POLICIES are written by companies and councils alike, not to promote robust debate as stated in council’s communication policy, but rather to stifle different views to those of the policy maker. 

In BCSC’s proposed 2025 Governance Policy (comments closed July 17), the major change planned is to force persons to attend council meetings in order to be allowed to ask questions, and limiting question time to 30 minutes. This change is discriminatory against the majority. 

Council states, 53.1 Public question time must be held at each Council meeting fixed under Rule 9 to enable members of the public to submit questions. 

In 2022, under the 2020 Governance Policy, council attempted to ban question time and subsequently disobey their own policy by failing to read out and answer approximately 121 questions over a six-month period. Another clear example of council policy changes seeking to influence outcomes is BCSC’s 2024 URDI policy. When the Sunderland Bay, Surf Beach Special Charge Scheme failed, BCSC then collaborated with a few disgruntled ratepayers who obviously bought in the area for capital gain. The new 2024 URDI policy was altered to enable a scheme to proceed under different rules, reducing from 70 to 50 per cent the number of ratepayers needed to sign a petition enabling schemes to proceed. This policy change was designed for BCSC to save face after losing the “unlosable” and making it easier for council and disgruntled ratepayers to achieve their goal.

This 2024 URDI policy pits neighbour against neighbour. A question regarding this was disallowed at the last council meeting because the mayor didn’t like the wording! Another question containing the word “aggressive” was also disallowed. Previously, “pathetic” was disallowed. Governance Rule 53.8 states that a question may be disallowed if the Chair determines that it is defamatory, indecent, abusive, offensive, irrelevant, trivial or objectionable in language or substance. 

Under both the current and proposed Governance Policy, council can disallow any question they wish and thereby silence those seeking answers. If council is changing the Governance Policy, perhaps they should provide a glossary of words or phrases that are acceptable.

Philip Davy, Surf Beach