By Alesha Capone
Some senior citizens have mistaken workers conducting door-to-door surveys for Wyndham council last year, as scammers.
Cr Heather Marcus raised the concerns at a meeting last Tuesday, during discussions about council’s plan to adopt a community engagement policy.
“I had five residents ring me, older people, saying: ‘Heather, is this for real, do you really have this, do you really have this survey going ahead?’” Cr Marcus said.
“They said the people that were doing the survey didn’t introduce themselves and of course, being older, they thought, ‘Another scam, we’re not answering’.”
Cr Marcus said that 171 face-to-face interviews were conducted during the public consultation process for the draft community engagement policy, in July and August last year.
The draft policy was placed on public exhibition between December 10, 2020 and January 10, 2021 and about 1200 people participated in online consultation.
However, Cr Marcus said she would have liked more residents to provide feedback on the plan, especially youth.
She said those residents who had responded cited parks, open space, arts and culture as important to them, in addition to having an accessible, equitable and transparent council.
The Local Government Act 2020 requires all Victorian councils to adopt a community engagement policy by March 1 this year.
