February 2025 Oberon Council Meeting

February 20, 2025

The February 18 Council meeting was expected to be lively, with four motions proposed that asked for major changes to ways that Council conducted its business. Following the resignation of Councillor Jill O'Grady, there were only eight members entitled to vote on any issue.

The first item on the agenda was a presentation by Kylie Shead from Arts OutWest, who told everyone about the very wide variety of activities of the organisation to support the arts in 14 local government areas. (Two recent local contributions by AOW were to the Fish River Festival and "Brewing Ballads and Being Well".)

Following any presentations at the start of each meeting, members of the public are allowed to ask questions of Councillors and the Council. With one exception, all "questions" at this meeting referred to only three items on the agenda - 10.1, 10.3 and 13.6.

Items 10.1 and 10.3 attracted several comments from members of various Aboriginal groups and individuals around Oberon and across the region. Nobody was in favour of either of them and nobody wanted either of the motions to pass. Both were seen as regressive steps in the relationship between different community groups. Councillor Hayden herself tabled several letters from Aboriginal groups arguing against the motions but went ahead to propose them anyway.

Both motions were lost, with Councillors Hayden, Alavras and McCarthy being the only "Ayes".

Discussion around 10.2 went in circles for a while, but finally it was decided that the status quo should remain, with the possible change to having only two dates for Citizenship ceremonies (January 26 and September 17 - Citizenship Day).

The motion was lost, with Councillors Hayden, Alavras and McCarthy being the only "Ayes".

The Council meeting agenda is made public on the Friday before each meeting. Like most people, Oberon Matters only looks at the agenda on the day of the meeting, so motion 10.4 came as a bit of a surprise. 

The issues raised in the motion can't be responded to without some thought and research and even though some supporting documentation was available (it can be downloaded from the Council web site), presenting this at such short notice probably constituted a Gish Gallop where information is produced too fast for a reasoned response.

Disclaimer: My opinion about fluoridation and its opponents is not a secret. PB

The motion was lost on the casting vote of the Mayor who had been a Councillor in 2018 when fluoridation was introduced in Oberon and was well aware of the research and expert advice that Council relied on at the time.

Three of the members of the public spoke at the start of the meeting about Item 13.6, one nearby resident who is opposed to the development and two of the promoters.

Discussion on this went everywhere, but mainly concerned the roads around the proposed development. Nothing much was decided, and the matter has been deferred to a future Council meeting.

The rest of the night was mainly rubber stamping development applications and Council staff reports.

You can see the agenda for the meeting here (314 pages)

See the recording of the meeting here

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