Lots of questions for council, but it's hard to get answers | Letter

This article says each person has five minutes to speak and address the mayor. Potentially the mayor or senior council staff will respond to questions from the public.

Community participation is an ongoing issue for all councils and our current forums are only providing limited input from the broader community. One other option is surveys.

Recently, council conducted one of these surveys where over 400 people were selected at random.

It was revealed that three of the top 10 issues were deficit by council in planning and decision-making.

They were:

What action did councillors take following this report, to rectify this problem?

These forums used to be called question time, but under current guidelines, there is no obligation to answer any questions.

For example, some two years ago I asked a question to the mayor at this forum, as per guidelines. However, I wished to ask a question of the director who was responsible for this area.

I believe the mayor failed to direct my question to that particular director.

I received no reply, just a "thank you for raising the issue".

Some six months later, I addressed this director to respond to my question.

There should be requirements that questions asked at a public forum should be followed up and responded to.

We need to provide the opportunity for all to have a say in our future, not just the 'usual suspects' that address these forums.

The restrictions imposed by COVID on numbers attending these forums have accentuated the problem.