A late amendment has been submitted to the report containing the Moonee Valley annual budget:
The Councillor introducing it says they have “very recently” had this confidential update.
A fellow Councillor objects to the amendment, perhaps because she hates the 101 poker machines there.
The “soccer Councillor” bags the second Councillor, but broadly agrees with the earlier argument that the Council budget is meant to be an open and transparent document, and this amendment would not be that. She accidentally, or otherwise, states Council contribution might be involved.
Another Councillor goes on about transparency.
It’s a bit weird given the amendment talks about mid-year (public) review, not committing any money now.
The next Councillor reads my mind, and makes exactly that point.
Last Councillor supports project but not the raising of this amendment.
Original Councillor says this is about “expressing goodwill” to the project. Says this was not raised in public budget discussion due to confidentiality concerns.
A softer version, losing all of the words after “proposal”, is then discussed. It’s arguably totally neutered by that, as a report to Council is pretty much guaranteed anyway.
Soccer Councillor is urinated off, and is not the only one. Then various Councillors are urinated off at each other. Mayor ultimately calls an adjournment for “everyone to consider their behaviour”.
When they eventually come back, they are still sooking about points of orders and process.
After all that, the trimming of the amendment is lost 4-4 on the casting vote of the Mayor.
They then go back to general commentary on the proposed Budget – it passes 6-3.
And then, somewhat surprisingly, the original Windy Hill amendment gets up 4-4 on the casting vote of the Mayor (one Councillor had a potential conflict of interest; if they were there, they would have voted against it).
Mayor summarises the discussion as “extremely robust”.
…
I didn’t think this special Radio 3DJR broadcast was going to go on this long.
