Launceston City Council: What is the rush?

Looking at the Launceston City Council Agenda for Monday Dec 14 a cynic might be forgiven for thinking quite hard and long about what it is that’s being rushed through here and seemingly without meaningful input from the city’s constituency.

Yes it’s the silly season and people have holidays, frivolity and other things on their mind. And ‘they’, the press, well they just do not have the time nor the capacity to give all that’s on this agenda the attention it needs and deserves …. right now.

Just what is the rush? Why haven’t these issues been canvassed outside council? It will be said that “the press” haven’t shown any interest. Why? However, where are the media releases? Where are the FACEbook entries? Where is the marketing?

Yet, LCC General Manager, Robert Dobrzynski, says that he is a fan of social media. So, just where has it been employed to effectively engage with the municipality’s constituents with stakes in this meeting’s issues?

It will not be until February 5th next year that council meets again. With the silly season upon us, compliant consultancies are bound to be going on and doing a lot of cutting an drying. What is there to be looked forward to?

There is a theme running through this meeting’s agenda. It is worth remembering that council agendas get posted on a Thursday, typically late in the day, for meetings the following Monday. In the USA this fulsome agenda might well be characterised as a “snow job”. Which aldermen will have read all this stuff?

Alongside all this, there is council minute-taking. It is antiquated and the time is ripe for bringing them, the minutes, along with agendas and other reporting, into the ‘digital reality’. But not this year!

Rather than hiding behind the cloak of bureaucratic convenience Local Government, via social media, should be working towards being more transparent, more inclusive and getting more people more deeply engaged with the governance of our cities, our communities, indeed our places.

At least ‘the community’ should be more involved than we are at present given the rates conscripted for Tasmania’s largest council with the highest rates.

Apart from anything else this agenda uses antiquated administrative technology to assist in the maintenance of the status quo. The rhetoric of “social media” is in the end hollow and arguably, as often as not, its self-serving.

Curiously, the general manager, Robert Dobrzynski, seems to use administrative obsolescence as an argument for social media but when push comes to shove the effective use of digital technologies, including social media, seems to be missing.

Launceston’s “City Heart Project” is on the agenda?along with some rather interesting information regarding who Council consulted? and how. Yet it is near impossible to scrutinise the results without context. Actually, one gets a strong sense that it’s all designed to go over the aldermen’s heads. A series of questions arise. Like, what ideas were raised during this process and yet were dismissed?

The message is that the community supports the final recommendations but on the street there is a different feeling. On the street the big question is, where is all this money coming from? Past memories tell many people that there is a bit to worry about, especially so because of the secrecy.

Then there is the Duck Reach Power Station lease negotiations?and you have wonder why all the secrecy? For instance, the issue of increasing the Gorge’s water flow is ominously disregarded. Given that this is a ratepayer issue when will the project details and the outcome of discussions be made public?

Then there is the “Reimagining the Gorge Project” where council seems to have subverted this process. Seemingly, there is an added conclusion about commercial development that did not arise from the consultation process. And there seems to be lots more hidden away from view. Why?

Indeed, where is the the community advisory group’s recommendations ¬– the Council’s Cataract Gorge Advisory Committee. Where are they? Why are they not being being made available to aldermen? Why aren’t the aldermen asking questions like this?

Worryingly the sale of the ‘Penny Royal’ car park is on the agenda. Why now? What is the rush? If the the status quo were to continue until 2028, as it can, why now?

This car park is to be a free car park for visitors to Penny Royal and the cataract gorge reserve. If sold to Penny Royal, the visitors to Cataract Gorge Reserve will be prevented from parking freely there. Council has been advised of community opposition to the sale proceeding. so why isn’t that advice there?

The current status of the Council owned site is that it is leased to The JAC Group, the Penny Royal developer, hold the lease until 2028 for a sum of $10 per annum – subject to a condition that the tenant is to maintain a free public car park available for use by any person attending the Penny Royal complex or the Cataract Gorge. Why cannot this arrangement continue until there is an acceptable community outcome?

The layering of contention here is plain to see. However, what is unclear is why it is that this matter, the sale of the land, needs to be resolved right now and without any further community consultation.

After that there are the issues of:
o Kerbside Organics after 6 years of enthusiastic submissions from the public, and council, apparently, just maintaining its own strategies regardless.

o City Heart traffic and bus stops despite the police objecting to the proposal for two-way streets yet the implication of significant public support

o The relocation of city bus stops. The shop and property owners want bus stops removed but their voices are being totally ignored.

o And there has been a workshop this month concerning the Rate Modeling Approach.

Looking at the agenda almost anyone could be excused for wondering about the rush and just where the community input is. Yes it is the silly season with the press having other things on their mind and very inclined to look the other way for fun news with soft messages.

Yet, the big question hanging in the air here is just what is the rush?

More here …

• http://tasratepayers.blogspot.com.au/
• http://hpstasmania.blogspot.com.au/
• http://launcestonaccountability.blogspot.com.au/