BY his own admission, Mayor Geoff Kettle hates paper.
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It’s no surprise then that he’s declared a decision to purchase each councillor an iPad for the viewing of business papers “money well spent”.
Councillors tomorrow night utilise their iPads in a meeting for the first time officially. All bar one, councillor of nearly 30 years Margaret O’Neill, have embraced the change, introduced to save paper and cut back on the costs of printing.
“I’ve been after electronic business papers ever since I came onto council,” Cr Kettle said.
“To be frank, I hate paper. All of the councillors (except O’Neill) have vowed to move with the times and give it a go.” The changeover means Council is no longer required to print tens of thousands of pages a year.
Instead, they can access business papers on their iPads. Hard copies will be circulated for those in the gallery, the press and councillor Margaret O’Neill, who’s rejected the offer of an iPad.
Cr O’Neill says she’ll keep doing her job the old fashioned way until she’s no longer in local government.
“I’ll keep getting the hard copies as long as I’m a councillor,” she said.
Her stubborn refusal to bow to technology is nothing unusual.
Cr O’Neill doesn’t have a council mobile phone or laptop.
“I’ve always worked through the old system,” she said.
“I don’t care about the printing. I’m still getting a hard copy.” The former Goulburn City Council mayor believes physical business papers are easier to read and harder to lose than their digital counterparts.
Mayor Kettle, meantime, says the decision to ease away from printing doesn’t contradict council’s call last year to spend $60,000 on new printers – two of which are multipurpose copiers ideal for processing business papers.
Nor will it deny the public access to council’s agendas, he says.
“There are still copies in the gallery and people can always go online and download business papers,” he said.
Councillors in December had a trial run with iPads during an ordinary meeting. Tomorrow night, however, officially marks the beginning of a new era in the way meetings are conducted.
Upper Lachlan Shire Council is also moving with the times by adopting iPads, but similarly, not everyone is happy.
While five councillors told the December meeting they would use the technology, Cr James Wheelwright said he had a problem with the iPad.
“I won’t have a problem with it – I won’t use it,” Cr Malcolm Barlow replied.
He said at his age he didn’t want to adapt to new technology.
Others, like Cr Darren O’Brien said that if his kids could use them, so could he.
Other councils around the state have also adopted iPads in the quest to be ‘green.’