Red faces in fight on wedge drop-in

Hamish Heard
Geelong’s Mayor for a Day got more than he bargained for when his presence at a sensitive council meeting sparked a shouting match between councillors.
Councillors said Graeme Hoy, a businessman who placed a winning bid in a charity auction to be mayor for a day, was left red faced at a committee meeting on development of Geelong’s Western Wedge precinct.
Cr Shane Dowling told the Independent an argument started after Mayor Peter McMullin announced Mr Hoy would chair the meeting.
Cr McMullin told the meeting he had to be elsewhere, Cr Dowling said.
“I was annoyed, first because the meeting had been held up by 15 minutes while we waited for the mayor and then for him to suggest an outsider would chair that meeting in his place – I wasn’t going to be a part of that,” Cr Dowling said.
The meetings were privy to commercially sensitive information, he said. People who wanted to attend needed clearance from a vote of council.
“I made it clear that either the mayor for the day left the meeting or I would leave,” Cr Dowling said.
“I stayed.”
Cr Dowling said other people at the meeting were embarrassed about Mr Hoy witnessing the fallout.
“If he feels in any way bothered by anything I said I would certainly apologise to him but there was no way he should have been put in that position and asked to chair the meeting,” he said.
Cr McMullin played down the incident, saying the argument gave Mr Hoy an insight into a day in the life of a mayor.
“This sort of thing goes on all the time, so I gave him a fair and reasonable experience what it was like to be mayor for the day,” Cr McMullin said.
He denied the meeting had confidential items on the agenda, saying it was “more of an update on Western Wedge developments”.
“At the end of the day it was on the notice paper that he was going to be attending that meeting.”