After COVID-19 closed the doors of council's monthly meetings to the public, the council has shifted from an 'open forum' model to only allowing 'Questions from the community' relating to the night's agenda.

Last night's session was attended by five community members but passed without any such questions.

Mayor Fay Miller however gave further information about how the council will increase its community engagement, promising a quarterly general meetings and barbecues.

She also reaffirmed her suggestion of a monthly stall outside Woolworths, which council hopes will connect it with a broader demographic who might not be interested in spending a Tuesday night at the meeting.

Deputy Mayor Peter Gazey added the regular open forums hadn't been a productive way of communicating with residents.

"We want to be very clear that this decision was made with a majority not from any one person," he said.

"We are not moving away from consultation, in fact we are looking for ways to move towards a more productive means of community engagement," Alderman Gazey said.

But Katherine resident Dennis Mangan said the changes are a disruption to local democracy and served only to protect the current alderman from critique.

"They're running for cover, plain and simple," he said.

"This council has a lot to answer for and so they're building a big wall around themselves.

"The stalls at Woolworths is campaigning, it's outside of the context of a critical forum which democracy demands.

"They don't like the criticism they've received and I understand that but ratepayers have good reasons to complain, we're being necessary critical of a council which has failed its community.

"We also lose the chance for future alderman such as Peter McDougall to stand up and have their say, to practice and learn the art of public speaking in such a setting," Mr Mangan said.

Peter McDougall said while he prefers to take an optimistic view he worried the council was damaging transparency in local government.

"I'm naturally optimistic about the community forums and I think they can work well," he said.

"Overall though we know this council doesn't do community engagement well, there is a lack of transparency.

"I don't mind them cancelling the open forums but it felt wrong to do it coming straight out of COVID-19, it feels like they've taken advantage of the situation and there should have been a final forum.

"They've borne a lot of negativity out of the public gallery so they're trying to avoid that, I like the general meeting idea but the stall tactic isn't going to work as genuine discussion," Mr McDougall said.

Aldermen, including Deputy Mayor Gazey, acknowledged community engagement remains very low for the current council, but made clear the council's wish to improve in this regard.

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