Perth Voice Interactive

PERTH councillor Jim Adamos is off to Melbourne for a two-day “Making Cities Liveable Conference,” costing $2,355 of public money.

Lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi, who’s recently been defending her frequent interstate and overseas travel as hard yakka on behalf of ratepayers, gave short shrift to councillors who had questions about the trip at Tuesday’s full council meeting.

Councillors often pull money for professional development trips from their own $13,600 personal expenses budget, but Cr Adamos asked that the trip be funded from a general million-dollar governance fund.

When councillor Jemma Green queried why the cash was coming from the communal fund, Ms Scaffidi gave her a ticking off.

“I think these are very operational questions for a council meeting,” Ms Scaffidi told Cr Green.  “I think it’s up to the individual councillor.

“There’s no fixed methodology and nor should there be,” Ms Scaffidi said, adding the way they did it now was transparent and accountable.

Cr Green was behind a recent motion compelling councillors to prepare reports about trips, but when she queried why Cr Adamos was being given two months to prepare his, Ms Scaffidi cut her short.

“Two months is reasonable,“ Ms Scaffidi decreed.

When Cr Green tried to canvas other councillors about the deadline, Ms Scaffidi cut in: “I’m chairing the meeting, I think we’ll just leave it at that.

”At the end of the day Cr Adamos is putting himself out there to go and represent the city at the conference. As to whether he does it out of his own expenses is his call, not your call.”

Cr Adamos will fly economy.

by DAVID BELL