By NATALIE GALLENTI
A GROUP of City of Melton residents claim they are being “ignored” after recent attempts to question council over important issues have not received written or verbal responses.
At last week’s council meeting Coburn, Cambridge and Watts Residents Association president Nathan Miles and secretary Michael Matalewski called on the council to provide transparency and respond to their most recent questions.
Mr Miles said he had not received a written response to seven questions in recent months leading the CCWRA to believe the council was not providing the clarity it should to local residents.
“Whether the council likes the questions or not, a response needs to be provided,” he said.
“I have a strong feeling that something is not right. The meetings are in disarray … the council is coming across as arrogant.”
Melton City Council’s customer engagement manager Daniel Hogan said written responses to questions, whether raised in council meetings or otherwise, were usually provided within five days of receiving correspondence, “unless the nature of the inquiry requires research, further investigation, validation, legal advice or information from third parties”.
“In these cases, responses are returned as soon as practicable. Correspondence which is considered vexatious, abusive or in which a matter has been previously disposed, may not receive a response,” Mr Hogan said.
“Council is open and transparent in its conduct, and has a number of standard community engagement processes and mechanics in which members of the community are welcome to address any concerns and receive answers.”
Meanwhile, residents also questioned the council’s decision to reduce the cut off time for public questions from 7pm to 5pm.
At last week’s meeting, residents raised a number of concerns at the earlier cut off time, claiming it would inconvenience residents who worked in the city and would not be able to hand in their questions prior to 7pm.
Chief executive officer Kel Tori said as meetings commenced at 7pm a number of questions were often not answered due to short notice.
Mr Tori said the intent of the new cut off time was to ensure enough time was provided to research and offer “more satisfying” responses to questions.
He also reminded residents that they have 28 days between meetings to provide questions to the council.
