COUNCIL SPLIT EMERGES

By Tim Howard

A Clarence Valley councillor has accused a group of five councillors of “colluding” after an extraordinary meeting rejected two items it was called to decide.

The meeting on August 18 had been called recommending council note the general manager’s report on the result of negotiations with the companies who tendered for work on two controversial council projects, the Treelands Drive Community Centre in Yamba and the Grafton Aquatic Centre project.

But instead of voting to note the progress of negotiations, the council voted them down 5-4.

The vote led the councillor who moved the officers recommendation, Cr Karen Toms, to say she and three other councillors had been “blindsided”.

She also said the way it happened led her to believe the five councillors, including Mayor Ian Tiley, deputy mayor Greg Clancy, Bill Day, Peter Johnstone and Jeff Smith had colluded or caucused ahead of the meeting.

“It certainly looks like that, there are five names on the rescission motion,” she said on Loving Life FM breakfast radio on Monday morning.

“I can imagine the Office of Local Government would take a dim view of that conduct.”

She also questioned Cr Tiley’s claim he knew nothing about the proposed rescission motion for the Treelands Drive project, which Cr Clancy lodged just prior to the meeting on Friday.

“He gave us the impression he knew nothing about that,” he said. “How could that be true?

“His name’s on it. I think definitely we were misled. He’s saying he didn’t sign it.

“Obviously Cr Clancy was expecting a signature from him.”

She said general manager Laura Black had misgivings about the rescission motion.

“The general manager has emailed all councillors and explained to them that she feels it it’s actually an unlawful rescission motion,” Cr Toms said.

“She is making inquiries and she has been up front with the Mayor and all the councillors were copied in on her concerns.

“She is going to the Office of Local Government just to clarify her belief based on the code (Code of Meeting Practice) that it’s unlawful.”

Cr Toms said the extraordinary meeting “should have been a one-minute meeting”.

“It was just note to say the negotiation were ongoing for both items,” she said.

“But both of them were voted down by the five councillors.”

Cr Toms said the vote changed nothing as the report was merely to note the council was negotiating with the tenderers after it refused to accept any offers at the July meeting.

During the extraordinary meeting the mayor informed the councillors their vote could only be on the items at hand but advised that a rescission motion was the only way to influence the course of council’s actions.

“My expectation councillors, and this would probably apply to the following item, is that a rescission motion to change course or direction should come forward very quickly, so that we can get on with things,” the mayor said.

He said a rescission motion must to be lodged seven working days prior to a meeting, which ruled out raising it at this meeting and making it too late for the August 22 ordinary council meeting.

Cr Toms said that would mean waiting for the September council meeting, meaning further delays for a project the council had approved in February.

But it’s understood the majority of councillors now have concerns about the quality of information they received ahead of decision in February to approve the project.

The project attracted an $11.1 million Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Grant, which would be the basis for council to undertake a $15 million replacement of the current Treelands Drive centre.

But some in the community objected and an alternate Option B to refurbish the original centre and include a library gained traction and it became the council’s option and approved as such in December.

But some councillors and officers had doubts the BLER funding would be approved for the revised project, because it was differed too much from the original proposal.

At its February meeting the council rescinded its approval for Option B and re-installed its the demolition and replacement option.

Since then, the YambaCAN group, through GIPA requests to the Department of Regional NSW, which handled the BLER grants and the council, found Option B had always been viable.

Cr Clancy, who originally moved to go with Option B at the December meeting, said that since the council had learned Option B had been acceptable to the funding body, it was legitimate to reinstate it.

One email uncovered, revealed the the extent to which the council had not been accurately informed.

A BLER funding project officer informed the council in March “With regard to point 2, I’m concerned that perhaps there’s been some confusion with the funding deed conditions, because for this project, we were aware Council were working on Option B and it would have been a permissible scope variation (i.e. to refurbish the existing centre, rather than knockdown/ rebuild, in order to deliver the project within the available funds).

I thought it would be helpful to clarify that point.”

Cr Clancy dismissed Cr Toms’ accusation that he had colluded or caucused other councillors to come on board the rescission motion as “rubbish”.

“Of course I had to ask them if they wanted to sign it,” he said. “But when you say caucusing, that means people are bound to vote in a particular way and that’s just not the case.

“Anyone who signed the motion is free to vote however they like.”

He also wanted to make clear he had not wanted to debate the rescission motion at the Friday meeting, but to move an amendment in relation to it, to halt any work on the project until the rescission motion was heard.

“Ian (Cr Tiley) didn’t allow it, but I hope the vote has had the same effect of halting the work until a decision has been made.”

Cr Clancy also said he attempted to brief the mayor ahead of the meeting.

“I sent the rescission motion to him the night before the meeting and tried phoning him the day before, but he didn’t answer,” he said.

“He turned up just before the meeting so I was unable to speak to him about it before I raised it.”

The general manager Laura Black has been approached for comment on the matter, but did not respond.