*Pic: Mock-up image of Huon Valley Council’s $50,000 branding project. Nice logo, but what do the words mean?
Huon Valley Guessing Games Lip service, opacity, insularity, profligacy, fear, cussedness, mediocrity — all words, among others, that jumbled around in my head last Wednesday evening (May 27). I was listening to Huon Valley Council (HVC) in session. Not all of it was surreal, but it was unnervingly close to being so.
Heartbreaking but fascinating watching grown men yet again adopting an isolationist attitude. Post-meeting — as we long-suffering public trundled downstairs from the council chamber — I’m sure I heard despairing groans. Not surprising considering we had witnessed about two-and-a-half hours of a fractured council debating issues whose significance seemed largely beyond the grasp of those who control the voting.
And the issues really were serious: climate change; council transparency; a 10-year strategic plan; delegated authority; local-government reform ( see http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/weblog/article/hvc-80000-to-review-a-hall-10000-to-review-a-council-/show_comments ); a community-engagement township theming project; development of a Huon Valley brand . . .
It was an agenda that gave the eight councillors present (Mike Wilson was absent ill) an opportunity to deliberate responsibly on behalf of the people they are elected to represent. The two-plus hours that ensued left many in the public gallery bemused.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The traditional battle lines soon came into clear focus when Councillor Ken Studley — the first member of the voting bloc that has ruled this council since the turn of the century to openly acknowledge that global warming is, would you believe it, actually real — moved a “notice of motion” that council should develop “a policy statement in relation to climate change effects”.
Almost everyone seemed to think this was a great idea. Certainly it was music to the ears of the Greens’ Rosalie Woodruff and to former Greens councillor, now independent, Liz Smith. For years they have been valiantly plugging the need for council to prepare for climate change. So enthused was Smith, she suggested council might do a scoping report to establish roughly what kind of money would be involved. By doing this, council would be better informed when it went in search of funding.
Her amendment was all too much for the Heart of the Huon men (Studley, Bruce Heron, Deputy Mayor Ian Paul and Pav Rusicka). They wanted to keep it simple. So, by voting down Smith’s amendment 4-4 (a tied vote is a lost vote), it seemed that the ‘Heart’ were offering no more than lip service to climate change, an issue largely ignored through the long, miserable years of the dominance of council by former mayor Robert Armstrong (now in what many jokingly call an ex-mayors’ retirement institution).
(An aside: the majority Heart team, if bloc voting patterns since the new council convened last November have been anything to go by, has at its core, five men — Heron, Paul, Ruzicka, Studley and Wilson. Lydia Eastley was on the Heart ticket in advertising before last October’s election, but, like a breath of fresh air, she is proving not quite the party-line voter the Heart would surely like her to be. When she speaks, she does so as if she has even read the fine print; and she spells out her reasons for the positions she takes.
With Smith’s amendment on the scrapheap, Studley’s original motion went to the vote. Having lost the action bit — the amendment — the Heart’s opposition generously made the vote unanimous, and the mayor congratulated Studley on his enlightenment. But the seeds had been sown for a fractious session of grassroots politics. Council was about to plod on along the path of mediocrity to which observers are accustomed.
WORKSHOPS AND THE PUBLIC
The first serious stoush of the evening. Smith’s notice of motion, that council “recognises the importance of community interest and public participation in the affairs of council and opens all council workshops to the public so that community members can attend as observers”, seemed reasonable enough. After all, as long as the topic was not confidential council business, what would be wrong with voters getting an insight into the inner workings of their council?
Was Smith’s motion reasonable? Not at all, argued the Heart. Heron thought workshop meetings would lose their “banter” if the public were present. Eastley thought workshop “informality” might be lost if observers were looking on.
Damn it all, councillors are our representatives, we vote them in, so surely we should be entitled to see what they’re saying (if they’ve got anything to say) when they’re workshopping an issue? If councillors don’t want to be seen doing their job as elected reps of the people, they shouldn’t stand for public office.
Down went Smith’s motion, 5-3. So, for the time being at least, when our councillors are informally bantering with each other while workshopping, it will not be, as Smith wished, under the gaze of the public. Transparency? Not a chance. Opacity? It still rules, and our bungling council remains a largely secret society.
(Note: It is worth recalling that Wilson was the councillor who led the charge to abolish township committees and forums a couple of years back. As I remember it, he felt $10,000 in total was too much to spend on those annual five forums. Since the committees and forums disappeared, nothing that offers real communication between public and council has replaced them. Council still talks about “consultation”, but, like Studley’s climate-change gesture, it looks more like lip service.)
STRATEGY
Then came the debacle that is the ‘Huon Valley Strategic Plan 2015 to 2025’. This flimsy document is a poor effort on the part of management, as was suggested in some of the 16 submissions after the draft was made available for public scrutiny ( see http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/article/in-the-huon-valley-a-claytons-strategy/ ). It is almost unrelieved pap. As a path-setting council document, it doesn’t hold a candle to the current 2010 to 2015 strategy produced in the days of the GM Glenn Doyle regime.
The recommendation before council was that the draft 2015 to 2025 plan be amended “where applicable to reflect feedback” and then presented to the June meeting of council for endorsement. Considering that the council report said that the only change deriving from public submissions (many detailed and thoughtfully argued) was to adjust “some terminology”, it seemed 16 people had wasted hours of their time trying to be helpful to a council that is apparently not up to assembling a document that requires seriously mature thinking.
It certainly didn’t read well enough for Cr Woodruff. So she put up an alternative motion. She, too, thought the 2010 to 2015 strategy was a much better document. She called for a review of council’s performance against the standards of the existing 2010 to 2015 plan; acknowledgement of community concerns about lack of consultation in the preparation of the 2015 to 2025 plan; and for the consultation process used for the existing plan (which included town forums, an online survey and a “wide promotional program”) to be repeated for the 2015-2025 plan.
Deputy Mayor Paul was not impressed, grumbling that council had “been through a very varied and wide process”; it had worked hard; and “it is a plan, just a plan . . . Are we going to go through another process and do it again?”. Mayor Coad thought Woodruff’s motion “gives us a chance to go to the community”. Eastley, her voice not always easy to hear, especially when she talks too quickly, seemed to see merit in Woodruff’s motion. Smith thought it “important that we get the best plan”.
Woodruff’s alternative never had a chance — it was obvious the four Heart men were resisting (there surely would have been five if Heart leader Wilson had been present) — and the alternative motion went down 4-4, Eastley, in backing Woodruff. Another demonstration of her independence.
So, it was back to the original recommendation, which then passed 4-3, Eastley’s vote being accepted by the mayor as an “abstention” Some confusion on that one. Former mayor Armstrong would not tolerate the idea of anyone abstaining.
So, what did that vote mean? It is that HVC, as it has so often done in the past, was yet again prepared to settle for mediocrity.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM
This was the seriously touchy issue of the evening. The Heart bloc appears to be stuck in an immovable “no speaks” groove in relation to Local Government Minister Peter Gutwein’s invitation to southern councils (accompanied by a $50,000 enticement) to get together and talk about local government reform.
Again, last Wednesday, there was no budging. The Heart team sees nothing to gain, and perhaps a lot to lose, by talking with other councils, even if it might give their own council a bit of inside running when Gutwein turns up the heat and decides that his wish has to become a demand.
Anyone familiar with Wilson’s me-for-mayor website might have expected something more positive from his team on LG reform. After all, on http://www.mikewilsonformayor.com, Wilson campaigned with this assertion: “We need to work with State Government and other councils and organisations to get the best result for our region.” Maybe that is how it would have been had Wilson become mayor last October. Well, he didn’t, and now it seems obvious the Heart is determined to give Mayor Coad as tough a time as they can. It’s not unreasonable, even, to think that the Heart believe — quite wrongly I’m sure — that Coad is being disloyal to the interests of his native valley?
The issue to hand last Wednesday was to respond to invitations from three councils — Derwent, Glenorchy and Kingborough — to join their local government reform discussions.
The agenda recommendation was that “correspondence be provided” to those councils “thanking them for their correspondence and providing them with a copy of council’s resolution of 22 April 2015”. The April 22 resolution was that council would hold its own internal review of old reports council had commissioned and that it would make no move at all until that report had been completed and considered.
Woodruff moved an alternative motion for council to join the multi-council talks.
Studley said he had found no support in the community for council amalgamations (which aren’t entirely what Gutwein’s invitation was about). Paul said he didn’t understand what Studley had said, but he, too, wouldn’t support talks with other councils. Heron felt the April meeting “covered everything”. Ruzicka said the mayor was trying the avoid the word amalgamation. Eastley said not using the word amalgamation made the motion “less scary”. Mayor Coad argued that the talks were not just about amalgamations but also to “consider all the options”. When Paul said councils were already co-operating, Smith observed that councillors were not always informed about what inter-council co-operation was going on.
The debate was hardly edifying. At its conclusion, the mayor read a prepared statement, expressing his regret at the lack of support for HVC to talk with other councils, and thanked all councillors for their contributions.
Is fear of the unknown a factor that has induced the paranoia that seems to afflict the Heart men? Whatever it might be, they gave no ground last Wednesday, and Woodruff’s alternative motion to join the talks went down 4-4, Eastley voting with Coad, Smith and Woodruff. When the original recommendation became the motion, it got up 5-3, the Heart enjoying the support of Eastley.
Had Wilson been present, the vote surely would have been six councillors against HVC communicating with the outside world. Again, one might ask if fear is the factor that generates such an irrational attitude — or is it sheer cussedness. One might even wonder if it’s a skeleton or two in an old cupboard that is keeping alien eyes from peering too deeply back into council history. Whatever it might be, there’s no doubt insularity rules at Huon Valley Council.
Community Engagement Plan (CEP) Council’s “township theme project” is one that that could do the valley a lot of good, but only if council is willing to put the horse before the cart for a change. Usually, council only gets around to seriously consulting the community after it has a project virtually complete and ready to implement. This time, if the staff report can be trusted, council has every intention of getting into serious community consultation before formulating its plan. But the bureaucratic hurdles built into the report are mind-boggling.
The agenda recommendation was that “The Community Engagement Plan (CEP) for the Theme Township Project, dated May 2015 . . . be endorsed for implementation”.
Smith, an amendment at the ready, proposed that the CEP be considered after the ‘Huon Valley Brand’ (see below) “has been publicised and an online survey is established to understand what residents understand to be a theme for their township and/or area”.
She pointed to the first sentence of the council staff report: “An essential part of the development of the Huon Valley Brand is to ensure that each township . . . is reflective of that brand”. This, it appears, is why Smith wanted council to hold its horses on the CEP until it had got its “brand” project settled. And, said Smith: “Surely we could allow the townships to at least have a go at developing their own themes?” All of that, it seems, would have made much more sense than what was being recommended.
For the record, Smith’s amendment got the short shrift Heart members usually give to opposition ideas (it went down 5-3), and the original recommendation then passed unanimously. (It has always confused me that, often, councillors, having argued against a motion, fall into line and allow a “unanimous” resolution to be recorded in the minutes. Can’t quite put my finger on it, but it might be a bit of “harmony-for-the-sake-of-harmony hypocrisy”.)
Surely, putting the horse before the cart — by getting the branding finished before township theming begins — is a more sensible way to make progress? Is there an element of Heart cussedness going on here? Or are they just not thinking it through?
(In passing, Smith noted the irony that there was no similar plan for community engagement when developing the 2015-2025 Strategic Plan – “a much more important document that will guide how council will operate over the next 10 years”.)
An interesting diversion in the CEM debate was the revelation, by acting GM Emilio Reale, that a ball-park figure for the cost of the branding project was $50,000.
And that wasn’t the only questionable figure to emerge last Wednesday. Earlier, in response to a question from Woodruff, the meeting was told it wasn’t $40,000 that was set aside to concoct a plan (just a plan!) for the future of Geeveston Town Hall; it was $80,000! That’s about 1% of rate revenue. I realise about half this money has been cadged from non-council sources, but I now know why profligacy was running around in my head on hearing the cost of the Geeveston plan-for-a-plan allocation.
Just thinking about Geeveston’s $80,000 windfall has me recalling Marianne Bekkema’s two-decades-long campaign for a lift to the supper room in Cygnet Town Hall. I think 80 grand was the last figure council quoted for her vision — but, of course, there wouldn’t be enough money available for such a practical project until way past 2020!
At least the public now knows a bit more about goings on surrounding Geeveston Town Hall. Manoeuvrings by council in recent weeks — with Wilson performing, I’m told, like a de facto mayor at a community-inspired public meeting last month — have had many observers wondering just what is happening in council-coddled Geeveston at a time when the Heart wouldn’t vote a dozen thousand dollars to discuss the really big issue of the moment — the future of Huon Valley Council itself.
RECORDING COUNCIL MEETINGS
One seriously significant breakthrough occurred last Wednesday. Support for recording council meetings came, for the first time, from the Heart side. Eastley and Ruzicka talked positively about something Smith advocated, and had rejected, more than a year ago by then-mayor Armstrong’s Futures Team (or some name similar), predecessor to Wilson’s Heart of the Huon team.
In March last year, Smith, recognising there would be a changed council by November, moved that management should prepare a report on recording meetings so that the new council would be fully informed on the issue as soon as they took their seats on council. Not a chance: Armstrong and his men threw her motion out, as they usually did with anything not of their own making.
Waterloo Bay’s Chris Devenish, on a study tour in the United States, writes: “Local councils and chambers of commerce [in the US], from small towns to big cities, are much more open and transparent. Quite often the meetings are streamed live and the video is available on their website. Public comment is welcomed at the beginning of meetings as well as at the beginning of discussions on agenda items”.
Hope springs . . .
HUON VALLEY BRAND
Very much a curate’s egg feeling about this one. A brand for the Huon Valley was a priority project in council’s 2010 to 2015 strategic plan. Council eventually got around to hiring a design and marketing consultancy, Red Jelly, in September last year to do the job. (Can’t remember seeing anything about the tender process.)
Red Jelly’s report came before council last Wednesday. It’s an interesting document, the best part of it being the logo — a slice off the top of a reddish apple, symbolic, presumably, of the valley’s history as a one-time massive apple producer and, of course, of its marvellous mountain scenery. Not so catchy, is the slogan: “HUON VALLEY Open up to the South”. What does that mean?).
The final branding formula, it seems, was arrived at after a “rethink” by the consultancy when some stakeholders had indicated that they felt “the prominence given to the apple image could conflict with the labelling on other produce . . .” (Anyone interested in the branding saga, should look up council’s website http://www.huonvalley.tas.gov.au/page.aspx?u=776 and read the draft minutes for last Wednesday’s meeting.)
It’s not unreasonable for a council to want to plant an image of its municipality in the minds of those elsewhere who don’t know us. The cost so far of $50,000 seems an awful lot of money for a slice of apple and an enigmatic slogan, especially when displayed on a roadside hoarding. But it has got me thinking, so perhaps the merit in the slogan is that it gets into your head and starts you trying to work out what it’s trying to say. It also has me thinking that a competition, offering, say, a $5000 prize, might have have been just as productive — and a lot cheaper. The same might be said about coming up with ideas for the future of Geeveston Town Hall.
According to the council’s branding report, there were two meetings each with “community and industry representatives” and “major producers and industry stakeholders”. But did anyone out there in the wider world know that this process was going on? Maybe council has at some time announced that this significant promotional project was in the works, but I haven’t yet met anyone in the street who has any idea that it has been going on.
It was after 8pm, and “knackered” was on the faces of many around the council chamber. After a few comments about Red Jelly’s offering, the recommendation that “the proposed Huon Valley Brand creative approach be endorsed for implementation” was approved unanimously.
The three remaining “open” council items were rattled off fairly quickly and the gallery was asked to leave.
As we trooped out, leaving council to deal with a couple of “closed” items, someone was heard to say that Kingborough Council’s meetings never last that long. I wonder why. Maybe it’s because HVC has at last got a chairman who encourages people to speak their minds (he certainly does his own); and, even at its most turbulent, manages to keep the atmosphere easy. It’s a plus for council to have a skilled chairman at the helm.
The Heart of the Huon, though they don’t see eye to eye with a mayor not of their choosing, should note that many more of the public are coming along to watch proceedings (I counted 16 last week). It’s been years since there was such a level of interest in HVC’s monthly meetings. And that can only be a good thing for grassroots democracy. — Bob Hawkins
• mr t, in Comments: … There is another option! A new council. I don’t care if it’s called the “Great Southern Land” or “North Antarctica” but an amalgamation does not mean a “takeover by Kingborough.” It means an amalgamation. Gawd, Tasmania is so conservative and by “conservative” I include the Greens, the Liberals (or “Independents” if they prefer at local Council or MLC levels) and Labor. Close a school and all hell breaks loose. Close Mersey hospital…can’t do that! Merge two Councils and it’s worse than an atomic reaction. “We’ll lose our amenity! We’ll lose our social support!” Crap!
• mr t, in Comments: … There has been a cowardly lack of leadership at the state government(s) level. Some variations to the above could be debated like amalgamating Meander etc into Devonport as well but the above list has 27 councils down to ten excluding King Island and Flinders Island. Not too long ago the same insular and protectionist thinking gave the Tasmanian Upper House the dubious honour of being one of the three most gerrymandered parliamentary houses in Australia. It is also the same thinking that stops our youth in the Huon Valley from advancing beyond Year 10 or ever leaving the village.
• Local Government Association of Tasmania: Vale Mayor Barry Jarvis
