The Community Environment Network (CEN) has written to Commissioner Roslyn McCulloch seeking to correct misinformation put forward about CEN’s operations and intentions during the Public Inquiry into Central Coast Council.
“Imputations that the Community Environment Network exercised undue influence over the inner workings and expenditure of Central Coast Council between 2017 and 2020 are outrageous,” CEN Chair, Gary Chestnut, said.
“The Community Environment Network, founded in 1997 with a guiding principle to stand up for Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) and oppose threats to it, upholds the highest standards of ethics and credibility in all our operations.
“That is why our executive committee felt compelled to detail our activities and programs in a 13-page letter to Commissioner McCulloch so she is not misinformed in her deliberations.”
Chestnut said the letter to the Commissioner had clarified misstatements about CEN’s influence over Council’s community advisory groups and committees.
“CEN encourages members to join Council and environmental committees, however, CEN members on these committees are appointed on merit by Council or the agency and they do not represent CEN,” he said.
“Although CEN does not authorise any member to represent its views on Council committees it is noted on line 13 on page 212 of the Public Inquiry transcript: “… they [CEN] also had about 70 per cent of the voting rights within the local community committees”.
“Council’s website lists 15 Council committees and advisory groups and, by examining the minutes of (these), it records 99 members of the public as either attending meetings or recorded as an apology.
“By holding discussions with representatives of the CEN Executive it has been determined that five members of CEN are recorded as attending or listed as an apology.
“Reviewing the list of 99 community members I have been able to confirm that nine recorded names are also members of CEN.
“This means that there is only nine per cent of (those with) voting rights who have any association with CEN.
“Therefore, the statement that the CEN has over 70 per cent representation is false.”
CEN was incorporated in 1997, with the focus of supporting the principles of ESD and is a registered charity with Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission (ACNC)
It currently funds 22 positions on environmental works and members of the executive are all volunteers that receive no payment for service; the estimated number of volunteers across NSW and ACT in October 2021 is 13,457.
Chestnut said suggestions that CEN was an extreme or left-wing organisation and that any councillors or committee members were somehow doing the bidding of CEN were false and needed correcting.
Source:
Media release, Oct 27
Community Environment Network