City of Casey Council moves March meeting online following public outrage over local laws

City of Casey ratepayers have slammed their council’s decision to ban the public from attending in person their monthly meeting, the move coming after police we called in to last month’s event amid ratepayer fury over a slew of local laws.

Casey Council has outraged residents after moving its March meeting to online-only following a fiery in-person meeting last month. Picture: Facebook

A Victorian council has banned residents from attending this month’s meeting in person, fearing they’ll again cop an onslaught of abuse from community members over controversial local laws.

The City of Casey — which governs Berwick, Narre Warren, Cranbourne and surrounds — this week told residents they would not be allowed to attend the council’s March meeting scheduled for Tuesday night at Bunjil Place.

Residents will instead have to watch the meeting on YouTube or Facebook.

Mayor Stefan Koomen said the decision followed the council “working closely with Victoria Police” on the back of a fiery council meeting in February.

Casey councillors were escorted away from last month’s meeting by police following an onslaught of “threatening behaviour” from a crowd of fuming ratepayers.

It was the first meeting the council had held outside of business hours to allow residents to attend, but had to be rescheduled after a crowd of 500 outraged Casey residents shouted, booed and swore at councillors and kept them from progressing through their agenda.

“Unfortunately, individuals are again actively planning to disrupt the March council meeting,” mayor Koomen said.

“Following advice from Victoria Police, the difficult decision has been made to move our March council meeting to an online-only format.

“As your new councillors, we want to be able to have our council meetings in person and to have our community in the gallery, but our priority is the safety of everyone involved.”

A crowd of fuming residents yelled and swore at councillors at its February meeting. Picture: Facebook

Victoria Police, however, refused to confirm it had advised Casey Council to move to an online format when asked by the Herald Sun.

“Police will have a presence at and Bunjil Place to ensure the safety of the community,” a police spokesperson said.

“Details regarding how council meetings are run is matter for City of Casey.”

The planned police presence at the meeting comes as residents plan to descend on Bunjil Place in protest of being banned from in-person meeting.

One resident slammed the move as “truly and utterly f---ing disgusting”.

“As Casey residents, we should all be bloody outraged that council is doing this,” he said.

“What about our voice? They have no respect for us whatsoever.”

Mayor Stefan Koomen says the council had to move its March meeting online as a matter of ‘safety’.

Community members remain furious over new changes to private land use permits — which now require homeowners to apply for permits up to $473 to store vehicles on their properties — as well as a proposed waste transfer station which could be built within 250m of the nearest family home.

Not backing down, resident Trav posted a video to his YouTube channel encouraging community members to gather at Bunjil Place for a “silent protest” during the meeting.

The video has racked up more than 18,000 views in a matter of days and been liked more than 1700 times.

“It’s a silent protest — no violence, no threatening behaviour, no vandalism, because that’s what the council is expecting, and that’s why they are holding this meeting as an online only,” Trav said in the video.

“They think we are thugs. We are not thugs, we are just concerned residents who want our voices heard.

“Let’s prove them wrong and sit there and prove we can be silent and quiet and zip our lips.

“We are going to be peaceful and show them that we are worthy of letting us sit in on a meeting.”

While they don’t plan on shouting, residents still planned to “hold up” councillors for “hours and hours” with a different tactic.

“As many as possible, submit your questions. Let’s hold them up there for hours and hours and hours with hundreds of thousands of questions so they can’t get through them,” Trav said in the video.

“If we get as many questions as we can in, we’ll hold them there as long as we can so they can give us their ridiculous robotic answers as they did last meeting.”

Not all residents were impressed by the plan.

“Any money says you won’t be peaceful and non-abusive, and you’ll just give them a reason to keep going online. And then you’ll cry poor some more,” one said on the community Facebook page.

Police will again attend March’s council meeting. Pictured is officers at the February meeting. Picture: Facebook

Last month, Casey Crime Page was blocked during the Facebook livestream, which accompanied council’s in-person meeting for those who couldn’t attend.

The blocking has raised concerns over how council will monitor the community’s comments and questions posted during Tuesday’s online meeting.

City of Casey communications and corporate governance manager Chloe Casey said: “The City of Casey reserves the right to delete any comments that are deemed inappropriate. More information regarding Council’s Facebook policy can be found on our Facebook page.”

A community page was last month banned from the council's online meeting. Picture: Facebook

The council has backtracked since its last council meeting and publicly acknowledged administrators’ changes to the private land use permits giving council power to impound property had “created confusion” and that “further review (was) needed”.

“Councillors understand the community’s concerns and are working to review and resolve these issues,” Casey council said in a statement.

“We know the proposed Waste Transfer Station in Hampton Park is also a longstanding community concern.

“As a councillor group we are using our voices to ensure the (Environment Protection Authority) EPA and state government listen to our community.”

Council plans to discuss these issues at Tuesday night’s meeting.

The City of Casey has been contacted for further comment.