Hannah Hammoud
Two Brimbank councillors say they feel “unsafe” attending council meetings.
Councillors Virginia Tachos and Maria Kerr were absent from the two most recent Brimbank council meetings held on November 21 and 22.
Star Weekly has been told by multiple sources of an incident which has led the councillors to say they feel unsafe, the details of which cannot be published at this time for legal reasons.
At least two letters of complaint have been sent to the Brimbank chief executive Fiona Blair and one resident has sent a letter to the Local Government Inspectorate asking for an investigation.
The November 21 meeting had to be abandoned when six councillors didn’t attend. The following day, five councillors were absent from the rescheduled meeting.
The absence of six councillors at the meeting on November 21 resulted in a false start for newly elected mayor Ranka Rasic’s first council meeting as mayor after councillors failed to form a quorum.
Under the Local Government Act, a majority of councillors must be in attendance to form a quorum and allow for the meeting to proceed. The meeting on November 21 was deemed to have lapsed after 30 minutes from the scheduled starting time as council failed to have a majority of councillors present.
At the time the meeting lapsed, in attendance were councillors Sarah Branton, Sam David, Jasmine Nguyen, Jae Papalia and Ranka Rasic. An apology was received from councillor Thuy Dang.
However an apology was not submitted for the absence of councillors Virginia Tachos, Maria Kerr, Bruce Lancashire, Thomas O’Reilly, and Victoria Borg.
Another meeting with the same agenda was convened the following day on November 22, taking place again with the absence of councillors – Tachos, Kerr, Lancashire, O’Reilly and Borg, each submitting an apology. It was the attendance of Cr Dang via livestream which formed the quorum.
Councillor Kerr said she did not attend due to “health reasons related to an unsafe work environment“.
Cr Tachos also cited health reasons and “not feeling safe on council.“
Cr Borg said she had been sick at the time of the reconvened November 22 meeting.
Crs Lancashire and O’Reilly said they were too unwell to attend both meetings.
It’s the second time this year, the council has failed to form a quorum, with the August 15 meeting having to be postponed due to not having enough councillors in attendance.
