Councillor Geoff Frost launched a scathing attack on Yass Valley Council staff on Wednesday night, voicing his irritation over the Fit for the Future (FFTF) project.
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The attack came after General Manager David Rowe submitted a Late Report at the Ordinary Meeting.
Cr Frost said he had received mostly negative feedback regarding the FFTF workshops.
“The people in the part of the meeting that I had [on Monday] had almost given up on the process and just said ‘this is hopeless’."
He described the process as “very poor” and said the whole thing had simply not worked.
“All the time from the front of the room they were being told ‘you’ve got to think about it like this, you’ve got to think about it like that, you can’t think about it like that’, every idea that was put up was immediately followed by the General Manager or a staff member saying ‘you can’t do that because it’s wrong’ and that’s the sort of meeting it was.
“It wasn’t the sort of meeting where you get constructive things built, it was the sort of meeting where everybody felt really frustrated.”
Along with Mayor Rowena Abbey, Councillor Ann Daniel jumped to defend the General Manager, his staff and the success of the meetings.
“I think the overall consensus was that it was a fruitful and creative process and people were deeply involved and went away feeling ‘now we’re accomplishing something’. I’m sorry your table was so disappointed councillor Frost,” Cr Daniel said.
Councillor Jasmin Jones said her problem was that the General Manager’s late report beared little resemblance to what was agreed upon at the last FFTF meeting.
“This is too far different to what we saw on the night,” she said.
“We have to build trust with the community (group) if they’re going to be our representatives that take this to the community and discuss it with them and encourage our community to look at it, we need to reconvene.”
Mr Rowe was staunch in the defence of his report, claiming it was the best option going forward.
“I can put up exactly what’s gone out (last) Monday night if you want me to, but it doesn’t stack up like this does now in terms of the options that the community actually asked for.
“It’s actually a better option than what we had on Monday night.”
He also strongly disagreed with Cr Frost’s take on the FFTF process so far, saying he must have attended a totally different community event to the one Cr Frost did last week.
Director of Corporate and Community Services Sheri Norton, said council really needs to keep the ball rolling.
“We cannot wait, we have to put something on public exhibition to meet the timeframes that we have to meet,” she said.
“You have to remember that you’re not making a decision on these numbers you’re only making a decision to put it on public exhibition.”
Council eventually resolved to call another meeting to be held this Monday at 6pm, where the Community Working Group will be talked through the revised report. An email, containing the report, was also to be sent out to the representatives for their consideration.