Council slams 'illegal' meeting claim

LISMORE City Council have dismissed an allegation made by a resident who claimed tonight's extraordinary meeting 'may be illegal'.

Lismore City Council will try and form a quorum for a third time tonight. Picture: Alina Rylko

LISMORE City Council have dismissed an allegation made by a resident who claimed tonight's extraordinary council meeting 'may be illegal'.

Long-time Lismore Park advocate, Peter Bellew emailed acting general manager Gary Murphy, who is also the Director of Infrastructure Services, and threatened legal action over plans to revisit the proposed Lismore Square expansion.

A rescission motion lodged by councillors Eddie Lloyd, Vanessa Ekins and Adam Guise aimed to overturn the workshop assessing the proposal voted for at the December meeting.

In an email to the Echonetdaily, Mr Bellew said he would challenge the decision if the council voted down the rescission motion.

A council spokeswoman said in response: "Any resident could challenge any council decision should they wish”.

Mr Bellew also accused the council of breaching its code of practice and claimed it didn't give sufficient public notice of the meeting.

"Council sent out its newsletter on January 3 to all residents, ratepayers and businesses saying that this meeting would happen on February 13 and it has not given any indication publicly that this meeting was going to happen in January,” he told Echonetdaily.

The council spokeswoman confirmed to The Northern Star that sufficient notice had been given to the public about tonight's extraordinary meeting.

"The NSW Office of Local Government advises the fact the meeting details are listed on the Council's website and Facebook satisfies the Council's public notification requirements,” she said.

Extraordinary council meetings do not apply to the rules about meeting notice stated in the Local Government (General) Regulation 2005 (Clause 232).

Mr Bellew demanded the council to explain why there was no public access period allotted for tonight's meeting.

A council spokeswoman said: "It is clear that public access should be made available at extraordinary meetings in accordance with council's Code of Meeting of Practice”.

"Mr Bellew has been advised of this and has now booked in to speak during public access tonight,” she said.

But public access at extraordinary council meetings may be scrapped if the draft of the council's new code of meeting of practice is approved.

The draft code doesn't include the provision of public access for extraordinary meetings.

The revised draft was one of 20 agenda items held over after the December meeting.

A rescission motion to address those matters before the February council meeting will be debated tonight if a quorum can be formed.

Mr Bellew declined to comment when contacted by The Northern Star.