A very Merry Christmas council

Margot Giblin Citizen Reporter

By 9pm. some aldermen were propping their weary heads on one hand. Eyes drooped, refocused, drooped again. Sexton, characteristically consistent in his efforts to cut through the dross, by now looked ready to slide to the floor for a real sleep.

Christie was as close to prostrate as a very upright chair allowed and Freeman’s eyes were closed, glasses off. Zucco was the only one standing. As energy flagged and sagged all around him, he seemed revitalized. His repeated exhortations to ‘Get real,’ were all too real but he seemed oblivious to the combined body language of his subsiding colleagues.

Hobart City Council
Open Council Meeting
Monday 18th December 2006

Aldermen
Present: Lord Mayor Rob Valentine, Deputy Lord Mayor Eva Ruzicka, Darlene Haigh, Jeff Briscoe, Peter Sexton, Ron Christie, Philip Cocker, Helen Burnet, John Freeman, Eric Hayes and Marti Zucco

Leave of Absence: Lyn Archer

THE closed portion of the council meeting started at 4.30pm, covered items relating to Beaumaris Zoo, 11-13 Marine Tce. Battery Point, 270 Lenah Valley Road, The Argyle Street Car Park Redevelopment and The Visitor Centre Development at The Springs, Mount Wellington.

THE open meeting consequently didn’t start until well after 5pm but any alderman, Council officer, or member of the public hoping for an efficient progression through the 44 items on the agenda was in for a tortuous shock.

The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Committee’s annual ‘Community Amity Award’ had gone to the Hobart City Council the night before. It had been received by Jeff Briscoe who now presented it to council with a reminder of how far Council had come since trying to ban proponents of such causes from the Salamanca Market in the past.

This relatively brisk start to proceedings was followed by a suggestion from Alderman Zucco that the Christmas spirit, with which he was joyfully imbued, be acknowledged by the chairman.
Valentine obliged but may later have rued the genie he unleashed.

Sadness at the demolition

Friends School was granted its wish for development, as was the applicant for a car showroom at 281-301 Argyle St.
Haig and Briscoe expressed sadness at the proposed demolition of two old cottages but agreed that age was to be their undoing not their saviour. Both buildings were viewed as being beyond help and as the area is already devoted to car sales the addition of another outlet was seen as fitting.

Helen Burnet’s suggested amendment that the applicant be asked to complete a history of the houses to be demolished was well received, seconded by Peter Sexton and it seemed that the matter was settled.

Alderman Zucco however felt this was the moment to launch himself into a rambling exhortation on the ‘abomination of a building’, referring to one of the two cottages that had been discussed.

It was difficult to follow his line of verbalized thought and the chairman, Valentine, waited patiently for the speaker to self regulate, not interrupting until Zucco floated the notion that — ‘If you think you can take it back to anything it must be Christmas and Father Christmas is alive and well and in this chamber and coming down the chimney and …’

Valentine, as chairman, asked Zucco to return to the topic.

Zucco: You’re not allowed to interject.

Valentine: I’m asking for clarification …

Zucco: You’re only allowed to bring up a point of order, not interrupt. Now, back to what I was saying, you can’t compare Campbell and Warwick Streets. It’s like trying to say I’m not Italian. I am Italian, Lord Mayor. I am Italian. The changes occurred many years ago. Let’s look at it. Odds and bods. Shambles. Let’s not look for Santa coming into the room.
Valentine’s necessarily lengthy clarification of what constitutes a point of order followed but had little effect as the evening wore on.

Wasted time

In bringing the present debate back to the actual site in question, Valentine suggested that the two old cottages needed to be looked at in context and that retaining them now, or attempting to incorporate them into the new car showrooms would not be meaningful.

The vote to grant the application was unanimous.

The above shambolic pattern of interchange was repeated again and again through debate over the lengthy agenda.
Attempts at reasoned argument frequently degenerated into meandering wasted time. It was excrutiatingly boring to witness and most of it, even when it was coherent, is not worth recounting.

There was no escape on the night however as fellow aldermen had to listen, again and again, as aldermen, Zucco especially, contributed extraneous material or precipitated futile bickering.

From relatively gentle starts Zucco repeatedly wound himself up, apparently by means of self mesmerizing hand/arm gestures, to heights of bombastic irrelevance. Some items slid past mercifully unchallenged but those that got any attention got heaps. One example of the ensuing pointlessness will suffice.

10 Bath St. Battery Point became the battle of when is a 3rd storey not a 3rd storey. Not at Christmas it seems.
Alderman Christie had already expressed the view that given the height of surrounding houses and the fact that parts of the street already represented ‘an eyesore’ when viewed from Quayle St. he would not be opposing the application. He mentioned the fact that he had once lived in Bath St. to support his argument.

Zucco was next

Briscoe felt inclined to share Christie’s view.

Zucco was next.

Zucco : ‘This is Christmas — we might as well give someone a Christmas present on this one — with all due respect to the officers — they’ve done their job — but if we’re going to argue plot ratio — but is it affecting anyone? — No. Is it benefiting anyone? — Yes. The people living there. You could argue either way. At the end of the day — plot ratio. But if houses around are in that height. Yes, we have a planning scheme that says not above this height, but OK for neighbours. I do respect our planners and they’re entitled to their opinion but here we have discretion and I’ll foreshadow a motion for approval with conditions.’

Valentine: I do have to point out that we have to provide reasons.

Zucco: Plot ration. Adequate height in ballpark of others in area. Density. I believe council using discretion.

What the Council officers thought of how their report was used, on this item and in general, is unlikely to be heard at these meetings.

Dragged on for over four hours

The Council General Manager, Director of Corporate Services, planning officers and legal advisers are present in case they are called on to answer a question, like children brought down from the nursery — to perform on demand but only on demand.

Zucco’s view that they are entitled to their opinion is questionable. The officers’ research, analysis and recommendations are required to lie within the parameters of their own job descriptions and the relevant planning schemes. Their replies to even the fuzziest of questions from aldermen are consistently professional as they attempt to illuminate, inform and progress the debate.

In fact, it is the aldermen who are free to engage in descriptive anecdotes, loosely related personal memories, and mood enhanced emotive expression of all of the above as they debate any motion. The gap between the seriousness with which the officers address individual issues and the frivolity and lack of relevance of much said by some individual aldermen is startling.

On 10 Bath St. Christmas notwithstanding, Alderman Burnet’s view that the officers’ recommendation for refusal was well founded ultimately held sway and the application was refused.

This open council meeting — the last for the year — dragged on for over four hours, much of which was taken up with off the topic ramblings, attempts to reign them in, spats between increasingly tired and frustrated aldermen and the need for officers to clarify resulting points of confusion.

Alderman Haigh, in a showdown with Zucco (over whether her mention of Zero Davey was an inappropriate introduction of new material at the end of a debate on the application relating to 34 Murray St.) was asked to retract the following query.

Haigh: Are we in a chamber controlled by Alderman Zucco?

Zucco objected to this, saying he found it deeply offensive.

While clearly unimpressed at being asked to retract her question it seemed that on reflection the alternative struck Alderman Haigh as worse. ‘For the sake of the good manners needed here,’ she complied, to the visible relief of those who still had to be there. The public seating area, three quarters full at 5.30 was now empty.

Slide to the floor

By 9pm. some aldermen were propping their weary heads on one hand. Eyes drooped, refocused, drooped again. Sexton, characteristically consistent in his efforts to cut through the dross, by now looked ready to slide to the floor for a real sleep.

Christie was as close to prostrate as a very upright chair allowed and Freeman’s eyes were closed, glasses off. Zucco was the only one standing. As energy flagged and sagged all around him, he seemed revitalized. His repeated exhortations to ‘Get real,’ were all too real but he seemed oblivious to the combined body language of his subsiding colleagues.

The danger of course is that important items at the sleepy end of the agenda don’t get equitable attention, but for those still awake these were some of the things that did happen — Swan St will get its night market, a report will be prepared on Bikes on Buses to Ferntree and Ridgeway, the Red Cross will receive money for bushfire relief, football at Bellerive was supported by all but Christie, a report will be done on improving community consultation with those interested in the Boot Reserve at Sandy Bay, motions passed at the 2006 AGM were accepted, Council will accept a grant of $50.000 from the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to support a cultural awareness-raising project for senior secondary students in Southern Tasmania and awards to be presented at the Sandy Bay Regatta on Australia Day 2007 were agreed on.

There will not be banners on poles as far up Elizabeth St as was requested, the amount of green waste allowed to be placed out for kerbside collection is absolutely, definitely limited to two cubic metres per property, support was endorsed a project aimed at reducing cigarette butt litter, as was a report to be prepared on a City to Southern Boundary Pedestrian and Cycle route.

The latter included advice to be forwarded to those who petitioned for Council to compulsorily acquire privately owned land between high and low water mark on the Battery Point foreshore to be advised that Council is ‘currently negotiating with the owners of the subject land.’

After a mind numbing amount of discussion on whether and how to tell another municipal council that a bit of their land is a littered mess, the John Turnbull Park Natural Resource Management Project, funded by the Federal Government, was endorsed, the Adopt-a-Waterway Program will be continued and Aldermen Cocker and Burnet were appointed as the Council’s representatives on the Cycling South Inc Management Committee.

Margot’s comment: There was more, lots more, but for me now, as at the meeting, the almost forgotten spectre of Deep Vein Thrombosis materializes.

Maybe that’s now a thing of the past as we progress to better health management.

Council meetings at which all aldermen are not willing or able to treat matters coming before them with the seriousness they are due could also be improved on.

Meetings such as the one reported on here constitute a ridiculous waste of time and public money. It could be argued that decisions reached under such confused, confusing and concentration reducing conditions only leave themselves open to further debate, thus defeating the purpose of Aldermanic input.

The Hobart City Council’s next open public meeting will be at 5pm on Monday 29th January 2007. Upstairs, Hobart Town Hall, Macquarie St.