By Ethan Benedicto
With the upcoming May Casey council meeting to be held in person, Mayor Stefan Koomen said that the decision to put a cap on 80 attendees is to ensure a safe and orderly meeting.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work on getting a process in place, to get it right,” Koomen said.
“I think it’s a genuine and reasonable thing to do to have a process like the other councils, given what had happened.”
These requirements for registration are not new, however, with Yarra Ranges council, according to their website, also asked for the same needs, as well as a phone number and an email address.
This development comes with Casey following the lead from several other councils, in addition to the Yarra Ranges, such as Hobsons Bay, Greater Bendigo, Brimbank, and La Trobe City Council.
“As councillors, we want to get back to in-person meetings as soon as possible, and I’ve spoken to a number of other mayors, including the mayor of Yarra Ranges, who have had similar instances of dealing with disturbances at their meetings,” Koomen said.
“We’ve made sure to take note of these processes they’re putting in place and did our best to get the best practice in terms of the registration process.”
Registrations for the Tuesday, 20 May meeting will open on Thursday, 15 May, with first and last names required, as well as the registrar’s home address.
In Casey’s website, the reasoning for the requirements listed is supporting council staff, providing a safe environment for an orderly meeting, as well as transparency.
“More than 300 people attended the February council meeting, and this process is in place so we can host a safe and orderly meeting that is a positive experience for our community,” Koomen said.
“We had a capacity in February, but we had three times the amount of people turn up and forced their way into the room, so we do have a process.”
Back in February, the initial gallery had been filled with seated attendees, however, the line outside the room stretched towards Bunjil Place’s cafe entrance, with the open space just outside said gallery slowly crowding with people.
Star News attended the first in-person meeting, where the outside crowd eventually forced itself inside, and what began the eventual and constant disruptive behaviour from the gallery that led to the meeting’s adjournment.
“We’re putting this in place so we can come back in person, and if there needs to be fine-tuning, we’ll do that,” Koomen said.
“Obviously we want to make it the best process possible to make sure that people can come back to our meetings in a safe and orderly way.”
