By Jeremy Cook
Southern Downs Councillor Joel Richters has dismissed concerns surrounding the council’s bid to improve transparency while hinting at a much more consultative budget process in 2025.
Speaking exclusively to Warwick Stanthorpe Today, Cr Richters was asked if he felt there had been progress on his election commitment to boost the organisation’s transparency.
He said “definitely” and pointed to discussions on a series of confidential agenda items which had successfully been negotiated out from behind closed doors and held publicly during recent council meetings.
“One of those big ticket items that I think is a big demonstrator of that was taking the rates concessions from the previous 12 months business that has historically always been confidential and taking that out of confidential,” the councillor said.
“For the first time, the people in Southern Downs could actually see, not so much [what] we’re spending on rates concessions, but how much we’re not making in rate revenue through the concessions that we provide.”
Cr Richters is one of six first-term council representatives who won election in March this year when voters re-elected just two incumbents in what marked a major shake-up for the Southern Downs Regional Council.
“I think as time has progressed, we’ve understood more about the processes that happen within local government,” he said.
Transparency formed one of several key issues, alongside housing, rates and council unity which Cr Richters campaigned on during election time.
The council has since faced criticism over its handling of last month’s sudden and unexplained dismissal of former chief executive Dave Burges while away on long service leave.
The organisation remained coy on why that decision was made, pointing to privacy laws and the local government act which prevented them from disclosing details about employees, including the chief executive officer.
Cr Richters, who voted alongside all but two councillors to terminate Mr Burges’ employment, defended the move and attacked how it had been framed.
“I think the greater majority of people can understand that we just cannot talk about employee information,” he said.
“It’s not appropriate to divulge that information and it’s actually illegal.
“I think the greater view of the community could be that whilst they don’t know all the information, they have some level of trust in us that we’re doing the best thing for the community.
“Other people will go around and say what they want to say and paint a different picture … but those people are just not being honest.”
Questions have also been asked of the council’s sudden shift to holding closed door council information sessions (or CIS’s) since election time in March. The information sessions had been held monthly under previous administrations for members of the public to attend and engage directly with elected officials and staff.
A motion to reopen those sessions was lodged by long-serving Councillor Ross Bartley ahead of Wednesday’s council meeting. Speaking ahead of the meeting, Cr Richters had yet to fully form a view on it but admitted he was “torn”.
“I think that absolutely there should be transparency and people should be able to see what’s happening in their CIS’s,” he said.
“But I’m also torn by the fact that I know [from] the things that we have discussed so far, the greater majority of those things have been confidential business.”
He said conversations on how to hold CIS’s publicly again were being had.
“It doesn’t help when the picture is being painted for the community that for some reason we don’t want CIS’s to be public when it’s actually the fact that we haven’t actually developed a view yet.
“We haven’t actually come up with a process or a procedure that will go along with that.”
Asked about further opportunities to improve transparency, Cr Richters said those discussions were being held “continuously”. He said the council would be “very consultative” during next year’s budget process.
“We’re going to be very much inviting the community to be part of that and be active participants in the building of our budget.”
