Hannah Hammoud
Brimbank council will not introduce a regular public forum meeting, a decision that was reached following discussion at three separate council meetings.
In July this year, councillor Maria Kerr raised a proposal to allow residents to ask live and unscripted questions of councillors at regular public forums that would be open to the community.
At the council meeting on October 17, council said it would not introduce public forums at this time leading to Cr Kerr raising an alternate motion suggesting that a monthly, one hour, online forum be created.
Before Cr Kerr could speak to her alternate motion, Cr Ranka Rasic put up an amendment to change the forum from monthly to quarterly, and require that submissions be made one week prior to the forum.
As debate ensued among the councillors, Cr Kerr stormed out of the October 17 meeting after she said her motion to introduce a regular public forum meeting was ‘hijacked’.
“My original alternate motion is being hijacked … why does someone else have a precedence over my original motion?” Cr Kerr asked.
Packing up her things, Cr Kerr said, “I think the community has seen enough”, before walking out of the meeting.
After more than 40 minutes of debate, council reached a resolution that resulted in both Cr Rasic’s amended motion and Cr Kerr’s alternate motion being deferred to the next council meeting.
Fast forward to the meeting on November 22, after council failed to form a quorum the night before, both Cr Kerr’s original motion and Cr Rasic’s amended motion were lost, resulting in Cr David raising another motion to have the decision revert back to the original officers’ report, wheich recommended that public forums not be introduced at this time.
Cr Kerr was an apology for the meeting on November 22 due to what she told Star Weekly said were “health issues related to an unsafe work environment”.
The officer’s report cited the current profile of community engagement activity in Brimbank and the review process underway for council’s Community Engagement Policy as reasons as to why the public forums would not be introduced.
