In March, the council invited residents to be part of a new Council Rating Strategy Jury.

According to the council, the jury would be a representative group of people and would directly influence decisions on future rating strategies.

“In recent months we’ve heard loud and clear that our community does not trust the process. We need to do better when it comes to involving people in the decisions that affect us all,” the council stated at the time. 

“This means involving people, sharing the challenge, and being open to any answer.”

At Tuesday night’s special council meeting, former jurors used an opportunity to give public depositions to highlight their claims about the rates consultation.

Andrew Byron said it was his belief that council would adopt the jury's decisions "unedited" but instead they were "picked through".

Mr Byron said the council had the opportunity to gain positive media coverage for being dynamic and adopting the jury’s decisions.

Other jury member had made suggestions that included a differential rates plan that gave the biggest discounts to struggling farmers.

Ararat Rural City chief executive Allan Bawden denied that jury members had been misled or that their decisions had been set aside.

“No recommendations have been ignored. The council considered the four options developed by the Rating Strategy Advisory Group and the advice of the Citizen Jury,” he said.

“The council’s draft strategy reflects the advice received by including differential rates and a municipal charge although the actual rate in the dollar for the farm rate varies and the Council proposed to freeze the municipal charge in line with its decision to not increase the total amount of rate revenue raised next year.”

Mr Bawden said a report had been published on the council’s website. 

In a written submission, Ballyrogan farmer Peter Oddie accused the council of having displayed a previous  “lack of due diligence, but stated the draft budget was “pleasing”.

Ararat’s David Hopkirk stated council should reduce discounts for farmers and boost pensioner rebates.

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