Mosman Council mayor has power to decide on Land and Environment Court appeal in anti-merger case if no quorum for meeting
IN A heated Mosman Council meeting last week, the mayor voted for himself to decide whether council will appeal an adverse court decision in its anti-merger battle if there was no quorum for a meeting.
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THE Mosman mayor has delegated to himself the power to decide on an appeal if council loses its anti-merger court battle and a quorum for an extraordinary meeting cannot be reached in time.
Mayor Peter Abelson would make the decision in consultation with the general manager and the decision would be reviewed at the earliest possible opportunity.
The mayor used his casting vote at last week’s council meeting to pass the amended motion, which included the allocation of $100,000 towards a possible appeal.
An appeal would bring council’s total legal budget against the State Government’s forced council mergers to $325,000.
Councillor Carolyn Corrigan was absent from the meeting, which became unruly when the issue was debated.
Mr Simon Menzies submitted the original motion, which passed with the amendment.
He called for an extraordinary meeting immediately after the Land and Environment Court decision is known to determine potential further action.
Cr Menzies argued for open, transparent and accountable decision-making and said the full council should make any further decision.
“This community is getting more and more reluctant to keep on throwing money at this situation and now to say that the voices of the independent councillors are not even worth listening to, is to my mind insulting and it’s a disgrace,” he said.
Cr Abelson maintained his independence, saying he resigned from his former ticket seven days after being elected. He told Cr Menzies his time for debate was up.
“You have cast aspersions on the role of the mayor; you have said that I would not attempt to achieve a quorum and that I would not listen to all councillors. This is not how I would behave,” he said.
Mixed feelings from the community about council amalgamations
LAST week the Mosman Daily went to Mosman Square to see how important the issue of council amalgamations was to people. These are some of the responses.
Marion Simmons of Mosman opposed mergers.
“I’m frightened that we might lose the character of the village and also North Sydney and Willoughby are both high-rise places and I’m totally against doing that in Mosman,” she said.
Steve Luker of Mosman said Mosman Council had done a good job, but mergers were “just the way of the world”.
Judy McGlynn of Mosman said she would prefer mergers did not occur, but they were inevitable.
“We could work with a bigger council to our advantage,” she said.
Suzanne and John Mallon of Kirribilli were against mergers.
Mrs Mallon said: “Mosman is a large area, so why would they need to amalgamate with anyone else?”
Mr Mallon said: “North Sydney and Mosman are viable on their own.”
Lyn Kennedy of Manly believed in mergers and a streamlined bureaucracy.
“I believe in not having too many different people all getting paid to do the same thing,” she said.
Georgie Hudson of Queenscliff opposed mergers because she said local councils understood local people.
John Caporn of Elizabeth Bay agreed with mergers.
“It’s more people with different ideas — instead of one dominant person, you get a lot more collective ideas,” he said.
Two other people approached said the mergers were not important to them.
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