MURRAY River Council (MRC) is hitting the road, taking three of its monthly meetings to Moulamein, Barham and Mathoura this year.
Council will hold its March 22 meeting at Moulamein Bowling Club, Barham Riverside Park on May 24 and August 23 at Mathoura Visitor and Business Centre.
Meetings will commence at 2pm, despite some concerns of kangaroos at dusk, particularly during winter.
Chief executive officer Terry Dodds said council resolved last year to make allowances of two ordinary meetings being held at other towns within the municipality.
He said information technology hardware has been purchased to ensure meetings could be recorded and livestreamed that are being held outside the council chambers based at the Moama office.
“Holding a meeting in each of the above sites allows for members of public to attend council meetings and not have to travel,” Mr Dodds said.
“Travelling to other sites in our LGA allow for greater interaction with our community members and involvement by all councillors in all areas of the LGA.”
Greater Wakool Ward councillor Neil Gorey welcomed the roadshow.
“It’s great to get more exposure outside of Moama and visit other areas,” he said.
“It gives people in Greater Wakool the chance to attend meetings, enjoy lunch together and councillors have the time to look around these communities.
“They will need to travel though a reasonable amount of the council area to arrive in places like Moulamein, so they will see outside the urban area of the municipality.”
Cr Gorey said extra time would be given between workshops and the council meeting for councillors to explore the three townships.
“They can drive around, see the infrastructure and any concerns they know of or see firsthand.”
Crs Gorey and Ann Crowe were also supportive of a return of meet and greet community barbecues that ran pre-COVID in the small townships.
“While I do support having other council meetings in other parts of the LGA, I don’t want to be a sook, but I did notice that Murray Downs wasn’t on the list,” Cr Crowe said.
“With our previous general manager, he started the barbecue meet the councillor thing and I was actually rather a big fan on that simply because it was a very relaxed setting and people felt comfortable to come in and meet councillors and senior staff, even for a chat about what they like about their area or not.
“There isn’t much opportunity to do that in the meeting setting because they are now livestreamed so people can sit wherever they like and watch the meetings.”
Cr Tom Weyrich said the initiative was “well overdue”.
“As far as venues, I couldn’t be happier,” he said.
“We should do this more often in different areas.”
He said he had concerns about the start time, with a 2pm start meant the finish time would push towards dusk and wildlife hazards.
Cr Frank Crawley said meetings should remain at 2pm as it had been the adopted time for a period of time.
“I think it still gives us time to complete the meetings before the roos start bouncing around.”
The location and times for the meetings were carried unanimously.
