*Pic: Huon Valley Council including Ken Studley, of whom Bob writes: ‘It’s refreshing to see that Councillor Ken Studley (listed in last year’s pre-election advertising as a member of the Heart of the Huon team) is taking action to awaken council from its climate-change stupor.’
Huon Valley Guessing Games
Just as Huon Valley Council’s management ignored or dismissed the 188 objections to Dennis Bewsher’s “vision” of a Waterloo Bay bulk-handling facility ( Waterloo Bay: The Great Deceit and More Pie-in-the-Sky in the Huon ), it has done much the same with its ‘Proposed Strategic Plan’. (The Local Government Act 1993 requires council to “prepare a strategic plan”.)
The draft plan, virtually unchanged despite receipt of 16 (mostly well-argued) representations, will go before council for approval at Wednesday’s (May 27) ordinary meeting at the Council Chambers, Huonville (starting 6pm). If approved, it will then be re-presented after being “amended where applicable to reflect feedback” for endorsement at the June 24 council meeting.
The potentially dismal future that awaits this steadily declining council is reflected in the fact that its management appears not to be up to producing a meaningful strategy document to cover the next decade (2015-2025).
What councillors will be asked to consider on Wednesday is more of a Clayton’s plan, full of cliche, motherhood statements and high-flown utterances; and devoid of substance in most areas. Some who have read council’s ‘2010-2015 Strategic Plan’, say the proposed new plan doesn’t hold a candle to its predecessor.
The latest plan is not easy to find on council’s new, and decidedly much improved, website. One keen observer of council behaviour, says: “It takes some searching for . . . One could be almost forgiven for imagining that they didn’t want submissions.” Here’s the link: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz5Xzg9his-zaFR5OFZWMVc1WnM/edit.
It’s too late for submissions now, but there could be entertainment for those who attend tomorrow’s meeting to hear how councillors can justify how they allowed such a document to get past their “workshop” scrutiny, if, in fact, all of them saw it. Perhaps it wasn’t even workshopped!
Another question: If the strategic plan has, in fact, been thoroughly “workshopped” — the secretive technique used by council down the years to make sure that the Huon Valley public cannot see what councillors are saying, or how they are working “in the best interests of the community” — why does it contain no detailed strategic goals?
Having been rejected in several attempts to reform council’s virtually non-existent transparency, Cr Liz Smith, at tomorrow’s meeting, will be pushing to get council to recognise “the importance of community interest and public participation in the affairs of council”, and to open “all council workshops to the public so that community members can attend as observers” (except when the Local Government Act 1993 requires confidentiality).
Surely all councillors, if only to protect their already threadbare credibility with much of the public, should respond positively to this suggestion. After all, as ratepayers or residents, we expect to be privy to what is going on inside the minds of the people who have been elected (whether we were for or against them) to act in our, the ratepayers’ and residents’, interests.
Another question: Why is there no mention in the plan about climate change, global warming, sea-level rise, polar ice melt, ocean acidification, waterways pollution, and other issues related so vitally to the municipality’s highly vulnerable natural environment.
It’s refreshing to see that Councillor Ken Studley (listed in last year’s pre-election advertising as a member of the Heart of the Huon team) is taking action to awaken council from its climate-change stupor. On Wednesday, he will propose that council should think about, “as part of future budget considerations, developing a policy statement in relation to climate change effects”.
Don’t know what his fellow Heart of the Huon members will make of his motion. I can’t recall any of the three surviving members of ex-councillor Robert Armstrong’s ruling bloc ever even acknowledging that climate change was worth a moment’s thought. One can only hope that reality is dawning at HVC. Full marks to Studley for this motion.
Another question: Why is there no strategy in the draft “proposed strategic plan” to cope with the infrastructure needs that will test a cash-strapped council in the years ahead?
Michael Higgins, a candidate at last year’s council election, feels that “the draft plan lacks serious detail — lots of broad motherhood statements without any clear measurement or actual plan of implementation”. He concludes: “I recommend to scrap this farce of a draft plan and go back and engage with the whole community.”
All things considered, council would be better off not to have a plan at all rather than reveal to its ratepayers that their taxes are being spent on the commissioning of such a waffly document ( agenda item ‘15.015/15 Public submissions‘ — see https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4M5kQr8ve_GflhET1ozZ19rMHRNeVNSRDhBdHZKWjJPTldudW9yN1pCR0lwNXJqd2haRk0&usp=sharing&tid=0B4M5kQr8ve_GNXJiSlExX1VySzQ ). Inconveniently, the law demands that there must be one.
ELSEWHERE in Wednesday’s council documents is a staff report on a ‘Community Engagement Plan — Township Theme Project’ (in conjunction with the ‘Huon Valley Brand’, a council-commissioned work-in-progress).
This offers much more hope that something constructive and beneficial is in the air for the valley’s main “settlements” of Cygnet, Dover, Franklin, Geeveston, and Huonville. Unfortunately, the bureaucratic devices via which this bold program is to be implemented are enough to discourage anyone who feels an inclination to get involved.
The “brand” and “theme” ideas are good ones. It will be to the great credit of council if it can develop them to a quality that can be deemed a success. — Bob Hawkins
