Below is an edit from council meeting minutes for Monday the 18th of May 2020.
DADA asked:
Maria Polietti (sic), DADA President, (Presented by Chris Erlandsen, DADA Vice President and Save Our Preston Market Representative)
Will Council agree to record voting patterns in the General Council Meeting Minutes and Planning Committee Meeting Minutes?
Response from Chairperson, Mayor Rennie
Council’s Governance Rules (Meeting Procedure and Common Seal) Local Law – clause 42(1) stipulates that the Mayor will call the names of Councillors (for and against) of all motions and amendments (except procedural matters) and that’s a change that was made in the last Governance Local Law so that change that Ms Polietti has requested is actually now part of the Governance Local Law.
To be very clear and accurate, the minutes of the 18th of May, 2020 meeting were the very first where the voting patterns were published even though the Mayor had been recording them for some time in previous meetings.
DADA has been asking for greater transparency around voting patterns for at least 6 years.
This council cannot claim a strong commitment to transparency when they began their office by refusing the option to call for a ‘division’ which in the past enabled the recording and publishing of some, not all voting patterns.