NRS-20585 | Minutes [City of Rockdale]

Full description

This series consists of minutes of the General or Ordinary meetings, Special or Extraordinary meetings and Committee meetings of the Municipal District of West Botany (1871-1888), Municipality of Rockdale (1888-1995) and the City of Rockdale (1995- ). These minute books were created under section107 and 108 of the Municipalities Act of 1867 (31 Vic. No.12) which was assented to on 23 December 1867, and subsequent legislation. The General meetings were called for Ordinary business and were recurrent meetings prescribed by legislation to be held at regular intervals. Special meetings could be called for Extraordinary business by the Mayor or by two Councillors and dealt with a specific issue. Reports were generally also tabled at these meetings as well as at the general meeting relating to the subject.

The minutes document the decisions made by the Council at its meetings. The minutes usually include the following sections: attendance of Council members, confirmation of minutes of the previous meeting, business arising out of the minutes of the previous meeting, Mayor's or Official minutes (which brought to Council's attention significant matters within its jurisdiction or of which it had official knowledge), recommendations from Council committees, reports by Council officers, outward and inward correspondence, petitions, questions with notice, orders of the day or general business, and questions without notice.

To ease the work load at General meetings, Council could delegate powers to committees composed of councillors. The Committee's recommendations were submitted to the next Council meeting and form part of that meeting's minutes. However the recommendations were not binding unless, and until, adopted by Council. Before 1994 Committee minutes formed their own series after which they can be found in this series 1994-2004 and from 2010 onwards. This reflects the dissolution of the committees between 2004-2010.

In order to discuss confidential business, Council could form itself into the Committee of the Whole during a meeting. A Committee of the Whole was not required to make its business public through the minutes, only its recommendations. The minutes of each meeting of Council and its committees were confirmed at the following meeting and signed by the chairman to guarantee that they were a true and accurate record.

Before 1934 the minute books do not have internal indexes. From 1934 to 1994 all minutes from a single year are paginated across all volumes for that year, and the index for the full year will be found in the January volume. The first volume for 1994 indexes itself only, after which internal indexing ceases and each volume is separately paginated.

From January 1988 to June 1995 all volumes are numbered in sequences by calendar year, after which they align with the financial year.