Rodney Stevens
Yamba CAN Inc has questioned the purpose behind a motion put forward by Cr Karen Toms for council’s February 27 meeting about council’s allocation of resources required to respond to Government Information Public Access GIPA requests and Requests For Information RFI’s since January 2022.
Yamba CAN Inc. was formed on October 2, 2022, to advocate for its community’s needs and aspirations to all levels of government and support members and the local community by trying to remain abreast of current concerns and matters.
Secretary Lynne Cairns said after the formation of Yamba CAN Inc. it became a voice for its members and the community and council would have spent more time and resources if individual residents submitted requests to council individually.
“Submitting GIPAs and RFIs is Yamba CAN Inc’s democratic right to obtain information and documents,” Mrs Cairns said.
“Yamba CAN Inc would not need to submit GIPAs and RFIs if Council was more open and transparent.”
The proposed motion by Cr Toms is that the General Manager advise, by way of a report the:
- Allocation of resources required to respond to GIPAs submitted by Yamba CAN since January 2022.
- Allocation of resources required to respond to RFI (Request for Information) submitted by Yamba CAN since January 2022.
- Any cost implications of delays to delivering the Yamba Community Precinct project since January 2022.
The summary of Cr Toms motion states “Councillors receive a large volume of email from Yamba CAN executive members in excess of any other individual correspondent, much of which has related to the Yamba Community Centre Precinct Project.”
A comment from council’s General Manager, Laura Black, on the motion states it will take “a couple of months” to gather the information and present it in a way that is meaningful, which was not likely to occur before the May council meeting.
Mrs Cairns posed the question to Cr Toms “is it appropriate to request Council to use needless time and resources, targeting a local community group, by requesting Council provide a report about the allocation of resources to respond to Yamba CAN Inc’s GIPAs and RFI requests.”
“Cr Toms, please explain the purpose of expending needless time and resources to obtain such a report,” she said.
Cr Karen Toms told the CV Independent the purpose of the motion was to understand the costs to ratepayers of the unusually high demands made by Yamba CAN Inc.
“Many of the requests for information are on matters that have been dealt with lawfully through council resolutions that they don’t like, so they waste valuable staff time and resources looking for smoking guns,” she said.
“Yamba CAN Inc could follow due process if they wanted to but instead, they appear to be judge and jury.
“I believe it’s important to be transparent with all ratepayers on the financial impacts this community group are having.”
If Cr Toms’ motion is successful, Ms Cairns suggested the Council’s report needs to include the following:
- the number of times the Information and Privacy Commission (IPC) has supported Yamba CAN Inc when Council refused or only partially provided documents.
- the number of times Council has incorrectly redacted documents.
- the number of searches Council undertook and the time it took Council to locate documents.
- how many times Council could not locate documents.
- how much Council has charged Yamba CAN Inc for the documents in GIPA requests ($30 each) and when Council overcharged for processing, as IPC previously informed Council and Yamba CAN Inc.
The CV Independent will report on the outcome of the motion in the March 6 edition.