A total of 25 expressions of interest was received from the public in response to council’s call for members for each of the four quadrants.
The quadrants are: North (approximately former Urana Council area, South (Corowa, rural and surrounds), West (Mulwala, rural and surrounds) and East (Howlong, and surrounds).
Council will appoint either two or three public members per quadrant, meaning, if it is three persons per quadrant, a total of 12 public members with 13 missing out.
“It is positive that there is strong interest in joining the group and a reasonable option could be to ask all 25, or whoever is available, to meet in a workshop type format of the Roads Committee, to outline the frequency of meetings, time commitments, and take any other queries,” council’s director engineering services Steve Carmichael advised on Monday at council’s monthly August meeting.
Council will keep the contact details of all nominees and allow anyone who is not appointed to the committee, to still be involved if workshops are held in between meetings, in various quadrants.
“This could progress matters such as road hierarchy in each quadrant prior to the
full committee meetings endorsing these. Ultimately the Roads Advisory Committee Minutes, if
decisions are required, would be then reported to council to seek formal decisions,” Mr Carmichael said.
Council reaffirmed on Monday that Mayor Pat Bourke and Councillors David Longley, Rowena Black, David Fahey OAM and Andrew Kennedy as being Federation Council’s delegates to the Roads Advisory Committee.
The Roads Advisory Committee’s four staff members are: director of engineering services, manager infrastructure, manager operations and development and deign engineer.
Cr Black said: “I’m looking forward to receiving some positive outcomes.”
Acting mayor Shaun Whitechurch added: “It’s the way forward, and I’m looking to getting some results and funding.”
Council will hold a meeting before September to allow all who submitted an interest to attend and receive further information about the committee.
Council will receive a further report on the outcomes of the Roads Advisory Workshop at the September Council meeting, to finalise the public members on the committee.
The committee’s strategy will include reviewing the effectiveness of the existing road network, initially reviewing changes in the last 50 years, particularly industry and logistic changes that affect the effectiveness of the road network.
“Council staff will contact each member who has submitted a nomination and thank them for the nomination and invite them to a workshop and from there, present a final list of 12 members and the corresponding quadrants, to the September Council meeting,” Mr Carmichael concluded.
Federation Council resolved at its June 2022 meeting to call for public members to join the committee and an updated Terms of Reference be adopted.
The main objectives of the committee include being a conduit between council and road users to better inform council decisions and to also better inform road users of council challenges and work on agreed solutions.
The subject of more funding for more general road grant allocations without specifying the road heads a list of requests by Federation Council to raise at the Local Government NSW (LGNSW) annual conference in Sydney on October 23-25. By Monday, August 29, council will have advised its list of Notice of Motions to LGNSW.
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