Uproar at Derwent Valley Council meeting

NEW guidelines for public participation at local council meetings, developed by the State Government and being considered by multiple councils, are to be brought before Derwent Valley Council’s July meeting.

The action follows multiple incidents, most recently at the June meeting. It involved accusations of the Mayor, shouting from another member of the public and the highly unusual filming of the episode by an unknown individual in the public seating.  

The incident, lasting about four minutes, followed standard initial agenda items and came during public question time.

Tarrant and Kelvin Derksen, owners of New Norfolk Distillery and Crusader Homes, attempted to reiterate their claims that confidential business information had been provided last year to the Labor Party by the Mayor, Michelle Dracoulis.

The claim was denied by the Mayor, as it has been at previous Council meetings when raised by the Derksen family.

The meeting briefly devolved into shouting, as other individuals in the public gallery said that the purpose of public question period was being abused.

The Derksens claimed they had received statutory declarations in relation to their claims, including one from Labor MLC, Craig Farrell. While Mr Farrell has confirmed he’s made a statutory declaration, no substantiation of the contents has been made public.  

Tarrant and Kelvin Derksen further claimed the matter had been brought before the Director of Local Government.

The brothers – whose brother Justin is a Councillor but who did not speak during this part of the meeting – resumed sitting after about four minutes. They left the meeting with another individual who had taken video footage of the disruptive interaction with the Mayor.

The interaction relates to a State Government grant proposal of $1.2 million grant to the Derksen family to expand their local distillery operation, which the Derskens withdrew from in June last year.

Derwent Valley Council discovered later in 2023 that the Derksen business had failed to pay lease costs for the three additional buildings it proposed for the expansion. Those buildings are owned by Council.

That cost of that lease, initiated four years earlier, was set at $25,000 a year, plus CPI increases each year.

Council then terminated the lease in mid-November 2023, and has since taken legal steps in the Supreme Court of Tasmania to recover the $100,000-plus it says is still unpaid.

That matter, according to the Supreme Court this week, “is ongoing.”