TODAY’S meeting of Ipswich City Council, only the second in six weeks, will be one of mystery, intrigue and surprise votes.
The first meeting of the current council attracted a record audience on YouTube with nearly 2000 views, whereas normally it would be a few hundred. This followed a meeting filled with foreshadowed motions and surprise outcomes. The tip is this meeting will also be a must-watch event.
Why the interest in today’s meeting? It centres mainly around the role of chairperson of the Ipswich Local Disaster Management Group (LDMG). Convention would have the mayor of the day in the role. But at the post-election meeting, the Mayor was not supported and returning councillor Andrew Antoniolli got the nod.
Teresa Harding is putting up a mayoral minute (motion) to change last meeting’s resolution and put forward a new recommendation that she be returned as LDMG chairperson. To further emphasise the point, Harding took to social media last week pleading her case, with a table showing mayors since 2011 have been the chair.
Rumours are circulating other councillors copped some heat from residents over how they voted at the post-election meeting.
Also on today’s agenda will be votes on the structure of committee meetings, including membership of council’s standing committees. At the time of going to print, we still don’t know what that looks like, with a report yet to be handed to councillors.
With several new councillors after each election, it would not be unusual to see a change of committee names and their roles and responsibilities. This sets up the committee structure for the next four years.
We can expect a contest for at least three key roles. These are the chair of the committees for planning, sport, and city management and finance.
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