Democracy in Action at 'Truth in Council' Public Meeting
Over 200 people braved the threat of storm cells on the evening of Thursday 26th to attend the public meeting, which was called to take action on the unethical, unaccountable and non-transparent behaviour of the current Gold Coast City Council.
Those present heard from 16 speakers representing community groups from one end of the Gold Coast to the other.
The issues presented were many and varied including abuse of the City Plan against the interests of the community, wasted ratepayer funds on projects such as the cruise terminal which is unlikely to come to fruition, koalas in dire straits while no real action is taken, takeovers of public and private open space for private development, secret meetings and blacked out reports and many more issues.
Actions:
If you would like to support this campaign to clean up Gold Coast City Council, please :-
- Download and sign the petitions to Council and the State Government. Make sure you include your address in full to ensure your signing is valid. Get others to sign as well and send the completed forms back to Gecko at 139 Duringan St, Currumbin 4223.
- Download and complete the proforma letter to the Minister for Local Government, but include your personal comments. Then either scan it and send it to the Minister or return it to Gecko and we will send it on.
- Write to any of the people on the contact information sheet about your concerns with this Council.
- Join the campaign with Gecko or your local group
Whatever the issue presented it was clear that most Councillors are not acting in the interests of the community they purport to represent and are instead putting the interests of the development industry ahead of residents’ concerns.
The manner in which they are doing this includes secret meetings, redacted reports, planning decisions by an exclusive group of development industry reps lead by the Mayor and Chair of Planning Councillor Caldwell, delegated authority decisions, voting despite a conflict of interest and more.
The community groups are determined and will continue the campaign to force this Council to be more accountable.
To this end the meeting had an almost unanimous Vote of No Confidence motion passed, followed by a unanimous show of hands to call on the Minister for Local Government to investigate the Council.
