Greater Dandenong Council has opted to revert to monthly council meetings for the first time in more than 28 years.
The scrapping of fortnightly meetings was endorsed at a council meeting on Monday 27 October, with opposition from Labor deputy mayor Sophie Tan in a surprise move.
The time saved will be used as an “opportunity” for mandatory councillor professional training development, Dr Marjan Hajjari, strategy and corporate services director, told the meeting.
According to a council report, the move was mainly due to the current and future State Government changes to the town planning framework, shifting town planning decisions from the council to the government.
This has led to a “significant” reduction in town planning applications to be considered by council.
Cr Tan opposed the item saying even without the town planning application reductions, council meetings had other items to consider and often ran until 8:30pm.
She argued other councils may be meeting once a month however, sometimes those meetings go on late sometimes until midnight.
“Sometimes we have some items deferred. We would have to wait one month to get back, it’s not flexible for our community to wait a month for answers,” she said at the meeting.
Councillor Rhonda Garad agreed saying she doesn’t understand the “sudden need for this,” and warned of the loss in community visibility and contact.
“I am concerned that we have been having fortnightly meetings for a very long time and in that time we have not found a lack of time to reflect on policy, to set strategic direction, to conduct councillor training but suddenly we need more time for all these things.
“Waiting a month to make decisions particularly on urgent items is a very long time and can be too long on some issues that the community are concerned about.”
Council’s chief executive Jacqui Weatherill assured councillors that if there’s pressing business to be discussed, the council could schedule an additional meeting.
Councillor Phillip Danh, who said he was “agnostic” on the idea, supported the item saying if this model doesn’t work, they can “revert back to the original format.”
He said the proposal isn’t about “doing less work” but “streamlining.”
“The aim of this schedule, in my view would be to create more space for strategic thinking and long term planning rather than the constant operation in what can be a reactive cycle every fortnight.
“It’ll open more time for meaningful engagement particularly in complex issues which require longer term thinking.”
He said the schedule was trailed last month but wasn’t enough to determine the permanent change, referring to the cancelled council meeting of 8 September due to “insufficient agenda items” according to a council report.
This was determined in a council meeting in August.
The new schedule will come to play at the election of mayor and deputy mayor special meeting on 13 November.
