we've got responsibilities to make sure that our guidelines are in place and that we don't make these mistakes, or continue to make these mistakes into the future. But we also have a role as advocates, I think, for our communities. This was approved by council, not necessarily by us, but by council, and we've contributed to this mess. We can do something to help and support these residents.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Veigel.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Thanks, Councillor Wheeler, for the motion. I'll be supporting it. It's a bit of a no-brainer to me. The son of a 94-year-old. I'll just take you an example over at Greenwich. There's a Greenwich Hospital. There's a repat hospital, it's also palliative care. It's on the downhill of a big dipper, and there's a number of lights there. They have a dedicated set of lights there going into their driveway. Not only that, they have pedestrian crossings. Now, you may stand there trying to get access to the River Road for some minutes, for five minutes, but nevertheless, the phasing of the lights does stop the traffic either way and lets people turn right, go towards Waverton or towards the Lennons or going back up towards Lane Cove.

Yet again, Transport New South Wales, it comes down to the state. There is a solution with this, and it's probably lights and phasing and a pedestrian crossing, and maybe slowing the traffic between those set of lights anyway. So, yeah, I'll get behind it, and I hope everybody does. So we'll advocate for the right thing for our elderly residents so they can enjoy their retirement and not having to worry about traffic or getting access to Richmond or to the parklands we so cherish. So thank you again

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Councillor Wheeler, for this motion. This is something that's come up repeatedly in the chamber over the years. I think since the first stage of that retirement village was put there, there was an issue with the access, and of course, as Councillor Wheeler said, there was a lot less traffic back then. I'm not sure what sort of documentation exists in here, but I know the issue was raised when the expanded intersection and the extra lanes were put in that road. I know this question came up whether something could be incorporated with that sort of work, something, and I think it was said that a roundabout wasn't suitable or whatever. But over the years, the certain things that I've heard or witnessed being said was, first of all, that Transport for New South Wales said that people could go to the Bosworth Street intersection to cross, that that was fine for them.

That doesn't solve the ability to drive out of there, which is very dangerous, and you actually have to really go left and go right up and around the lowlands to safely get out of there most of the time. There was at one point somebody , and I don't know who it was, and I think it came from a resident within the place, but they were looking at a link through the back where Chapel Street finishes and a link through to which would go through to John Tebbutt, or maybe through to another one of the roads that feeds off March Street. So I think there are sort of various things that have been looked at. Maybe that could, we could consolidate that sort of information. But certainly having that there where people can't get in and out is a real issue, and it's a dangerous intersection as well.

I've seen a very bad accident there, and there's the potential for that all the time. And it is quite sad to think that older people feel limited in going out simply because they're scared to drive out of an intersection. That's a really sad reflection on the times that we live in now. So I'll support this, and I hope we can make some headway, and I hope they have a successful meeting with Rob and Preston about maybe being able to get the state to fulfil an obligation to do something there.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I support the notice of motion. I myself spent two years living in Chapel Street in Richmond, and since my election to council, I have received regular representations about the state of not only the road crossing but also footpath safety. And I suppose the only other comment that I might add is, in addition to the various criterial or weightings that we apply to requests for maintenance to footpaths, I think the presence of a retirement village and the particularly dire risks that trip hazards pose in proximity to facilities like that should be given extra weight. And it is quite common for people in that community to approach me and to talk about the safety of crossings and also the safety of footpaths and the presence of trip hazards.

I have myself received personal representations from our state member of parliament, recognising that this is a council matter, asking me to take up these questions to council on her behalf, and of course on behalf of constituents that contact her. So I think this is timely, and would hope that council staff take those additional remarks on board. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Sheather.

Just a question, Madam Mayor . In relation to some of the comments that have been made, and I know Councillor Mary Lyons-Buckett mentioned about access through the back

Is probably the most practical way to get away from the heavy traffic. Could I suggest to Councillor Wheeler she put a Part 4 in there, and that the matter of opportunities to fulfil the motion be further reported to Council. In suggesting that, it's about possible opportunities, whether it's signage or, you know, just the approach that you've indicated, whatever it may be. But there may be some opportunities there. I'm not aware of property ownership. I know that it was looked at many, many years ago, and for whatever reason it didn't happen. But that doesn't mean to say it can't happen. It's not going to go away. The issue is not going to go away. So if there's opportunities there, you know, we've got staff that may be able to look at those, whether appropriate signage on the street in relation to aged people in the area, that sort of...

I don't know. That's a pretty cheap way of dealing with it, and it doesn't fix the problem. But there is land there behind the place that might be able to be looked at. I don't know, but the staff's in a better opportunity to evaluate those sort of things than we are, I guess. If you're prepared to make that a part four, then I guess it's been there for 40 years. Another few months is not going to matter, but there may be opportunities there.

Councillor Wheeler, were you interested?

Yeah, I'm happy to. Can I just speak to that briefly? Because I did discuss possible, because it's cul-de-sac, Chapel Street, I did discuss whether they were aware of any possible entry points. And they apparently had discussed that some years before, and the property owner wasn't keen, but there is talk of an additional development in there, and it could maybe piggyback on that. So I'm happy to add that point. Whether it will come to anything, who knows, but we can at least flag it.

Just looking at the particular wording, perhaps looking for alternative opportunities for other routes?

Yeah, just that any opportunities be further reported to Council in relation to the motion. Further?

Yeah, safety improvements in the precinct or something like that. All right. We'll just wait for that point to be added to the motion.

While we're doing that, did any other councillor want to make a comment? Councillor Reardon.

Yes, I understand from a member of CWA who is a resident there that Robin Preston is visiting them soon, early one morning. She's actually going down to the village, so that sounds quite good.

Thank you, Councillor. Yes, Councillor Wheeler had mentioned that meeting was to take place quite soon, so that's good to know. Councillor Calvert, sorry, waving away there.

Waving, not drowning, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Councillor Wheeler, for bringing this up. It's been a very difficult intersection for a long time, and my recollection is that there was a proposal put in to put a development down the end of that street at Hobartville Stud. The developer or the owner was asked to look for a route through the back, and he wasn't able to find one at that stage. And then so he wanted the development to come out at that intersection, and I think the whole thing was knocked back because of that, and because the RMS refused to upgrade that intersection at the time. I, like Councillor Sheather, I suspect there may be a way through the back, and I think maybe the developer was just being difficult at the time, wanting to put in some more property.

So, yes, I think it'd be good to look at that. And I had an auntie of mine who spent her final days in there, and my cousin, who used to try and get in and out of that place, found it absolutely dreadful and rang me one stage, abused everything out of me, saying, Why don't you fix that intersection? Well, you know, it's not ours to fix, but he said that, you know, she had to go out for medical reasons, and he had to get her out, and he ended up driving all around the world just to get out of that intersection. And that's, to me, that's not good enough. We need to do something about that. I'm sure lights could go in there, and they'd be activated lights, so they wouldn't be stopping the traffic all the time, only when someone actually wanted to come out.

And I noticed the footpath there has been fixed. That's something that I asked for in a notice of motion maybe five years ago, and it's finally been done. And part of that motion was to upgrade the footpath outside the Richmond Library, and that's been fixed as well because people from the village couldn't get out of the place walking, and then they couldn't get into the library, which is where they wanted to go to. So that's at least been done. But I thank you for this notice of motion. I would— I would say that I don't think it's strong enough. I think we should be demanding that the state member come up with a solution to this, rather than sort of going soft about it, because it's been there for so many years, and it is an election time, so maybe right now is the time to strike and say, we want something done.

Thank you.

Sorry, Madam Mayor, can I just declare a conflict of interest? Yes, you can Yeah, I'll declare pecuniary interest. I didn't anticipate where this conversation was going, but I do live quite close to the back entrance where we might be now talking about, so for abundance of caution, I'll just leave the room and I'll sign a form.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Doing what I usually do. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the— thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

I'm mindful of the Deputy Mayor's comments. If he has some suggestions for strengthened wording, I'm happy to hear them

Well, part two, instead of saying make representation, I think we should be saying we request the member for Hawkesbury to provide a solution that improves, or we demand that the member for Hawkesbury provides a solution that improves resident safety as soon as possible. Words like that, top of my head.

Happy to make those changes, Councillor Wheeler?

Yes , thank you.

And what, Deputy Mayor, perhaps also, I and Councillor Wheeler report back to Council, otherwise we won't have a mechanism for an outcome. Yep, happy to have that as well.

I'm quite happy to suggest a timeline too, and I don't think I'm going to get that into that point, am I?

Good luck.

I know that, it was rhetorical. Already knew the answer.

All right, I think we all get the gist of those changes. Anyone else wishing to speak that has not spoken?

No ,

I'll go to right of reply, Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, and thank you all for your support and for the additional comments. It was a little bit difficult because I'm cognisant of the fact that it's not our road that we want the changes made to. I'm also cognisant of the fact that each time we ask the state government for something, no answer is their stern reply. So , but I think given that the residents have asked for and gained a meeting, we can at least send them in empowered with this information, and hopefully that will allow the member for Hawkesbury to take this to her very ministers and say that she has council's backing on this as well. I think the investigation of,

Trying to be so careful here, for accessing, for other means of accessing the facility, I think is a really useful addition, and I think that will be helpful for Chapel Street as a whole. There's now a lot of additional pressure on that street due to the increased development. That's the precinct of Richmond where there is increased townhouse and unit development, and that's only going to get worse. Many of those developments don't have enough parking spaces for the cars that people own, and they park inside streets, including Chapel Street, which makes it even narrower. There's at least three shift changes for the staff there, but not just for the staff there, that's also the entrance for the nursing home, which has expanded as well.

And so they have staff changeovers too. So this tiny little street is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate, and that really impacting on these people. So at the very least, we are giving them a show of support. We can't, we can't deliver what they need on that site, which is some sort of on-demand lights, I think would be the, given the volume of traffic on Bells Line of Road, some on-demand lights would be really helpful, not just for these residents, but for everybody who lives in that precinct who would like to cross the street. That should be walkability of a town centre, should be a fundamental right for the people who live in it. And I think we can at least add our voice to their call.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll therefore put the notice of motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vargor, Councillor Sheather. Councillor Conolly is now absent with a declaration of interest. Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler , Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor McMahon. I declare the motion carried. Is there an appetite amongst councillors for five minutes break before we go into confidential, or do you want to just go into confidential? Five-minute break? All right, five-minute break, actually a bit more than that. Come back at 25 past nine. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillors. We are now back live streaming our meeting, and it's at this point that we need to move into confidential to deal with those items. Can I have someone move that way? Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. We'll now move into confidential.

Thank you, Councillors. We are now live streaming. Thank you for participating in that confidential session. I will hand over to the General Manager to read the results of that confidential session. First, I'll just declare my interest from that, which was in Item 192, where I had an interest with one of the groups who were nominated, and I can't name that group, otherwise that group might know they're getting an award. So we have to—it's written on my form, but there was a link with one of the group, and my declaration was less than pecuniary, non-significant, and I remained in the vote. I'll now hand over to the General Manager. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. In respect of Item 192, 2023 Australia Day Awards, whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Reardon, seconded Councillor Calvert, that Council adopt the confidential recommendation developed in the closed session of Council in regard to the recipients of the 2023 Australia Day Awards. Two, that Council adopt the following Hawkesbury Australia Day Award categories for 2024: Citizen of the Year, Young Citizen of the Year, Local Hero Award, Environmental Award, Arts and Cultural Award, Sports Person of the Year, Commemorative Plaque, and Community Organisation of the Year. For the motion were Councillors Conolly, Calvert, Djuric, Dogramaci, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Veigel, Reardon, McMahon, Sheather, Wheeler, and Zamprogno, and there was nobody against the motion.

In respect of Item 193, lease to Andrew Wade and Renata Friesendorff, Shop 2 Glossodia Shopping Village, 160 to 164 Golden Valley Drive. Glossodia.

Whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Wheeler, seconded Councillor Conolly, that Council agree to enter into a new lease with Andrew Wade and Renata Friesendorff in regard to Shop 2, Glossodia Shopping Village, 160 to 164 Golden Valley Drive, Glossodia, in accordance with the proposal outlined in the report. Two, authority be given for the lease and any other necessary documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. Three, detail of Council's resolution be conveyed to the 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 such a resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties, and that was carried unanimously.

In respect of item 194, lease to Colink Pty Limited, 20 Bosworth Street, Richmond, whilst in closed session Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Wheeler, seconded by Councillor Kotlash, that one, Council agree to enter into a new lease with Colink Pty Limited in regard to 20 Bosworth Street, Richmond, in accordance with the proposal outlined in the report. Two, authority be given for any necessary documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. Three, details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the proposed lessee 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 such a resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties.

In respect of item 195, whilst in closed session Council carried— On the motion of Councillor Veigel, seconded by Councillor Reardon, that : 1. Council agree to enter into a new lease with Pitt Town Pizza Pty Limited in regard to Shop 8, Wilberforce Shopping Centre, 15 King Road, Wilberforce, in accordance with the proposal outlined in the report. 2. Authority be given for the lease and any other documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. 3. Details of Council resolution be conveyed to the proposer, 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 such resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties.

That was also carried unanimously.

Lastly, item 196, creation of a stormwater easement, 114 March Street, Richmond. Again carried on block on the motion of Councillor Veigel, seconded by Councillor Reardon. Council resolved whilst in closed session that: 1. Council approve the extension of a drainage easement area in the order of 6.25 square metres within 114 March Street, Richmond, Lot 6 DP 56899, as shown in Attachment 1 to this report, and compensation in the amount detailed in this report be accepted by Council. 2. Authority be given for any documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. 3 . Details of the resolution be conveyed to the applicant, together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as appropriate documentation to put such resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties.

That's it. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, General Manager. Now that we have dealt with all of our business, I thank the councillors, I thank the staff, and any community members who are watching online for their participation. And I close the meeting at 10.09 p.m. Thank you very much. Good night.