Central Coast Daily News invited all 15 Central Coast Councillors to tell us what they thought about the current committee structure, seven responded and, of those, five were critical of the system.
By Jacquelene Pearson
Before we get into the nitty gritty of what councillors who responded to our questions think of the committee structure, let’s quickly look at the February council meeting.
Committee business continued to cause consternation at the February Central Coast Council meeting with committee decisions contested and resolutions changed on the floor. It took over two hours to deal with business arising from the committees intended to streamline decision making and improve efficiency.
As a consequence, Mayor Lawrie McKinna said in his post-meeting interview with Central Coast Daily News, a raft of items on the February business paper did not get considered.
Mayor McKinna said they would be held over to the March meeting – a whole month. However, he did not answer in the affirmative when asked if he thought it would help for all councillors to be allowed to attend and vote at all committee meetings or if an extraordinary meeting should be held to deal with outstanding matters.
Confidential matter
One such matter that was not dealt with at the February Central Coast Council meeting was a confidential item listed on the agenda arising from the 3 February meeting of the Environment and Planning Committee.
The business paper stated that: “At the meeting, an additional item was considered in a confidential session. The recommendation resulting from the confidential session of the committee is the subject of a separate report listed for the closed session of this meeting.”
That recommendation was: EPC-26/136: That the Committee recommends that Council considers the view of the Environment and Planning Committee in regard to the change in membership of the Coastal Estuary and Floodplain Risk Management Subcommittee.”
The Central Coast Daily News wishes to state that, from a transparency and public interest perspective, the committee system is unwieldly and difficult to cover thoroughly for the public. Hence we have decided to run a series of articles about the performance of the committees.
None of the councillors who responded to our questions was prepared to comment on the confidential matter. To do so would be a breach of the code of conduct.
Multiple community sources have informed us that it concerns attempts to remove a community representative with no prior notice, consultation or mediation.
We will be taking a closer look at this confidential item in a subsequent article because we believe it is in the public interest to do so. Our sources inform us that none of the community representatives on the sub-committee were informed of the confidential motion prior to the meeting.
All community representatives went through a competitive Expression of Interest to be included on the sub-committee based on merit.
Now what did the councillors who responded to our questions have to say about the pros and cons of the current committee structure? Well, to find out, you will have to visit Central Coast Daily News.
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