petty, pathetic or pedant : Council deny a Public speaker for being three minutes late

In what is quickly building to a script worthy of a world class farce Eurobodalla Council have denied a Public Speaker from presenting at tomorrow's Public Forum because he was three minutes over the 12 noon deadline. In an email to Jim Bright a council staff member wrote: As you would be aware, Section 3.3 of Council’s Code of Meeting Practice states that:

‘To speak at a public forum, a person must first make an application to the Council in the approved form. Applications to speak at the public forum must be received by Council, Executive Support (02 4474 1358 or  council.meetings@esc.nsw.gov.au), no later than 12.00noon of the business day prior to the meeting, and must identify the item of business on the agenda of the Council meeting the person wishes to speak on, and may state whether they wish to speak ‘for’ or ‘against’ the item.’

Unfortunately your request to speak at tomorrow’s public forum session was received at Council after the 12.00noon deadline and therefore I cannot accept your request to speak.

I will however, forward your presentation onto Councillors for their information.

Have a great day! Mr Bright's email requesting to speak was sent at 12:03pm Had Mr Bright been allowed to speak he would have addressed Councillors on the Sale of the Moruya Racetrack (you can read his presentation HERE) Had Mr Bright presented the community, other than those attending the Public Forum session at 9:30am, would have heard his presentation as Council have removed Live Streaming of Public Forum along with recording and archiving of the presentations and the questions and responses that follow between the presenter and Councillors. And all this on a day when Councillors are being asked to endorse the draft Community Engagement Framework that is meant to be the guidance to ensure the community as best informed and best engaged with their councillors and council. Of interest is the fact that only four minutes before, at 11:59am another presentation was delivered to Council via email enabling that speaker to be registered to present. Four minutes difference.