MOUNT Gambier City Council has discussed the merits of elected members phoning in to meetings, with the heated debate sparking a stern warning from Mayor Lynette Martin to remain respectful in the chamber.
Tuesday night’s meeting included debate around the fact a number of councillors had either joined non-compulsory committee meetings and workshops via telephone instead of physically attending, or had requested to, triggering a council report into elected member participation when not physically present.
The report noted geography or isolation in other local government areas allowed for flexibility in the method of participation but given councillors received allowances and the fact Mount Gambier was a small municipality in land mass meant reasons for not being physically present were “of limited value”.
The document also cited “continued community concern” about elected members’ attendance at meetings, with an article published by The Border Watch in 2018 regarding the former council’s meeting attendance coming into question.
Cr Christian Greco – who was serving his first-term in 2018 – said he was annoyed to see the motion in the agenda and admitted he had phoned in to past committee meetings due to work commitments and had not had any community concerns relayed to him.
Mayor Martin said she knew the community was concerned about attendance and referenced the 2018 article.
Cr Greco, who was highlighted in the article as having the second lowest attendance at workshops in the last council term, said the article was a “beat-up”.
“I had poor attendance, so did Cr Perryman and fancy that, we got reelected,” he said.
“Obviously it cannot be too much of an issue.”
Cr Frank Morello interjected stating it could not be a beat-up as the article was based on statistics.
In response, Cr Paul Jenner said whatever happened in the previous council term had nothing to do with the new council, but Cr Morello stated if that logic was applied it, would apply to all council matters and the statement was “nonsense”.
Cr Greco questioned whether elected members needed to get together and decide whether the current meeting schedule was right for everyone but Cr Sonya Mezinec said Tuesday nights were chosen because the day suited most councillors.
“Cr Greco said earlier on ‘we all lead busy lives’,” Mayor Martin said.
“Which I guess indicated we cannot make everything, yes we do all lead busy lives, but we have undertaken this commitment to represent our community and I believe they have an expectation we attend these meetings.
“The staff go to all the trouble of presenting reports for these meeting and we get councillors not attending.
“I really think that you should be there in person, if at all possible, it has to be a really extreme reason not to be there.”
Councillor Ben Hood said he had called-in to meetings previously due to family commitments, stating the challenges highlighted by the report regarding phoning-in were due to a lack of available technology.
Cr Hood said the current technology systems were antiquated and requested council explore technology options and costs.
In response, council chief executive Andrew Meddle said council staff had looked into technology solutions for the chamber.
He also revealed the report was instigated due to council not having a clear policy on teleconferencing in meetings.
“My responsibility is to provide you with frank and fearless advice about what I think works best in the chamber for the council,” he said.
“That is what is presented in the report, it is a clear approach of being present that makes it easier for everyone in the room to be able to understand whats going on and fully participate in what is a participatory democracy.”
Council passed a motion for staff to prepare a report on current teleconferencing technologies to be presented at an informal gathering of elected members.
Elected members also voted in favour of developing a clear policy on teleconferencing.
