New Council, First Meeting.

So the new Mayor has been robed and chained to office and the new Councillors all have their name badges- I don't think the dust has by any means settled but the first Ordinary meeting has set the ball rolling for this term of Council.

It was an interesting agenda with a few curly ones thrown in for good measure. I think that the Council covered all types of meeting procedures in the one meeting!

Its a real shame though that Team Gash couldn't cut through their pre-programed responses and support a simple procedural motion that would have helped the meeting along.

The Mayor had presented a multi recommendation motion that some Councillors simply wanted to vote on each part of individually. The Team Gash machine voted down a procedural motion that I put up in an attempt to make things happen with less stress. Is this a sign of things to come ie. block voting or was it just first night nerves, I hope it was nerves.

Clr Guile also made an impression in the business paper- it has been alleged that he has falsely claimed on his travel allowance,and to add to the case the Minister for Local government gave a directive to Council not to deal with any conduct issues in the lead up to elections.

Releasing the information prior to the election may have had an impact on the election outcome.

So the new Council is left to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the election and have put forward a strong recommendation to deal with Clr Guiles issue. Basically its a good proposal that gives the opportunity to Clr Guile to deal with the issue in a clear and concise manner.

I contributed to the motion on Guile by requesting that Council seek information under freedom of information in regards to the ministers decision to put out the directive that possibly aided in Clr Guiles reelection- mind you other Clrs have in the past been investigated and still were reelected.

A couple of things happened during the Councils caretaker period and on the first business day after the election that I thought warranted a urgency motion be brought to Councils first meeting.

1. The State Government renewed the minerals exploration licence over the Shoalhaven which opens the way for coal seam gas on our prime agricultural land and land within the Sydney Water drinking catchment- the licence covers a good chunk on land within the Shoalhaven. The State Governments Strategic Land Use Plan does nothing to help protect quality lands within the Shoalhaven.

2.The NSW State Government ditched compulsory planning for sea level rise and committed to allowing private property owners to build their own protection measures.

You can stick your head in the sand but it doesn't take away Governments responsibility to look after its citizenry and future populations via good land use planning.

Both these issues have huge implications for Shoalhaven and need to be addressed early in this term of Council- however the new Council didn't think they were significant enough to bring on as urgency items. So we wait until the October meeting to debate the motion and hopefully support a position that gives the NSW State Government a stern ticking of for once again excluding the community on these important issues.