Suspended Councillor Greg Best has suggested the next election for Central Coast Councillors should be as far away as 2024 when the next local government elections across the state are scheduled.
He said waiting until 2024 would give Council staff and the Administrator the clear air away from politics to “right side” the council.
The suggestion is contained in Cr Best’s submission to the Public Inquiry into Central Coast Council.
Cr Best said Council was hijacked by politics.
He said that during the term of Council, the Labor Cr Jeff Sundstrom had stood for the State seat of Terrigal and a Liberal candidate he didn’t name had stood for the Federal seat of Dobell.
He said an ALP Councillor and a Liberal Councillor were working for State parliamentarians.
In the submission Cr Best outlined the number of times he had submitted formal notices of motions and the number of times he failed to get the Council to listen to his point of view.
They included 85 motions and five rescission motions.
These included repeatedly raising the alarming cost escalations of a number of projects including the library and performing arts centre proposed for Gosford.
Cr Best’s submission was in narrative form which the Commissioner Roslyn McCulloch confessed to finding difficult to navigate.
The Commissioner spoke about the submission as Cr Best gave evidence on October 6.
In talking about the financial crisis, Cr Best appealed to the Commissioner to delineate between those that called it and those that caused it when making her recommendations.
He said it was patently unfair that he and the Councillors who signed the letter to the Local Government Minister in September calling for “this very inquiry” to be staring down the barrel of dismissal and of ending up in the same pile as the Councillors who allegedly did the damage.
Merilyn Vale