May 2025 Oberon Council Meeting

May 22, 2025
Updated May 26, 2025

The first item of business for Council at this meeting was the swearing in of new Councillor Robert Lee. We can only hope that we have seen the last need to replace a councillor for some time.

There was discussion about how the Council communicates with residents to let them know what's happening around town. Apparently the experiment with the Portland-based Village Voice hasn't worked out as well as was hoped. (There are currently only eight Oberon stories on the web site, with the most recent one being dated April 29.)

Click for a complete view of the motion

It was resolved to discuss options over the next couple of months, including the possibility of bringing back the monthly printed newsletter.

An agenda item that was of particular interest to Oberon Matters was the list of 2025-26 Section 356 grants made by the council to organisations and bodies around the area.

Click for a complete list of grant recipients

Oberon Matters missed out again, and this is doubly disappointing. While the money would have been nice, the real problem is that any local news outlet relies on the support of the local council for a measure of credibility but we will just have to keep on doing what we do without it.

Another disappointment was the lack off support for initiatives to train people to assist others with their mental health.

An item which was expected to arouse some strong feelings was a Development Application for three meteorological masts to assist with the evaluation of the feasibility of constructing wind power turbines in the forests around Oberon. Public comments on this proposal seemed to be based on the idea that the DA was for the turbines themselves, rather than towers to measure wind speeds. Councillor Hayden put the argument that even though she is personally opposed to the wind farm project, this was something totally different and could not reasonably (or even maybe legally) be rejected by Council. An earlier agenda item had been concerned with the lack of weather information gathered around Oberon, so rejecting or obstructing this DA would have the unintended consequence of removing a possible source of useful local information, even if the wind farm project doesn't go ahead.

Click for the full agenda item

Council resolved to put the following documents on public exhibition for 28 days.

• Draft 2025–2029 Delivery Program
• Draft 2025/26 Operational Plan
• Draft 2025/26–2034/35 Long-Term Financial Plan
• Draft 2025/26 Statement of Revenue Policy
• Draft 2025-2029 Roads Asset Management Plan
• Draft 2025-2029 Workforce Management Plan

The rest of the meeting was rather uneventful and can be assessed when the recording and minutes become available.

You can see the full agenda for the meeting here (939 pages!)

See the recording of the meeting here (5 hours, 31 minutes!)

See the minutes of the meeting here

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