Fremantle Council records and minutes

I have only ever been to three council meetings in my life. There have all been at Fremantle Council and in reference to the Fremantle Market Mayhem.

You can’t just call up the mayor and arrange a meeting with him and the councillors to ‘shoot the breeze’. Anyone and everyone must show up at a council meeting and all issues are discussed within an hour or two. You sign your name onto a book in the foyer if you wish to speak. At the beginning of the meeting you are told you have 3 minutes to have your say.

Occasionally you will get a straight answer right away but in most cases you need to wait for the other speakers to have their say before you are responded to. I have noticed a couple of times that people have waited to hear their outcome only to find that their answer is something like:

I don’t have that information at hand right now.
I will need to look into that
I will contact you when more details come to hand.
Or they say Thank you and you are finished – dismissed.

I went into the last meeting determined to get a straight answer to my question. I even wrote it out before hand to make sure I would be clear and concise.

The mayor did not show up. This was the second time he had not chaired the meeting. I addressed him as ‘the missing mayor’ and spoke as if he was there. I did this as I wanted to be sure that the statement and question would go into the transcript as I wanted it on record.

The transcript should be a record of everything said at the meeting. That way the mayor could, if he chose to, have a verbatim copy and a future reference of exactly what is discussed at the meetings.

Minutes should be a synopsis of the main points raised. Minutes are like looking at small descriptions or chapters within a book. Minutes should also direct you to the relevant issue in the transcript.

The council minutes are uploaded onto the council’s website and the public can get an overall picture of the meetings. They should name the speaker and reference the issue and then in a sentence or two give an outline of the main points raised by the speaker.

The thing that really irritates me about the public service is that too many, and too often, public servants act as if they are the authority of the general public. NO. If you are elected into office by the people then you must never forget that you work on behalf of the people and you are being paid by the people. You might be President, Prime minister, Police Commissioner or Mayor but you are not The Boss and you do not Dictate. As a public servant you Serve the people. That is, you are transparent, you act in an honest and ethical manner and you are accountable to the people.

If the public choose to look through council minutes then they expect and deserve to see what was discussed at the meeting. When I looked over the last couple of postings I was appalled to see nothing more than peoples names and a reference to their agenda. See Public Question Time: http://www.freofocus.com/council/resource/2009.04.22_Council.pdf

I wrote a letter to the councillors to point out my objections (see below*) and I received this reply from Glen Dougall:
Good morning Sonya

Thank you for taking the time to raise this correction, I will have the minute taker review the records to ensure we accurately reflect who you are.

The Council minutes are to provide the name of the person and a précis of question/s asked during public question time and the response, if a response is provided at the meeting. The other information recorded is to identify what item they were speaking to - if they were speaking to an item on the agenda – or what issue they were speaking to.

Elected Members and officers present at the meeting certainly have the opportunity to listen to any other information provided with the questions. Council has always been open to allowing members of the community to provide some additional information and support the opportunity for the community to be heard. This may add value to their decision making. This does not form part of the official record of the meeting however.

(Seems he thinks I was being precious about my name and either missed my point or chose to spin it).

However Deputy Mayor John Dowson replied with:
Like you I have concerns about the Minutes and sent in a long list of corrections, which have not been addressed yet to my knowledge.

As Chair of the meeting I will not be signing off on the Minuted until I am satisfied.

And Cr Haney replied:
Minutes are the official, public record of a meeting so really important. I have requested 2 amendments to how my voting was recorded at that meeting and your email promoted me to follow up and ask if the minutes will be amended.

I also contacted the Minister for Local Government but as yet I have not heard back.

My Letter to Council:
*Who writes these minutes? They certainly don’t reflect the things I said or heard on the night.

Firstly, I am not a stall-holder and have never stated that I was. I did not even mention Richard Murphy’s name nor did I make any mention about the breaches. I have sent the mayor and the councillors a hard copy of what I said as I wanted to be very clear and have on record my concerns. The gist of what I said is that I believe that Mayor Tagliaferri is behind the market redevelopment scheme and that this is the real reason why rents have dramatically increased, businesses forced out and ultimately the markets will lose their iconic status and tourist appeal.

“Regardless of the fair market rent argument, it seems pretty clear that the proposed Market Super Deli is equally responsible for the price hikes. Basically, the current stallholders are being bullied into financing a venture, which will ultimately destroy their business as well as the markets.”

The mayor has since responded to my Question, “Do you, or will you have any financial or personal interest in the market redevelopment?”
He replied, “No.”

And I don’t know what this means, but is minuted as the reply to my question: “The Mayor was and apology at this meeting therefore was not able to answer the question.”

Colin Wright said much about Richard’s eviction but also put forward the idea that the Murdoch’s should be evicted and Richard reinstated. The gallery applauded this idea.

Richard Murphy spoke of his eviction and received a very glib response which ignored his questions and spun off into irrelevant mutterings about waiting on info from SAT. The crowd let out an audible groan and hiss. He also questioned the mayor’s promise of keeping stall-holders safe.

Robby Lang spoke of the need to keep the markets interesting and vibrant; stating that the redevelopment would be counterproductive to this and the disadvantage of no longer incubating new businesses.

Your minutes make us all look like a bunch of puppets repeating the same issue over and over. Your minutes have completely dismissed the concerns raised on the night.

Your Take:
Mr Colin Wright spoke in relation to item C0904-9, Report on Alledged Market Breaches he is a stall holder and would like to see the evicted Richard Murphy back and the alledged breach with the head lease dealt with as a matter of urgency.

Ms Marilyn Wright spoke in relation to item C0904-9, Report on Alledged Market Breaches she is a stall holder and would like to see the evicted Richard Murphy back and the alledged breach with the head lease dealt with as a matter of urgency.

Ms Sonia spoke in relation to item C0904-9, Report on Alledged Market Breaches she is a stall holder and would like to see the evicted Richard Murphy back and the alledged breach with the head lease dealt with as a matter of urgency. She asked if Mayor Peter Tagliaferri had any personal or financial interest in the markets.

The Mayor was and apology at this meeting therefore was not able to answer the question.

Mr Robby Lang spoke in relation to item C0904-9, Report on Alledged Market Breaches he would like to see the evicted Richard Murphy back and the alledged breach with the head lease dealt with as a matter of urgency.

Ms Anna O’Sullivan spoke in relation to item C0904-9, Report on Alledged Market Breaches she would like to see the evicted Richard Murphy back and the alledged breach with the head lease dealt with as a matter of urgency. She stated that the markets helps to bring the Fremantle community together and it is getting distroyed.

Mr Richard Murphy spoke in relation to item C0904-9, Report on Alledged Market Breaches he was a stall holder and was recently evicted; he believes illegally he would like the alledged breach with the head lease dealt with as a matter of urgency and to be able to return to his stall.

And so it went for all the speakers…