Mount Isa Mayor Joyce McCulloch has defended the way Council managed the large crowd who attended Wednesday’s Council meeting when at least 20 people were locked out due to a full house inside the chamber.
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“I think Council handled it very well, we didn’t know how many people were coming to the council meeting and you (the media) know how many people normally come to an ordinary council meeting – zero,” Cr McCulloch said.
“I’m not a social media person and nobody came to council – not one person at that meeting contacted council.”
Cr McCulloch said she was told on the Wednesday morning of the meeting that she might want to make a call to Danielle Slade because she was rounding up people to come.
“So I did, I was the one who reached out and phoned Danielle, no one contacted council,” she said. “We can only accommodate so many people in that council building due to fire regulations.”
When asked about consultation before the meeting and whether the new charges were sprung on ratepayers the Mayor responded: “It was sprung on Council so how were we not going to spring it on to the community?”
“We understood a long time ago – and this is my sixth year in council – that we would have had to go to this charging methodology but our hand was forced a little earlier that we would have wanted, we would have liked a lot more preparation ourselves,” she said.
Cr McCulloch was referring to legal advice following the Supreme Court case which Council lost over its water charges.
The Mayor also defended the water rates against the charge it would punish those who did the right thing keeping the city green.
“It’s not punishing those people, we were punishing those who weren’t using the water – they were paying for people who were using the water,” she said.
“We’ve done a complete reversal, we’ve put the responsibility on people to use water (wisely).
“It is a user pays system, it is as simple as that, and it is something people have been asking for a number of years.”
Cr McCulloch said they were advising people about their water rates and their likely water use.
“We’re sending letters out to advise them of their use, what they have been using and if people are using above the allocation they used to have, they always got notified and we gave them a warning,” she said.
The Mayor dismissed concerns it was contrary to Living With Lead Alliance advice on water use to combat lead issues.
“The average water user will use exactly the same amount of water so they are going to continue the same practice,” she said.