Councillors Adam Guise, Vanessa Ekins and Big Rob unsuccessfully tried to get Acting General Manager (GM) John Walker sacked at the end of last night's long Lismore City Council meeting.

Mr Walker was initially put under pressure earlier in the night from Cr Guise with a Question of Notice from Cr Big Rob about the GM's position and when that position will be advertised, Mr Walker was initially employed as interim GM until February 2023.

Mayor Steve Krieg said he has been advised the process will begin in July which Cr Guise asked to be confirmed. When that was confirmed Cr Guise said, "I will just draw your attention to a motion that I have just circulated to councillors and the governance officer that concerns this item. It's a personnel issue and that it would be best dealt with in the confidential session of council."

Council went into confidential session close to midnight, it lasted well over 90 minutes. The Mayor came back at 1:30am with the resolution of the motion that said:

1. Council terminates the Acting General Manager's contract of employment (the "Contract") in accordance with 7.4 of the contract by giving four weeks notice with effect on and from the passing of this resolution on the 14th of June 2022.
2. As soon as practicable, the Mayor inform the Acting General Manager of the above decision.
3. Council appoints Kate Webber as the Council's Acting General Manager, pursuant to sections 336 and 351 of the Local Government Act 1993, with such person to remain as the Council's Acting General Manager, until the Council appoints a new General Manager, or until further decision of the Council to appoint a different Acting General Manager.
4. Council commence the recruitment process for the appointment of a General Manager

The motion was easily defeated 8/3 with Councillors Vanessa Ekins, Adam Guise and Big Rob voting in favour to remove the GM and Councillors Bing, Bird, Colby, Cook, Gordon, Hall, Jensen and Krieg voting against.

It would appear as if the General Managers position is a poisoned chalice with Mr Walker being the fifth GM since 2016.

The Lismore City Council GM list includes Gary Murphy, Scott Turner as interim before Shelley Oldham followed by Michael Donnelly who was sacked in February this year.

The reasons for trying to remove Mr Walker will not be disclosed due to it being discussed in a closed session. However, four months into the job and at a time when Lismore needs some certainty and surety following the devastating February 28 flood do we, as a community, need more disruption?

Organisation Structure was on the confidential session list also;

1. Council receives a briefing from the General Manager on the organisational design and structure.
2. Council determines an organsational structure and senior staff positions as at Attachment A in accordance with the requirements of Local Government Act 1993.
3. This confidential report relating to the matters specified in 10.A2A of the Local Government Act 1993 be treated as confidential and remain confidential until councillors are advised by the General Manager that the new structure has been communicated to all staff.

This motion was passed 8/3 with Crs Ekins, Guise and Rob voting against.

More details on the rest of last night's Lismore City Council meeting soon on the Lismore App.

Eastwood Estate will need to go back to the drawing board if they are to get their Development Application approved after it was defeated at last night's Lismore City Council meeting.

The original plan was to construct 129 lots at the site, however, the new DA was asking for 203 lots. What had the majority of councillors concerned were the changes to the stormwater basin and road infrastructure that encroached into land zoned C3 that has a koala breeding corridor.

Council's Ecologist report commented, "The impacts on important foraging and breeding habitat of threatened fauna species koala within the C3 Zone are unacceptable. The proposed development within the R1 zone will significantly diminish koala movement and connectivity and enhancement of the C3 Zone will occur only after significant impact (removal) to core koala habitat. The removal of koala habitat, the lag in any habitat reestablishment program will result in a net loss. There is no confidence that cumulative impacts to core koala habitat in the vicinity will not put the local population of koalas in more imminent risk of extinction."

It was noted by all councillors of the housing crisis that Lismore is experiencing but at what cost? Plus there were comments about this not being affordable housing by Councillor (Cr) Guise due to the sizeable cut and fill needed for construction on steep blocks of land.

In the end, the vote was 7/4 to reject the DA.

The recession motion put forward by Crs Guise, Ekins and Bird to reverse council's decision at the May council meeting on Airport Annualised Landing Fees was again easily defeated 8/3 as was Cr Rob's motion to move the Electric Car Charging Station from Clyde Campbell Carpark.

Cr Rob's motion to put on public display a name change for the Lismore Airport to the Lismore Nimbin Airport to take advantage of Nimbin's tourist trade was a closer vote but still defeated.

The Operational Plan for 2022/23 was adopted with one amendment, an extra $140,000 for the Richmond Tweed Library which will come off the small cash surplus. Without the extra funds there would have been cuts to library services such as no Sunday opening and only 50% of staff would be replaced when someone was on holiday.

The more controversial conversations on the night included flood-related matters.

Lismore City Council's estimated damage bill to its assets from the February flood is over $350 million.

When it comes to the tender process for flood repairs and rebuild works councillors were increasing the amount the General Manager could approve from $500,000 to $1 million due to the extenuating circumstances. Point three of the report was to allow the GM to determine submissions or tenders with "no upper limit" given the costs involved with fixing some of council's assets. City Hall was used as the example by Director of Infrastructure Services Peter Jeuken which is reaching a threshold of expenses.

This was not well received by Crs Guise and Rob.

Cr Guise said, "Here we have a motion in the height of a disaster when there's significant money at stake and the significant future of our town is at stake and here we are proposing wholesalely to give away our duty, our oversight and our obligation as the governing body of Lismore council to allow the General Manager, one person unilaterally to hand out $303 million of taxpayers money as he sees fit. I think this is very dangerous territory and is not a path we should be going down."

Cr Rob added, "There's eleven of us that make decisions at this table. There's only eleven of us and we're restricted to the Local Government Act that holds us to 250 that just got up to 500 within twelve months of a disaster without needing to go to tender. There's a reason they have these amounts. It's allegations that will be made, perceptions will appear, perceptions of corruption. I am not suggesting that, I just saying perceptions are really bad when you go right up to $1 million with one person."

General Manager John Walker later said, "I don't actually want this responsibility. You know, I think the million dollars is right for the sort of work that we're doing but the other seems strange to me too. I don't personally want the authority where there's no trust anyway.

Point 3 was changed from "no upper limit" to also read $1 million for council assets and the motion was passed 8/3.

It was a similar story for a tender to supply ready mix concrete to four approved customers but that too was passed 8/3.

Cr Ekins motion that Council write to the relevant NSW and Federal Ministers requesting an urgent review of the flood warning systems used by the SES and BOM was passed unanimously.