In a moment of exuberance after the Mariners won the 2023 championship, the Administrator of Central Coast Council announced that he had authorised the expenditure of $2M to kick-start the Gosford waterfront development.
He also stated that the $2M, which he had taken from the Reserve, would be repaid when the State Government gave Council the $8.5M which it had promised.
We now see the result of that hasty promise in the Minutes of the latest Council meeting.
There was no agreement that the State would give Council the money – it has gone to the Hunter and Central Coast Development Corporation.
And now Council has had to go begging to be repaid the amount it has spent out of the $2.
Rik Hart has serious questions to answer here and so far he has tried to deflect these by putting the responsibility onto (Director of Environment and Planning) Alice Howe.
The previous Council was dismissed for taking money from the Reserve and bad financial management.
Is Mr Hart guilty of the same?
Email, Jun 24
Geoff Mitchell, Kariong
oh dear. this is very sad. rate payers continue to pay for councils mistakes. I’d love to see the business qualifications, of all the Council Board members. why didn’t we learn from the last debacle!! or debacles, if you wish. can we please get one persons on the board, with half a brain, so they don’t send hard working rates payers broke !!!
the Administrator has been taking us for a ride since his appointment…a big salary for raising rates – wow – any joe blow could have done this.
no efficiencies no improvements – just hiding behind the title Administrator & earning a bucket load of our money
I have to agree, we are paying for their frivolity and reckless disregard for rate payers. Here we are no decent roads, drainage that is so lacking the water fills our homes and they spend $2m they don’t even have on development… what about infrastructure first because that is what we need!!
Needs not wants or nice to haves are far more important!
#@$* me , can’t Councilers follow the rules, this mistakehave already been made which cost ratepayer’s,is another rate hike coming???
Name and same all Concilers that have dine the wrong thing past and present.
Our Concilers can’t see to be able to repair our roads.
James, good point, though of course we have not had any councillors for years. The council has been under State Government admistration for 5 of the past 8 years. Elections for councillors are coming in September.
This is where we need to get people in who can speak for the people. We the people who. are not living the dream, we pay our taxes, pay our rates and they are high because why?? We are mostly in modest homes, not living extravagant lifestyles but here we are paying for the excesses of others!
It is not rocket science that we expect those we vote for to do a good job on our behalf, again here we are .. being left begging and for the most part most constituents would have no clue there actually isn’t a real council or councillors but a faulty front and a singular person making decisions that aren’t anything to do with what we vote for.
None of us want to pay more in rates and taxes – why would we want to pay twice for something- again here we are paying extra on our already higher than average rates …yes they splut the bill to “simplifly” the rates and water thinking none of us would notice the extra hefty increases in rates and water we are being charged on the coast..that was the now missing council who installed that shocker…now we have been hit with an extra charge for their mismanagement and funds misappropriation shall we say… because it certainly did not go on any improvements in the region…I for one have had to endure like many the awesome.e taste of sewerage and storm water in my home and still live the nightmare with no end in sight because it’s noones fault and ..oh there is no council, so no infrastructure but we still have to pay extra ontop for the privilege.
YES YOU ARE DOING A GREST JOB NOT!! thank you Govt. I love the smell of S.,t for breakfast every day .. and the threat of losing every thing I no longer own every time it smells like rain!!
Same chance of getting that $2 million back as recovering the cost of the rock-filled bags craned onto Wamberal Beach in good faith at the direction of the State government LEOCON ..
different State government ..
same Council exuberance with OPM