Forum –
For months now, we have all been reading about the predicament we find ourselves in with Central Coast Council.
The money has gone.
Money we didn’t have, is gone.
Not stolen, just spent.
Now we have thousands of well meaning, rightfully outraged, local ratepayers who are demanding a judicial enquiry into how this all happened.
Great. How long will that take?
How much will it cost?
Who will pay for it; we don’t have any money.
Will we get the spent money back?
The answers appear to be right under our noses, but some of us just don’t like those answers because they don’t match our political views.
We only have to look at the report from the current Administrator to see what happened and why it happened.
To quote Mr. Persson:
“There is pressure by many to hold a public enquiry into what went wrong here.
“With due respect to those people, Rik Hart and I have investigated what went wrong and published those findings.
“Many of those calling for a (public) inquiry don’t like my conclusion because I have made it very clear the financial collapse is not due to the local government amalgamation.
“I have formed the view that the merger of the Gosford and Wyong LGAs was always going to be one of the harder ones and that it was well short of completion when Councillors were elected.
“It is very clear that the new Council had little interest in continuing the hard work of achieving efficiencies and using those savings to expand the delivery and quality of services.
“Instead, they embarked upon a program of expansion of both capital and recurrent programs with no attempt to establish how they were going to be paid for.”
Why are we not listening?
Whatever happens here, additional revenue will have to be generated through rates.
No inquiry will change that.
Email, Apr 19
Bob Pettit, Kincumber