Yesterday Lismore City Council (LCC) held an extraordinary meeting. The housing of the Richmond River Historical Society (RRHS), otherwise called the Lismore Museum, was a key issue of debate as part of the Council’s Property Strategy.
Prior to the meeting President of the RRHS, Dr Robert Smith, gathered with supporters outside the LCC chambers seeking support for the return of the RRHS to their former museum premises in the heritage Municipal Building at 165 Molesworth Street. The Lismore Museum has been waiting for the renovation of the building following the 2022 floods with the expectation that they would be moving back in.
Dr Smith told the gathered crowd that there had been misinformation put out by the LCC saying that they had failed to sign a lease.
‘No, we were not given a lease to sign,’ he said.
‘They say we waited eight months to do things. No, we didn’t. There was no doubt whatsoever, throughout anywhere in the community, or in this building that we wanted to move back in, we were ambushed.
‘How did it happen? A group went and saw the shiny new building down there that have been put together, with help by our Jeff Kerr in particular. They saw it, and they liked the look of it, and like any two year old, they wanted this shiny new thing for themselves, and they didn’t care what happened, what the consequences were, and they’ve made up whatever they can to cover that up.’
The decision not to return the RRHS to its former location was part of the LCC Property Strategy.
Councillors Adam Guise, Jasmine Knight-Smith, and Virginia Waters put in a recission motion to reverse the decision of the LCC and reinstate the Lismore Museum (RRHS) back into the heritage building they had previously occupied.
‘It’s a bit of a surprise to the RRHS that they have been caught up in this property strategy and are being turfed out of the municipal building, whereas we’d resolved to issue a licence for them to occupy that [building] back in [14] May 2024,’ said Cr Guise.
‘I’m asking my fellow councillors here today to consider the sentiment in the community, to consider what you’ve heard here in this chamber, and think about how important these physical institutions are, but also these cultural institutions are to our town. These sort of services are attractors to people from far and wide. They bring visitors to Lismore. They rely extensively on volunteers to do this work, and we can’t take volunteers for granted.’
Cr Guise highlighted the fact that the LCC had a previously passed motion to lease the building to the RRHS that they had been waiting to sign when the property strategy ‘came out of left field’ removing that previously approved LCC motion.
‘Is it staff’s job to decide which motions of council to enact?’ he asked.
Cr Electra Jensen spoke against the motion saying that, ‘We are not turfing them out. There is a resolution to delegate the authority to the staff which is being enacted on and they can choose whether or not to go on with it,’ she said referring to the fact that LCC had previously passed a motion to licence the RRHS to occupy the building.
Responding to her statement Cr Guise pointed out that, ‘We executed a [council] resolution that said, “license agreement with Richmond river Historical Society over ground floor, suite seven to eight and the entire first floor 165 Molesworth Street for a five year term to facilitate the maintenance of an archive containing materials and historical artifacts that can encapsulate the unique essence of the region”.
‘That’s what we resolved. Those other licenses [that were part of the same resolution] they have been executed. This one hasn’t. It’s not up to us to pass these resolutions, and then the general manager can pick and choose which ones that they agree to implement or not. That was a resolution, that’s on the books and that stands.’
Mayor Steve Krieg put the recission motion to the vote, it was lost with Crs Guise, Jasmine Knight-Smith and Virgina Waters in favour and Crs Gianpiero Battista, Andrew Bing, Andrew Gordon, Jeri Hall, Jensen, Krieg and Big Rob voting against.
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