Councillor Jeri Hall will serve as the Lismore City Council Deputy Mayor for the next three years (until August 2028), the month before the next local council elections in September 2028.

Traditionally, the Lismore Deputy Mayor is elected every 12 months; however, councillors voted to keep Councillor (Cr) Hall in the Deputy Mayor's role for certainty and consistency, with an 8/3 vote.

There were two nominations for Deputy Mayor, Cr Hall and Knight-Smith. Cr Hall won the vote 7/4.

The debate among councillors revolved around giving all councillors the chance to become Deputy Mayor, for the experience and leadership opportunities it creates, versus the certainty and continuity that comes with having one person in the role for a sustained period.

An amended motion to make the Deputy Mayor vote back to 12 months was defeated, before Cr Hall's appointment was ratified until August 2028.

Another annual vote, which was changed to the end of this council's tenure, was the timing of Council meetings.

The debate was the same one that had been raised in many previous meetings since meetings started at 10am, and public access was moved to before the meeting proper at 9am.

Originally, the motion was to vote on the meeting day and time for 2026; however, Cr Dalton-Earls moved an amendment to change the date to August 2028 after it was confirmed that this was possible by General manager Eber Butron.

Cr Guise, Waters and Knight-Smith reiterated their positions that daytime meetings mean workers cannot attend or listen via live-streaming, which leads to less community involvement. While Crs Jensen, Dalton-Earls and Hall mentioned there was more listening during the day, savings in the budget when the meeting is held during the day and health & safety concerns for councillors and staff when meetings are held at night.

The vote was an easy 8/3 win for daytime meetings until August 2028.

An event the public was not aware of was that Norco unintentionally discharged a non-compliant trade waste stream from the ice cream factory at 120 Union Street, South Lismore, into the South Lismore Treatment Plant, resulting in the contamination of all treatment processes with milk solids between October and December 2023.

Council said that the charges imposed on Norco are determined by the discharge quality criteria outlined in Council’s “Wastewater Usage Charging Strategy”. The charge per kilogram is identified in Council’s Fees and Charges under ‘Category 3 Excess Mass Charges: Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD)’. Due to a series of accidental non-compliant events, Norco incurred a total bill of $418,183.58 for the three-month period for both volume and excess mass fees. Under normal compliant discharge conditions, Norco would have incurred charges of approximately $30,000 over the same period.

Recognising the cost recovery amount and Norco’s proactive collaboration with Council’s Trade Waste Officer to address potential bypass streams, it was proposed not to enforce the full invoice amount, but to base the charges on cost recovery associated with the damage caused.

The result was an outstanding balance of $99,590; therefore, council staff require the approval of councillors to write off $318,592.58. As the incident was an accident, they did not want to charge any punitive damages, which it is entitled to do.

A council staff member explained that there were exceptional circumstances in this scenario.

"It was conceded that there were multiple issues that were presented. There was a potential that it was a council blockage in our assets that created the excess trade waste. Once we had removed that, it became apparent that it was not that issue, that's when Norco actually invited our staff on site. We assisted as much as possible.

"They also were willing to work with us. And it wasn't until that final stage where the trade waste pit was actually discovered, the internally trade wastage, and it was actually underneath, I believe, a large cement cover of some description, which meant they didn't know it was there. They couldn't see that it was filling up with excess trade waste, and also their systems were not reporting any increase at all."

Cr Waters put forward another amendment that, in accordance with section 131 of the Local Government (General) Regulation 2021 (NSW), Council approve the write-off of $286,703.58 of the liquid trade waste charges owed by Norco for the October to December period 2023, leaving an outstanding balance of $131,480, including GST.

"While I'm supportive of reducing the debt, of course, I think this amendment just actually gives weight to the second event that happened in December, which they've accepted responsibility to," Cr Waters said.

Cr Guise supported Cr Waters. "For that second event, it would be in ratepayers' interest that we don't just rollover and take on that responsibility, and that should be factored into the amount we're going to write off."

Other councillors argued that Norco is one of Lismore's biggest employers and that punishing a local business for being honest.

"They come to us, they told us they rectified it straight away. We really want to encourage that sort of relationship with our residents and with our industrial bodies in Lismore," Cr Hall said.

Cr Battista said this was a classic example of missing the forest by looking at one tree.

"You're missing out on what Norco is. It is a company that has been here for 130 years, and today, they still employ 130 people. So, if you add up all those years by the number of people that have been employed throughout the years, it's a massive, massive income for Lismore."

The amendment was defeated 8/3, with Crs Waters, Guise and Dalton-Earls for. When it came to voting on the original staff motion to cover the costs and charge $99,590, the vote was unanimous.

The next Lismore City Council meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 14 at 10am.