Redland City Council News 2 August 2015

Redland City Council Meeting had a general meeting on 29 July 2015

Here is a link to the meeting minutes. You can watch a video of the meeting or listen to an audio recording.

Some matters discussed and decided at the meeting are discussed below:

A sporting Council? (Items 12.1 and 14.1.1)

U13 hockey finals in Cleveland before the fields became unplayable

The Council, elected in 2012, has suddenly discovered in mid 2015 that  the City’s sporting facilities are inadequate.

Mayor Karen Williams proposed in a confusingly worded mayoral minute (Item 12.1) that Council investigate spaces for events and sporting and recreation activities. It was not explained in this minute why this planning work had not already been done by Council.

Councillor Ogilvie said it would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad given that the need for this work has been well known for many years and kids are being turned away from playing soccer because there is not enough space.

Councillor Talty foreshadowed that she and Councillor Edwards have been working for some time on a motion to in relation to sporting fields in the southern end of the City. Coucillor Beard said that our city’s kids are extremely well served with sports fields.

Amazingly , Councillor Hardman chose to draw attention to the fact that the Under 13 girls state hockey championships were recently held at the “amazing” fields in her division (Henry Ziegenfusz Park). She did not seem to know that after a little bit of rain the “amazing” fields became unplayable and the final two days of the hockey finals were moved to the State Hockey Centre in Brisbane.

The investigation into sporting facilities was discussed in this report by the Redland City Bulletin

Still on a sporting theme, Cr Paul Gleeson put forward a motion (Item 14.1.1) that council  investigate providing financial assistance to children who want to participate in sport within Redland City Council local government area through an additional subsidy of $100 per person for those who are in receipt of the Queensland State Government Get Started Voucher.  Discussion at the Council meeting indicated that this motion’s wording had not been properly thought about before coming to the meeting.

Council to investigate investment in solar farms (Item 14.1.2)

Councillor’s Gleeson’s second motion to the meeting asked that Council investigate investment in solar farms with the CEO to report back to Council by November. This item was discussed in a report by the Redland City Bulletin.

The Sunshine Coast Council is well advanced in plans to develop a 10-15 MW solar farm. It appears that the financial viability of the Sunshine Coast Council’s $50 million project requires a $10 million grant from the Federal Government through its Stronger Regions Fund.

Service station in Redland Bay MCU013378  (Item 11.3.3)

An officers recommendation to reject this development proposal was approved unanimously by Council.

This decision was discussed by Judith Kerr in her report for the Redland City Bulletin.

Economic Development Advisory Board (Item 11.3.4)

The Council voted to change the terms of reference for its Economic Development Advisory Board so that it can pay members much more than the $175 per meeting which was initially envisaged.

Policy for community reference groups (Item 11.2.1)

The Council discussed and adopted a new policy about the operation of the Council’s community reference groups.

The new policy requires that Council publish the terms of reference for each group but publication of full meeting minutes is “optional”.

Concerns about the operation, governance and transparency of reference groups were triggered by revelations about the existence of Council’s Developer Industry Reference Group which became the subject of two articles published by Redlands2030:

Industry Reference Group kept secret

The Council crisis we had to have

Following a discussion at its meeting on 22 April 2015 the Council resolved to put the terms of reference and a “summary of the minutes” of DIRG meetings on it website by end of June 2015. This was done and these items of information can be viewed here.

Report by Redlands2030 – 2 August 2015