Too much tosh during a meeting today

Two meetings today, the first was well-regulated. The Health, Sport & Community Services committee meeting commenced at 8.32 after one councillor finally made it into the room and started talking to a staffer he could have walked past. I guess that when you think you're a Romeo it is hard to set that idea aside.

The meeting had five of seven Items asterisked as kiss-and-run things and there was never going to be much in it. But for whatever reasons, below, it did last almost an hour.

As normal the library branch reports were slapped out of the court and there were few questions about HC3, BBolder and Older, a program for the Baby Boomers who are well on the way to retirement and boredom, was exposed to the meeting and Cr Able couldn't wait to tell us that he thought it was a fantastic program. There's a fifty-two page background paper that may be worth reading starting on page 21, the Executive Summary on pages 24 and 25 may be all that councillors read. I found the typeface that had been used for the background grated on me, but people with poorer eyesight might find is suitable.

As a Netizen I have to say that I often wonder where libraries are going. The increasing use of such small reading appliances, like the Kindle, seems to indicate that we're gong to read books downloaded from big publisher's web sites, much like younger people get music onto their phones or players. In earlier days I've talked to our senior librarians about why they are not stocking and holding more reference books, in my case engineering standards. I know that our libraries are more constantly full of people using the free Internet services there, rather than reading or borrowing books.

A library full of largely only English books seems to me to not meet the needs of those who speak the other 175 languages spoken in our city!

During General Business for the librarian Cr Able questioned her about behaviour in the libraries and she admitted to a past-problem with Marsden library. Now cleared up. You wouldn't have known from the monthly reports, would you?

Item HC4, the Community Services branch monthly report for November was gone in a moment as was Item HC5, State of Australia Cities Conference Report—a minimalist thing that probably didn't deserve an outing here. I keep wondering how long it will be before the Strategies and Outcomes manager will take his scythe to the reporting system. Bring them onto a web site, where we can all see them and ask questions, and get the dross out of the committee system. There are enough iPads in the committee rooms for councillors to have the web-site reports in front of them if there is a need to discuss anything that raises anyone's ire—and not just a councillor's interest.

During General Business for the Community Services manager Cr Clarke asked questions about the Logan West Community facilities and that on an on and on—diverging to Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food program touring Australia. I understood from the conversation that the truck will be at the Logan Central Library from 11 am on Friday and that people are invited for lunch. Cr Able asked what people would learn to cook—water or eggs! During the next break I told him that he doesn't watch enough TV to understand the world any more.

Item HC6, Major Facilities and Venues monthly report broke down into minor carping about delayed projects. Cr Power was keen to tell everyone that he had advocated council run the swimming pools and not contractors. Nobody rose to the bait. In the following General Business Cr Bradley asked about a screening system at a Springwood pool where everyone knew that it was designed for Islamic women.

It turns out that last May, while the councillors were asleep maybe, they approved a scheme to help women with body-image issues, or perceived issues, to avail themselves of more that normal privacy while using the pool to help get fit. One of the employees at the pool, noticing the early group to use the service, decided that it was an all-Muslim plot to be privileged.

The manager said that he had found the culprit and made suitable adjustments to the person's attitude.

The usual insensitive councillor wanted to know where the money for the project came from, where the screening would go and offered an opinion as to who might have put the story about. Cr Clarke said what all councillors should have known, that the program was for all women.

At the end of the GB the chair made a statement about the scurrilous stuff going on about the Food Program. He said it was not the Mayor grabbing the program out of his hands, it was the Marketing team. Oh, won't it be good to have councillors concentrate on working for the community instead of themselves!

Item HC7, Logan Sharps Management Strategy 2012–2014, was endorsed in a flash. The meeting closed at 9.25 am.

The Customer Services, Marketing & Parks committee meeting started by kissing-off CS1, the Customer Services monthly report for November & December. The only thing in the agenda that worked right.

During CS2, Diamond Jubilee Celebrations 2012, Cr Black offered that he is an executive committee member of the Monarchist League Inc and he launched into a very long list of suggested activities that might be considered by the city. He wanted to add to the resolutions already in the paper and have the council endorse the Monarchist League's objectives for the event. Ultimately that degenerated into a field day of cross-table comments by everyone.

There's normally a speaking limit for councillors that is too often ignored. I wondered why no one pulled him up at a later stage when he had already had two shots at saying his piece. Cr Pidgeon finally offered his opinions about the timeliness of bringing this Item forward and proposed it be deferred. Cr Black offered his motions and found that no one would second them. There was a motion, seconded, to defer the item and Black wanted to claim that there were not enough Yea votes for that. About 35 minutes of wasted time that might have been managed by limiting councillors to taking their turn, by limiting their speaking time and by allowing only one speaking turn.

During the next General Business Cr Dalley bought up the front-page headline in the Logan West Leader this morning. The chair asked the manager what he knew about it—his photo is on that page—and he was able to convince everybody it was not his work, partly because is is a very old photo from when he was an MP. I had not seen the article and was a bit lost as to its importance but some councillors were annoyed.

As that died down the chairperson injected another issue where TV Channel 9, in detailing the loutish behaviour at Sunnybank, offered that it was likely louts from Logan! She wanted the Marketing Manager to rectify that problem too. Cr Bradley wanted better Disaster Management information on the web site and more timely Waste Management information there as well.

In CS3 I noticed that the number of burials in December had gone up significantly. When the meeting closed for Item CS5 I left to come home. It was about 10.22 am.