By Violet Li
A petition with more than 200 supporters has failed to change the Casey Council meeting time from 4pm as administrators maintained the status quo for 2024 at a meeting on 12 December 2023.
Narre Warren local Stephen Matulec initiated the petition in June 2023, stating that working residents in the Casey were being excluded from current council meetings held at 4pm.
“The council refuses to review this until December, so workers will continue to be excluded for the rest of the year,” he put in the petition.
“Most councils hold meetings later in the evening so workers can attend. Nearby councils like the City of Greater Dandenong, the City of Monash, the City of Knox, and Cardinia Shire all hold their meetings at 7pm.
“There is no reason why Casey can’t do the same.”
Residents stated their reasons for signing the petitions.
“People in the community, ratepayers, taxpayers, must be given the chance to take part in having a say in what happens, what is done in our backyards so to speak. These council workers get our hard-earned money, they must be accountable to us, to our needs, and what’s good for us, our decisions, not theirs,” one local Erika Bartz submitted.
“I don’t get home from work until 6pm and having lived in Hampton Park for 30yrs I have an invested interest in what is happening with our landfill issues. I feel they have done this intentionally so we can’t protest our grievances,” another local Kylie Davis submitted.
Within a month, the petition gained about 250 signatures and Mr Matulec submitted it to Casey Council in July.
In October’s council meeting last year, City of Casey chair of administrators Noelene Duff PSM responded to a resident’s submitted question on the outcome of the petition by saying the council would consider community feedback and other factors and set the time for 2024 in December.
An officer’s report for December’s council meeting recommended the commencement time be changed to 5pm for all council meetings scheduled in 2024, but Casey administrator Cameron Boardman moved an alternative motion to change 5pm back to 4pm, which was unanimously voted for.
Mr Boardman believed that there wasn’t significant community justification or expectation and moving the start time to 5pm would not result in any benefit to the administrators, the council, and the community as a whole.
“If council meetings started later, there would be a requirement to, under our EBA arrangements, potentially provide general meal allowance and overtime allowance to council staff who would be expected to participate in the meetings,” he said.
“It is certainly a matter that will be considered by a future council.”
Administrator Miguel Belmar added that technology had enabled people to participate in these meetings online.
Mr Matulec said he was disappointed at the outcome, and he found the administrators’ rationale for the time amendment “a complete nonsense” because having a 5pm meeting would benefit the community a lot.
“Everyone was united. No one says to me that 4pm is a good time,” he said.
“People pick their kids up from school at 4pm and a lot of people might just finish work. It is a bit of a rush getting to the meeting at 4pm. If people are still working at 4pm, they can’t just go online and watch because they are still working.
“If it is 5pm, people who finish at 4pm can get there at 5pm. And people could also stay at their office and watch online.”
He said administrators did not care about what the community wanted.
“They’re saying that having a 4pm meeting meets their expectations to do their job. They don’t care about what people have to say or what people want because they don’t have to listen.”
Mr Matulec also questioned why the council meeting time could not be changed in the middle of the year.
He pointed out the meeting time was changed from 6pm to 4pm halfway through the year when administrators were appointed in 2020.
“They keep putting up rates to pay for their blowouts on budgets, but now all of a sudden, a little bit of meal allowance, overtime, is what they care about,” he said.
“Now they care about spending.”
