Public called to attend meetings

By Rebecca Fraser
FOUR Oaks Ward councillor Paul Richardson has urged all community members to attend more Casey council meetings and take an interest in the issues affecting their municipality.
Cr Richardson said council meetings kept councillors visible, accountable and transparent and had also called for the meetings’ starting time to be pushed back an hour to 7.30pm to allow more people to attend.
He said councillors were elected to represent the interests of ratepayers across Casey not their own individual interests and questioned why so few residents attended meetings.
“Why do our council meetings have few residents and ratepayers in the chamber?
“Surely, the local community members of Casey have an interest in the issues coming to council and how Casey Council votes on those issues.
“In reference to these council meetings, it is important that Casey ratepayers attend these meetings regularly to observe how their council representatives conduct themselves in the meetings and secondly to identify and forward local community issues to their council representatives.
“It is also important for community members to forward their questions at these meetings to keep this council in check and accountable,” he said.
Cr Richardson, who formed the Endeavour Hills Community Watchdog before he was elected to the council, also urged residents to establish similar organisations and keep an eye on the council.
“Referring to the term, ‘community participation’, there are various ways community members can participate and one such way is to establish community watchdog organisations across the City of Casey,” he said.
He said a prime example of where community input had been important was when Casey deputy mayor Rob Wilson pushed for ratepayer-funded cars late last year.
This notice of motion was withdrawn by Cr Wilson at the 20 December meeting, and Cr Richardson said he believed the community backlash over the issue had contributed to its withdrawal.
“The community has a big part to play and if the media had not printed reports about this issue before the meeting, many people would not have found out about it until afterwards and it appeared in the local press.
“So people do need to come along and see what is happening and put their comments in and ask questions of these councillors,” he said.
Cr Richardson has also called for council meetings to be moved from 6.30pm to 7.30pm so that more residents can attend.
In a notice motion moved on 6 December last year regarding the fortnightly council meetings, the council decided to maintain its 6.30pm starting time after much debate.
Cr Richardson said the early starting time was undemocratic and prevented interested community members from attending these ‘valued’ community meetings.