CR CLARE Le Serve’s tenure in the chair as Mayor of the Bass Coast Shire Council did not start well on Wednesday, December 13.
And there looks to be choppy waters ahead, leading up to the October 2024 council elections, little more than 10 months away.
Some of the unrest appears to be coming from the debacle over the election of Cr Le Serve, over Cr Rochelle Halstead, as mayor when Cr Geoff Ellis first nominated Cr Halstead but then voted against her last month at the 11th hour.
Even before Cr Le Serve’s first monthly council meeting could go ahead there was trouble in the foyer and in the public gallery inside the council chambers, where only nine members of the public had been balloted to sit.
A separate gallery had been set up, outside in the foyer, complete with a big screen TV with which to view the proceedings going on in the room next door online.
Phillip Island resident and keen council watcher, John Trigt, objected to being one of those excluded from the chamber, and, claiming he couldn’t hear the proceedings outside anyway, he walked into the council chambers, just before the meeting was scheduled to begin, and sat down in one of the spare ‘media’ chairs.
“No, I’m not going,” he told a security guard who approached him.
It was a “not again” moment for councillors and officers who had experienced a similar situation at the September 2023 meeting, also involving Mr Trigt.
General Manager Business Transformation Robyn Borley took charge of the scene this time, asking councillors to vacate the chamber, and ultimately negotiated a better outcome on this occasion.
Last time Mr Trigt was asked to leave, it was by the former mayor, Cr Michael Whelan, when Mr Trigt declared “shame, shame, shame” after council voted to take a ‘Yes’ stance on the Voice to Parliament referendum and in so doing, encouraging others by example to do the same.
In the end, though, 65.66% of the people of Monash voted ‘No’, and with the exception locally of Cape Paterson, Inverloch, Kilcunda and Newhaven; the rest of the Bass Coast shire produced a similarly resounding ‘No’ vote as well.
An offer from one of the nine people in the chamber, that they would give up their seat for Mr Trigt, was accepted by Ms Borley and Mr Trigt and the meeting went ahead, albeit 10 minutes late.
Clearly ruffled by the incident, the new mayor opened proceedings and welcomed everyone to the “13th of November council meeting”.
Other cracks also started to appear.
Both Cr Les Larke and Cr Rochelle Halstead took umbrage at the efforts of Cr Leticia Laing, which Cr Larke said were simply designed to embarrass him, by twice calling for an explanation of what Cr Larke’s abstaining from a vote amounted to.
Cr Larke had abstained from voting for the commitment of $1.5 million of ratepayers’ money to the Bass Coast Dinosaurs Trail project, and he abstained from voting not to do business with the “dirty banks” involved in financing fossil fuel projects, as successfully moved by Cr Whelan.
Asked for an explanation twice, in 10 minutes, according to Cr Halstead, Ms Borley said an abstaining vote was recorded as a no vote.
There were other prickly moments as well with Cr Halstead effectively accusing council of botching the $35 million Surf Beach Sunderland Bay Special Charge Scheme, and its obvious health benefits to residents, by adopting an overly bureaucratic approach to the scheme and local residents.
Both Cr Halstead and Cr Larke (abstained) voted against the shire’s dinosaur trail project, and Cr Halstead said she hoped the shire wouldn’t need to go cap in hand to any of the big four banks after Cr Michael Whelan had called on council to sack its main banker, Westpac and not deal with the others.
Cr Geoff Ellis, also surprisingly voted against committing shire money to the dinosaur project.
There has been something of a political divide evident on the council in the first three years of the present regime, but after Cr Halstead was overlooked for mayor, it appears likely that this schism will be more front and centre, and individual councillors’ motives for voting one way or the other, exposed.
And it appears that just as he was in the mayoral vote, Cr Geoff Ellis will be the queenmaker.