Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Mayor hijaks Ulladulla Forum meeting
Ulladulla Community Forum meets once a month to discuss issues that affect the local community.
The issues are diverse but are often related to issue to do with Shoalhaven City Council. The forum are a recognised Community Consultative Body (CCB) and have a direct line of contact to Council. The members of the forum are volunteers with a great interest in community life.
The forum have done excellent work on community consultation and Monday's meeting (8/4/2013) was meant to be partly in celebration of Youth Week by inviting the local youngsters to come and have their say.
The meeting had around 40 youngsters turn up skaters and scouts all interested in getting across their message on improved skate facilities. the young people were very articulate and asked some great questions and put forward some fab suggestions on how to improve skating.
The youth were promised a fun supper at the conclusion of the meeting- unfortunately those who stayed witnessed the Mayor chuck a tantrum.
Clrs Patricia White and Clr Jo Gash have both been subject to Code of Conduct complaints ( see Council business papers for details Page 23 item 67). Both addressed the forum on this issue explaining the outcome.
Gash decided to take it one step further and told the meeting how hurt she was, how stressful the experience was and how it cost Council $6000 to review her conduct. She went on to say that she had always done her best by the Ulladulla community and was gutted that they could do such a thing to her.
Gash blamed the forum for putting in the code of conduct complaint and also blamed them for not picking up the phone and telling her what 'their problem was'.
Gash's delivery was intimidatory and at times hysterical - some of the skaters mums left the meeting as they felt so uncomfortable- it was the first time they had been to a forum meeting and they wont be back as they might think its the norm for the Mayor to turn up and abuse volunteer citizens who actually have a right to question process the Mayor instigates.
I might add that the forum did not make the complaint- for such a process to happen there would have to be mention in the forums meeting minutes which go to council and agreement from the collected community- who are so a-political I doubt they would have agreed to such an action.
The Mayors poor me /victim show was damaging to the forum in so many ways. It was embarrassing that a public leader turned up and berated a community group for something they just didn't do. The manner in which she attributed the blame was intimidatory and very defensive. Any good work that was done by the forum in the hour before will be forever overshadowed by the Mayors performance- I hope some remember the positive interactions with the youth of our community. And any prospects of recruiting new members were blown apart by the Mayors abuse. I took my children and they were embarrassed by the anger and vitriol displayed. The Mayor requested that the Forum call her about problems yet she was accusing them in public just as she had been publicly accused via the code of conduct review- tit for tat it seems.
No wonder politics in Australia is viewed as totally dysfunctional when civic leaders think its OK to publicly accuse and berate volunteers for exercising their rights to query the conduct of civic leaders.
Poor form Mrs Gash- but it seems your poor me / victim routine is making a regular appearance.
AMENDMENT: I have been asked to note that when the Mayor chucked her tantrum the number of young people in the room was not the full 40 from earlier a handful- around 6.
Code of Conduct costs
The Cost of code of conduct complaints are in-
Councillor Whites complaint $3349.60
Mayor Gash 1st complaint -not yet billed,
Mayor Gash 2nd Complaint $2541.00
The budget for dealing with complaints was $10,079 plus $5000 from the previous year as at 31 March the amount that was spent from this budget was $1993.00
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3 comments:
You're right Amanda, the Forum did not make the Code Of Conduct Complaint which we were accused of doing, however we did write to Mrs Gash expressing our concerns about the process which had taken place at the Council meeting on 26th October involving bundling of a range of issues in a Mayoral minute. We subsequently invited the Mayor to address the meeting (in December) so she could explain how and why that process took place. as you know, that didn't happen. You are right in saying that her manner last night was quite hostile and intimidatory but it won't scare me at least from questioning undue process or any other behaviour or actions which are not in the best interests of the community. As an elected representative of the U&DCF it is my duty to do so.
Amanda, just a comment on your amendment regarding the attendance at the Forum meeting. 60 names are listed i=on the attendance sheet, however many people chose not to sign it on their entry. I believe there were at least 15 younger people (who were attending for the first time) who were still present when Mrs Gash spoke.
While I was appalled to learn that this bullying tirade was carried out in front of young people, the age of the people is really irrelevant. The performance was a disgrace, whether done in front of 15 young people or in front of 15 older people. The accusations against the Forum were false and the statement that "I have the evidence" cannot be true if the Forum secretary has stated that the Forum did not lodge a Code of Conduct Complaint. No one gets told who makes that type of Complaint and the respondent certainly shouldn't be on an unfounded witch hunt.
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