Belmont mayor asks ratepayers’ group representative to watch behaviour as residents question meeting procedure

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Belmont mayor asks ratepayers’ group representative to watch behaviour as residents question meeting procedure

A ratepayers group has labelled a letter from their mayor about how to behave at council meetings “offensive”.

Belmont Resident and Ratepayer Action Group chair Lisa Hollands received the letter from City of Belmont mayor Robert Rossi after the city’s March 26 council meeting.

Ms Hollands questioned the council three times at that meeting about its livestreaming, beginning by saying she did not give her consent to be on camera and “any perceived consent is under duress”.

She went on to claim residents were on show “more than the councillors”.

During one of her questions Mr Rossi asked her to “soften your tone”, for which she apologised.

Ms Hollands said at the April 15 meeting BRRAG later received a letter from the mayor in which he expressed concerns at Ms Hollands “repeatedly disputing my responses”.

BRRAG said on its

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page it found the letter “offensive”.

Camera IconBelmont mayor Robert Rossi will be visiting Japan later this month. Credit: Supplied

“In this letter the mayor commented on his concerns that the BRRAG president needed to be careful and reminded her of disturbance rules, which can include calling the police to remove a person,” Ms Hollands said at the April 15 meeting.

“I found this quite upsetting actually, that you felt you needed to warn me of this disturbance when I only speak during public question time.

“As disturbance is not defined in the standing orders, I would like you to define it for me please Mr mayor.”

A response provided to Ms Hollands by the city on May 15 said the mayor’s letter made no reference to the term “disturbance rules”.

“What the mayor did explain in his response to BRRAG’s letter is that Ms Hollands’ actions in repeatedly disputing the mayor’s responses as presiding member contravenes the standing orders,” it said.

“The mayor’s letter further noted that if Ms Hollands continues with this behaviour . . . being a failure to extend due courtesy and respect to the council and failing to comply with any direction by the presiding member, then the mayor will not hesitate to invoke standing orders 6.3(7) to 6.3(9).”

The council’s rules define a disturbance as “interrupting or interfering with the proceedings, whether by expressing approval or dissent, by conversing aloud or by any other means”.

A reminder that members of the public must extend “due courtesy and respect to both elected members and employees” is read out at the start of Belmont’s council meetings.

Other residents at the April 15 meeting also questioned the city’s handling of questions from the public.

Glenys Godfrey said during her questions at a briefing session the week prior Mr Rossi “rudely cut me off . . . I suspect he was trying to shorten our deputation”.

“You had your time limit and your time limit had stopped,” Mr Rossi said.

“Whatever,” Ms Godfrey replied, before apologising after Mr Rossi said that comment was “inappropriate”.

Janet Gee from Cloverdale asked if the council was against having public submissions and questions as it seemed to “want to put barriers up”.

“The obvious answer is no,” CEO John Christie said.

“We’re not against it because we have public submission time and we have public question time.

“As you’ve seen, we’ve extended public question time now for 45 minutes.”

Ms Gee claimed people who thought their question was misinterpreted and wanted to ask it again were labelled as “causing a disturbance”.

Mr Christie said the city was not trying to prevent anyone asking questions “in a constructive manner”.

Ms Gee tried to ask another question but Mr Rossi told her she had asked her allotted four questions.

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