Letter to the Editor

12 December 2019

Local government done differently

Your December Southern Grampians Council meeting provided action at last on RV dump sites to encourage tourist visitation to our Shire. We also approved letting contracts for an irrigation system for Pedrina Park and replacing the worn court 2 & 3 floors at HILAC.

However, I believe we missed an opportunity to upgrade our processes of managing our important community facilities by including council delegates for major facilities. Improving how Councillors are kept informed on major council facilities like Pedrina Park, the Hamilton Showgrounds, and our Botanic Gardens.

Councillors continue to be bombarded with letters from organisations affected by council decisions about these important council facilities, yet your current council won't consider having Councillors at the table and chairing User group meetings of Pedrina Park or the Hamilton Showgrounds, or having a councillor delegate on Botanic Gardens meetings. No seconder from the six other councillors to consider an Advisory Committee model like council has for the management of the Hamilton Livestock Exchange. Two councillor representatives with one Councillor chairing the HLEX meetings and reporting back to council.

Also surprised that a basic request to have councillors receive a copy of the application for grant funding for the Hockey Netball Pavilion at Pedrina Park was knocked back. There were two supporting councillors for this motion but It was interesting that Cr Brown teamed with Cr Calvano to argue that council did not need to know promptly how much the public toilet /pavilion project was to cost which would be part of the detail of the officers grant application. Pleased that two councillors Cr Dunkley and Cr Armstrong supported the request for a copy of the grant application which I asked to be included in our support for applying for grant funding of the now Pavillion/public toilets - Netball and Hockey precinct.

I look forward to participating in a council that is prepared to hold regular meetings as a councillor only meetings with enough time to fully discuss our council responsibilities to improve the quality of our community representation and decision making. Most councils do this when ever they have briefings ( also called forums). The best model being a councillor only meeting at the start of briefings then at the end of the session.

There is always value in listening to fellow councillors and combing our efforts. We can't all be across everything. And despite not always agreeing with each other, if given more opportunity to work together, that is what happens. Working together for the benefit of the community we represent.

Compliments of the season.

Yours sincerely,

Cr Katrina Rainsford
97 Kennedy St. Hamilton