COMMENT
UNLESS you’ve sat in an Armidale Dumaresq Council meeting, you wouldn’t believe the antics that go on in the upstairs chamber.
At times it resembles a circus.
Councillors have seemingly forgotten they were elected to represent the people of Armidale and the surrounding communities.
At the moment, many of them are trying to run their own agendas.
At present, there are two blocs of councillors that virtually disagree on everything that is remotely contentious.
They are not necessarily voting on whether they believe something is right or wrong, they are voting in teams in what has become a power struggle.
Monday night’s meeting was the tipping point.
Rather than debate the issues at hand, councillors soaked up time bickering over commas and apostrophes in a reasonably straightforward motion.
One councillor even queried whether a school should be given a discount on mulch because council wasn’t invited to its end of year functions, only to be informed that particular school didn’t have an end of year function.
The members of the public in the gallery couldn’t help but giggle at times.
The councillors’ congregation to attempt to remove general manager Shane Burns from his post was closed to the public on Monday night, but you can bet it would have been far from a civil meeting.
Regardless of whether Mr Burns stays or goes, the councillors need to lift their game.
As far as the community is concerned, they are all on notice.
– MATT NICHOLLS
