At Monday's ordinary meeting, councillor Tim Koschel put forward a notice of motion calling on Wagga City Council to consider various ways to improve the representation of rural villages across the local government area.

These suggestions included hosting at least one ordinary meeting at one of the villages each year and holding community engagement sessions between councillors, council staff and residents in these villages.

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Cr Koschel argued that by hosting the meetings and engagement sessions in the small towns, it would allow residents to discuss their issues with councillors and become more engaged in the local government process.

"Residents can come here and attend our meetings but why should we make the residents of our villages come here when we can go out to them," he said.

"We meet every second week here and if we can't take at least one meeting a year to the villages I don't know what we're doing."

His fellow councillors accepted that more needed to be done to improve engagement with the rural towns, however Cr Rod Kendall, Cr Dan Hayes and Cr Richard Foley each said they did not think taking the ordinary meetings on tour would help address this issue.

Cr Kendall said meetings do not offer residents a serious chance to engage with the councillors and this sentiment was echoed by Cr Hayes who said the ordinary meetings are "designed to get through the business of council ... not for rich, deep, meaningful community engagement around a range of issues".

These suggestions were rejected by Cr Koschel, who argued the meetings would force the councillors to travel to the villages and give them a chance to engage with community members before and after the meeting.

Councillors eventually agreed to defer the decision on the notice of motion until after they could discuss it at a council workshop.

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