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Wednesday 20 October 2021
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Join the artists’ trail online THE number of artists along the Peninsula Studio Trail has almost doubled to 34 during lockdown. Regular open studio weekends and the group’s annual exhibition have been replaced with one online exhibition, which runs until 12 December. While in lockdown the artists have produced a range of works, painting, printmaking, ceramics, drawing and sculpture. Not all the artists have work in the exhibition, but their work can be seen on the website on each artist’s page. All works can be bought directly from the artists through the website. The exhibition is at: peninsulastudiotrailinc.org/ TYABB artist Janis Taber, left, sees the “journey of creating” as fun: “I paint the imaginary garden of my mind. I start with a colour palette, and an idea and the paintings flourish, as in my garden outside.” Taber says living on a hobby farm provides “heaps of inspiration … I love nature, colour and texture”. Using inks and mixed media Taber’s works range from resin art paintings to decorate food and cheese platters to silk scarves (“all the colours of a rainbow”), crystal and glass flowers to jewellery and using “upcycled materials and treasures from nature”. Accompanying her in the studio are two “faithful assistants wonder dogs Brandy and Boo”. Picture: Supplied
Majority rules on changes before vote Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au A SELECT group of councillors were given the opportunity to discuss amendments to rules under which Mornington Peninsula Shire operates at least 12 days before they became a last minute addition to the council agenda on Tuesday 24 August. Six councillors knew about the amendments which were not revealed to their five council colleagues until well after the public online meeting
had started. Although the changes had been the subject of a series of emails going back at least 11 days, they were not raised at the pre-meeting councillor briefing. The five councillors were not informed of the amendments proposed at the meeting by Cr Sarah Race, although the emails about them between the mayor Cr Despi O’Connor and the shire’s in-house lawyer Amanda Sapolu and CEO John Baker date back to at least 12 August. The proposed amendments were sent to Crs Race, Anthony Marsh, Kerri
McCafferty, Paul Mercurio and Lisa Dixon in the early evening on 18 August, six days before the scheduled council meeting. The five councillors left out of the email loop were David Gill, Steve Holland, Susan Bissinger, Antonella Celi and Debra Mar. When introducing her amendments to the Governance Rules one hour into the debate on 24 August, Cr Race apologised for the lateness, saying home schooling, COVID and late nights had made it “a bit of a process for me”. Cr Holland said last week that he
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was “glad this has now come to light although it's hard to believe [what was written in the emails to the six councillors], it's quite damning”. “It's disappointing that some councillors appear to have been deliberately kept in the dark and excluded from such an important part of the decisionmaking process,” Cr Holland said. “The surprise amendment has empowered the bureaucracy and affected the ability of an elected councillor to represent the community. Now we find out that this was actually a calculated move, despite what has been claimed.”
Cr Gill was “shocked” to find out there had been time for the Governance Rules amendment to be discussed with all councillors but “the mayor and five other councillors had seemingly settled the wording a week before the meeting”. “There seems to have been ample opportunity for all councillors to have been reasonably informed,” he said. “I believe it was said at the meeting that there wasn't time for other councillors to be informed.” Continued Page 5
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