Mayor Michael Lyon downplayed the secrecy surrounding his request that councillors support a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) with flood recovery agencies and the body that represents local councils, the Northern Rivers Joint Organisation (NRJO), at last week’s Council meeting.
The mayor told the chamber his intention was to make it public, yet it was a confidential document at the time of adoption by councillors.
Greens Cr Duncan Dey was the only dissenting vote opposing the Northern Rivers Compact, saying he couldn’t support it as ‘the public knows nothing of it, and it doesn’t need our endorsement’.
The mayor described its as a ‘vanilla document’ which was coming before the NRJO. ‘The NSW Reconstruction Authority (RA) have a huge funding presence here in region… this is about us all working together in a non-binding way’.
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