On the 28 November 2023, at The Hills Shire Council Meeting (the 2nd last meeting of the year) proposed a motion to Change Council’s Model Code of Meeting Practice. You can listen to the full motion discussion by clicking the play button above. What does this actually mean for us as a community? The changes propose the following: a. If a councillor proposes a motion for whatever purpose, members of the community are no longer able to speak for or against the motion. b. If a councillor proposes to submit a motion for whatever purpose, the time frame of that motion being submitted will be doubled from 7 days to 14 days. c. If anyone proposes to rely on a petition to show community concerns to our council, that petition requires the names, addresses and signature of the person signing the petition, otherwise it will be considered invalid. d. Despite the council having the existing facilities in their council chambers for all council meetings to be ‘Live Streamed’ with both video and audio, the motion proposes that council stay with Audio recordings only being posted on the council website 3 days after the council meeting.
For the The Hills Shire Community to show their concerns about this change in meeting practice they had to lodge their concerns to council before the 1 January 2024.
I make no comment against our current Hills Shire Council as they are elected officials voted in by our community and this is obviously the way business is done.
They are obviously committed professional local government officials – our representatives.
I would respectfully submit that there must be a better way of changing the way our community can voice their concerns to our council.
If you want to know more
I am declaring my intention to run for The Hills Shire Council in the September 2024 Local Government Elections.
If you want to know more about me click on the link below
Election Blog 1
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