From Mayor Dominic King, Deputy Mayor Toni Wright-Turner and Councillor Jennie Fenton:
The May Ordinary Council Meeting is happening this Wednesday from 9am in Chambers in Bellingen and everyone is welcome to attend and observe. You can speak to an agenda item if you wish by registering before noon on Tuesday at the following link:
https://www.bellingen.nsw.gov.au/sites/bellingen/files/public/images/documents/bellingen/Council/Application%20Forms/Application%20to%20have%20a%20Deputation%20to%20Council.pdf
Below is a screen shot of the agenda, with the full business papers available at:
https://www.bellingen.nsw.gov.au/council/agenda-and-minutes/ordinary-meeting-council-22-may-2019
There are a couple of interesting items we wanted to draw your attention to. The first is the Mayoral Minute about the emergency services levy. The new amount of levy is good news in that it helps provide better workers’ compensation coverage for firefighters. The bad news is that local governments have suddenly been hit with large invoices after budgets for the coming year have been set i.e. this is expected to come from ratepayers. If you are interested in cost shifting and budgets, have a read of this item.
Secondly is a call to reassess Council’s use of herbicides in operations. While this has been before a previous Council, with new information the issue is being reconsidered. Thank you Cr Toni Wright-Turner for bringing this forward.
There are a range of monthly reports and we encourage people to have a skim of these as they detail construction (new works), maintenance (on existing assets), planning, budget and investments. We often hear people say things like ‘Bellingen gets all the attention’ and these reports clearly show it doesn’t (unless you mean parking fines!). We also hear lots about roads and the construction and maintenance reports detail kms of repair and renewal each month, funded by the recent rate rise. The worst roads are being systematically fixed and the progress is good. Same with timber bridges.
The coming year of proposed Environmental Levy projects is on the table and it’s another cracking list. Our Shire punches well above it’s weight with these diverse and important projects and works with a range of partners and grants to make a total of $1.4 million investment for the coming financial year.
Finally, and there is more coming on this from staff, but check out the photo next to the agenda, an extract from the Investment report. This is an issue that particularly Councillors Toni Wright-Turner and Jennie Fenton have been banging on about from our very first meeting. We are pleased to say our Shire already had a strong divestment status and that staff have responded strongly and with economic integrity and smarts to deliver a great trend.
We welcome your input on these and any other issues.
