Double standards on show
My fellow Councillor Graham Docksey has been the subject of an unfair and ill-considered personal attack, for his leave of absence from council meetings over the last few months. The latest attack came from Cr Amanda Cohn, who spoke against his apology being accepted and leave of absence granted for the October 29 council meeting.
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Strangely, Cr Murray King was also absent from that meeting, but Cr Cohn only spoke against Cr Docksey being absent and granted leave of absence. Why would that be, I wonder?
Would it be because Cr Cohn always gets Cr King’s vote for any position she wants? As well, Cr King, at an earlier meeting of Council, made a thinly veiled attack on Cr Docksey for missing some Council meetings because he was on leave overseas. It appears some Councillors believe that other Councillors are not entitled to annual leave. And that a change to council’s meeting schedule, impacting on other Councillors’ plans, should also not be a reason to miss meetings.
The mayor also has a role in these issues. But he has chosen to not do anything about these attacks on Cr Docksey. At least, not to my knowledge.
The role of Councillor is not only to attend council meetings, but also the other duties as they occur. Community functions, external committee meetings, fronting the media on various issues, and generally being available for the community when they have a problem. It is a 24/7 commitment. Some of my fellow Councillors and I have lost track of the number of times that we had to fill in for Cr Cohn for community duties when she is unavailable. We don’t have a problem filling in, but fair is fair, it works both ways.
I have privately requested that Cr Cohn apologise to Cr Docksey in the same forum that she spoke against his leave of absence, but this has not happened.
I now wish to make the public aware of the double standards that some of our Councillors, including the Deputy Mayor, have. Those double standards were at the fore again on Monday night, with Cr King being an apology for the council meeting. But again, Cr Cohn did not speak against granting the leave of absence.
Councillor Henk van de Ven, Albury
Just do your job
I am forced by your Council to again write to you on the subject of performing exotic animals in circuses.
Unfortunately the proposal put forward by a Councillor in an attempt to “ban” Lennon Bros and Stardust circuses plus any other Circus that obtains the required licences to have exotic animals from both the Federal and State Governments was put through Council. I only had one response from a Councilor (the one who put up this idea), who agreed to disagree with my facts.
Council has now found that the wording “exotic” has caused an issue where even a dingo is an exotic animal. The new push is to place a ban on a Circus that features lions and monkeys. Is this the place of local government? They should be organising rubbish collection, and keeping streets and parklands clean and tidy. It is not their job to ban legally operated business with both state and federal licences. I urge the Councillors of Wodonga to dismiss this idea and get on with the job looking after council’s main objectives and keep Wodonga the beautiful city it has always been.