No, this is _not_ and never been a representative democracy. And there's no referendum needed for every little decision. Council is supposed to know what's happening in community, even asking if something is not obvious, and act accordingly in a responsive manner, I.E. during days. Referenda are basically only needed for changing the rules and for really severe decisions that can't get discussed and unanimously (with all participating community members) decided by council in e.g. the weekly meetings.
On a second thought there's basically nothing to decide at all, usually. "shall we do another coding contest?" sure go ahead! "will maemo council organize it?" probably not since not enough manpower, up to community members to do that. "will council support?" Sure thing, that's what council is made for. "shall we get more harddisks for servers?" ask techstaff, they will tell you if we need "will council buy them?" no, but council will tell HiFo that techstaff says servers need more harddisks and HiFo will (hopefully) buy them. "shall we rename talk.maemo.org into talk.jolla-community.org?" No, not technically feasible and makes no sense at all...