A MEMO instructing councillors not to discuss briefing matters outside the council chambers has sparked ire among several councillors, spurring one to abandon them altogether.
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At Tuesday’s briefing, which was closed to the public, mayor Reg Kidd issued a reminder of the code of meeting practice, which prevents councillors from revealing any information obtained at a councillor briefing marked as confidential.
Councillor Glenn Taylor, who spoke to the Central Western Daily last week about his concerns about the Robertson Park toilets following a briefing, said it was targeted at him.
He said briefing papers had always been marked confidential, but it had not been strictly enforced during the last council term.
“If there’s something regarding personal information or financial information about an individual or commercial in confidence, I don’t have a problem with [confidentiality] but the day-to-day running of council, I really have a problem putting it in committee,” he said.
“The public is entitled to know about those discussions ... and councillors are losing the right to do their job – we can’t inform the community what’s happening on council.
“This bloke [Cr Kidd] ran his campaign on transparency and accountability, now he’s jumping on everyone on rules and regulations.”
He said he would bring a motion to a future meeting, asking for Local Government Act standards for confidentiality to be applied to briefing papers and to change the label to workshops so the code of meeting practice would not apply.
In the meantime, Cr Taylor said he would not attend any more briefings, which are designed to inform councillors on progress and do not permit decisions to be made.
Fellow councillor Sam Romano said the issue had been raised previously and he took offence to the memo.
“We’re all free councillors, we’re all elected by the community and we’re not under anybody’s control,” he said.
“If someone’s doing the wrong thing, maybe the mayor should speak to us privately.”
He said the reaction to Cr Taylor’s public statements about the toilets should have been taken as “two words: so what?”.
“Glenn’s entitled to speak – I don’t think there’s anything confidential about the toilet, all of Orange knows about it,” he said.
He also believed the number of briefings was excessive and the public was missing out on debate.
“The bulky waste discussion at the briefing almost turned into a council meeting,” he said.
Councillor Mario Previtera disagreed with the format of briefings, saying their agendas were too firmly set and did not leave room to ask general questions, but he said he would be happy if questions could be asked.
Councillor Kevin Duffy said he agreed with a workshop format as opposed to briefings.
Cr Kidd was unavailable for comment, but said in a statement he had taken several inquiries about confidentiality regarding certain briefing sessions and he asked the senior governance officer for a position.
“Their response suggested that it would be helpful to distribute to all councillors to clarify any confusion,” he said.
He emphasised he was happy to discuss any concerns and was “amazed” by the comments.