Ultimo
Residents,
At the
Ultimo Precinct Committee Meeting last Wednesday, 2nd July
2003, which was chaired by the Lord Mayor, Lucy Turnbull, it was decided
— by Council — to abolish the Ultimo Precinct Committee in
its present form and to have future meetings for a trial period of 6
months in a different format.
A letter
received from The Lord Mayor, Lucy Turnbull to the Executive of the
Committee, states:
"...
As discussed at the meeting last night, the City will implement monthly
Information Sessions for a six month period with a Community Forum held
during this period also. As I emphasised, the City’s intention
is to increase and broaden community participation. I consider it important
to look for opportunities that enable this to be achieved and, once
again, I ask for your support for the trial.
After
the trial period, we will review the effectiveness of the new format.
I am sure you will have views on the effectiveness or otherwise of our
proposal which I look forward to receiving."
The new
format is to be a Community Information Session as is held in the Pyrmont
Precinct. The justification for this change included the fact that "hundreds
of people" turn up at Pyrmont and very few at Ultimo. The Lord
Mayor also inferred that the conduct of the UPC meetings had "collapsed"
and had become "disruptive". Unruly behaviour was also cited
as a reason for discontinuing the meetings in its present format.
These
new Community Information Sessions are to be held monthly on the same
date as our Ultimo Precinct Committee Meetings have been held —
i.e. the first Wednesday in the month — and every three months
a "formal" meeting is held and chaired by the Lord Mayor or
a member of Council.
Information
Sessions are not minuted, as they are "one-on-one" conversations,
so anyone not attending will not be aware of particular concerns and,
therefore, will not be in a position to comment on the matters raised.
This announcement
came as a surprise to most Ultimo residents and was generally not well
received except by Ms Colleen Robinson who had instigated this change
by writing to the Lord Mayor with complaints regarding the conduct of
the meetings. When the Lord Mayor indicated we were here to discuss
this change, Ms Robinson spoke up about the letter she had received
from the Lord Mayor promising that the UPC would be abolished and Ms
Robinson then threatened the Lord Mayor that she would have the letter
published if the Lord Mayor did not keep her word.
Ms Robinson
has a problem with the elected executive of the UPC. Her dissatisfaction
arose when she was not supported totally in her complaint to the RTA
about the installation of traffic lights at the corner of Wattle and
Kelly Streets. Her complaints about the Deputy Chairman and the Secretary
were that they are from the same family. This is an issue that was raised
when they were first elected as Chairman and Secretary and they were
given approval to hold office by the then Lord Mayor, Frank Sartor and
endorsed by the members attending. They were re-elected for a second
term and there were no complaints about their handling of Committee
matters — until Ms Robinson first attended, 3 months ago.
So, the
ULTIMO PRECINCT COMMITTEE, at the moment, does not exist. Various people,
e.g. Margaret Clarence, Gwen Nicholls, Gerald Ganglbauer who represent
the UPC on other committees were asked by the Lord Mayor to continue
to represent the Community on those committees and report back at Monthly
Information Sessions. Bob Walker raised the question about Development
Applications. The answer from the Lord Mayor and other Council Staff
was that individuals can comment on DAs directly to the Council without
the UPC’s involvement. DAs will be displayed at meetings (Information
Sessions?) for comment. The fact that DAs have previously been sent
to the UPC (which now no longer exists) for community comment and often
arrive over three weeks before a meeting (by the date of the meeting
the time for comment has expired) was not satisfactorily addressed.
The Executive
of your ULTIMO PRECINCT COMMITTEE MEETING were also very surprised to
learn that some Council Staff agreed that meetings were unsatisfactory
from their point of view. This has never been indicated before —
and community members have been, generally, very happy with the attention
the community receives from the various representatives of Council and
appreciative of their attendance.
When the
six months’ trial is completed PLEASE attend the meeting for a
vote on whether to continue as is proposed or revert to Ultimo Precinct
Committee Meetings.
Clancy
Walker