A LIGHT could shine on Kingston Council decisions made behind closed doors if a proposal to record confidential meetings between councillors is approved at this month’s council meeting.
Councillors at last month’s public council meeting decided to defer a decision on recording in-camera meetings to seek clarity on whether some of these meetings could still go unrecorded at councillors’ or the mayor’s discretion.
In-camera meetings are mostly held in private in the council chamber after public council meetings and allow councillors to discuss matters such as commercial-in-confidence decisions and staff employment contracts.
Cr David Eden wants all such meetings to be recorded and made available for public view if a decision is subsequently declared to be non-confidential by council.
Kingston Council has led the way on live video streaming of public council meetings. Neighbouring Frankston Council and Mornington Peninsula Shire do not live stream or record the video of council meetings.
Audio of meetings can be requested from Frankston Council and Mornington Peninsula Shire uploads meeting audio to its website for download after meetings.
At last month’s meeting Cr Eden urged councillors to back his proposal to record all council meetings. Councillor briefing sessions, where council officers and external parties brief councillors, would not be recorded.
“It goes to the heart of transparency and more importantly accountability,” Cr Eden said.
“It will give some more detail and allow the public access to see inside councillors’ deliberations even though it may have been confidential at the time.”
Cr Ron Browlees said he had “nothing to hide” but questioned whether third parties could remain confident that confidential meeting recordings would not be “leaked”.
“Things that are said in these meetings should remain private and confidential,” he said.
Crs Geoff Gledhill, Paul Peulich and mayor Cr Tamsin Bearsley supported the recording proposal in principle but also voiced concerns about protecting ratepayers’ private opinions and information.
Cr Steve Staikos saw little problem with recording all meetings held in the council chamber saying only “a handful” of in-camera meetings, involving ratepayers’ personal issues, had remained confidential.
He said councillors or the mayor could decide not to record these meetings involving personal matters.
“I think we are grown up and adult enough to make this distinction,” Cr Staikos said.
When councillors are “making multi-million dollar decisions” such as the $21.5 million purchase of council’s current Cheltenham headquarters the reasoning behind the decisions should be released at a later date according to Cr Staikos.
He suggested a 12-month trial of recording confidential meetings.
“I don’t think it’s going to harm us to give it a go.”
Cr Peulich noted Kingston councillors make just 3 per cent of council decisions tabled for debate behind closed doors compared to a statewide councils’ average of about 12 per cent according to the state government’s Know Your Council website.
“This council already has a pretty good track record of minimising in-camera decision making,” he said.
“I’m hoping that we can drive that figure down lower but we do discuss legal advice and legally privileged information when it comes to decision making.”
Councillors will vote on the proposal at next week’s public council meeting after council officers provide clarification on in-camera meeting subjects that may be exempt from recording.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 20 July 2016
