Mornington Peninsula councillors vote to keep spending $18,000 on community dinners
The summer break gave Mornington Council an appetite for argument. At their first meeting for 2020 councillors chewed through 55 minutes, squabbling about light refreshments. And the food fight isn’t over yet.
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A beef about the menu for community meetings has seen one Melbourne council spend the guts of an hour bickering about sandwiches.
Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors were meant to be deciding where and when they would hold six ward meetings in 2020.
But tensions quickly boiled over when one councillor queried the menu.
Cr Hugh Fraser wanted to continue with the same catering arrangements as 2019 - a hot, three-course meal for community members, councillors and council staff attending the ward meetings.
His request – which would cost about $40 a head, or $18,000 in total – led to a drawn out debate about the merits of meat and three veg over light refreshments.
Cr David Gill suggested sandwiches instead of a more elaborate dinner and Mayor Sam Hearn said $18,000 was a significant amount of money that could make a big difference to a community group.
“$3000 would feed breakfast to a whole primary school one day a week for a year,” he said.
But Cr Fraser has insisted $18,000 was not a lot of money when taken from the council’s overall budget of $245 million and it would be “mean” and “niggardly” to begrudge community members a proper meal.
Cr Fraser and Cr Brian Payne hold their community meeting for Nepean Ward at Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron which does not allow outside catering.
Cr Gill said the cost of providing a meal to ratepayers at the club was higher than other venues – mainly community halls – used for ward meetings.
Almost an hour later, following Cr Simon Brooks’ suggestion that officers investigate “alternative and innovative” catering options for community meetings, councillors decided (six votes to five) in favour of maintaining the status quo of hot meals at ward meetings.
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However, the catering clash is likely to continue after Cr Gill vowed to call for the decision to be revoked at the next meeting on February 11.
Cr Hearn later told the Leader that while it may have seemed frivolous to spend so much time discussing menus, it was important to make “good decisions” about how ratepayers’ money was spent