Item 11.4 - Attachment 1

Community Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes 18 March 2010

MINUTES FOR THE COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING HELD IN THE JUBILEE ROOM, TOWN HALL, CIVIC PLACE, PARRAMATTA ON THURSDAY, 19 MARCH 2010, COMMENCING AT 6:08PM.

PRESENT

Mark Egan, Jim Grainda, Jane Ho (arrived 6:50pm), Mlinda Kumar, Phillip Russo, Marivic Manalo and Chris Bertinshaw

IN ATTENDANCE

Maggie Kyle – Community Capacity Building Officer, Tanya Owen – Community Capacity Building Officer and Joy Bramham – Minute Clerk

1. WELCOME

Maggie Kyle welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked them for attending

2. APOLOGIES

There were no apologies received for this meeting.

3. CONFLICT OF INTEREST DECLARATION

There were no declarations made regarding conflict of interest at this meeting.

4. Confirmation of Minutes

A copy of the Minutes of the Community Advisory Committee meeting held on 2 February 2010 had previously been forwarded to each member.

RESOLUTION (Chris Bertinshaw / Phillip Russo)

That the Minutes of the meeting of the Community Advisory Committee held on 2 February 2010 be taken as read and confirmed.

5. Business Arising

5.1 Next Neighbourhood forum.

There are two types of forums the LGA forums and the neighbourhood forums.

The neighbourhood forums will be tailored to issues in each specific area. Community Place Officers can present information on the particular community including demographics and identified issues and then community members can express and discuss what they think the core issues / other issues are for their community.

The Committee will be responsible for chairing the forum, listening to the community and feeding that back to Council by way of a bi-monthly report to be written by Council Officers. The Committee can also use the forums to help educate the community in regard to the correct way of addressing concerns and issues.

The committee discussed where the next neighbourhood forum will be held and raised the following ideas:-

· Granville used to hold ‘precinct’ meetings and currently has a topical issue regarding development

· Telopea has problems with public housing

· Wentworthville an area where there appear to be few controversial/ politically sensitive issues at the moment

· Neglected areas that we don’t hear a great deal about or from in comparison to other areas, such as Wentworthville.

· Areas with perceived high crime rate

· Community Place Development Officers can attend or brief Maggie Kyle and/or Tanya Owen, who in turn can brief the forum regarding the profile of the area and perceived issues

· Chris Bertinshaw expressed concern that there are groups that are not being heard, and that the committee should not focus on one particular issue.

The committee agreed to hold a Committee meeting to decide on an area and discuss further details on 28 April 2010 at 6pm in Meeting Room B Level 2 Council Chambers Building.

6. Process/ Preparation for the first Community Forum

6.1 Running the event

· Acknowledgement of country

· Welcome / housekeeping –

· Emphasise that concerns identified will be incorporated into Council report

· Members of the Community Advisory Committee are not party of Council and are only the conduit for feeding back to Council.

· Presenters will have approximately 20 minutes including any questions from the public.

· The Service Manager for Libraries, Debbie Best will talk about library services

· Project Officer, Land Use and Transport Planning, Paul Kennedy will talk about heritage

· The Manager, Land Use and Transport Planning, Marcelo Occhiuzzi will talk about planning and development including the LEP

· There will be time for general questions after all the presentations.

6.2 Other issues

The committee questioned if they would be able submit recommendations to Council and Maggie Kyle stated that the committee could make recommendations to Council, but that Council had no obligation to act on those recommendations.

The Committee discussed establishing an email address. Phillip Russo expressed concern that Councillors may see this as the Committee taking over their roles and sending an incorrect message to the public about going to the Committee when they can go straight to a Councillor. Maggie Kyle suggested that it be tied directly to the forums as a place where further ideas can be expressed. This would be important for community members who wanted to contribute but who were unable to attend forums.

ACTION: Maggie Kyle to establish a Community Advisory Committee email address.

Note: Jane Ho arrived at 6:50pm during consideration of this matter.

NEXT MEETING

6pm, Wednesday 28 April 2010

Meeting room B

Level 2 Council Chambers Building

The meeting concluded at 6:55 pm