Local resident Madeleine is not at all satisfied with Central Coast Council but she believes the best service it offers is the six curbside garbage collections per year.
Madeleine is the one and only person identified from the 744 Central Coast residents who participated in a “statistically representative community survey” undertaken for Council.
The survey asked respondents to choose between cutting services or continuing to pay increased rates to help Council stay on track financially.
The survey allows Council to tick the “Community Consultation” box when submitting its request to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) to keep its current rate rise.
Last year Council was given a one-off rise of 13 per cent plus the annual rate pegs for three years after which the 13 per cent is meant to be removed.
Council will apply in February to keep that 13 per cent rate variation (RV) for another seven years.
The survey found an almost 50 per cent split between those who were prepared to cop the RV for 10 years and those who preferred Council cuts services.
The services the 744 respondents used the least were Warnervale Airport and council-run child care centres but 60 per cent of the respondents didn’t have children.
The survey didn’t ask how many flew planes, at least not the survey shown that Madeleine filled in.
Madeleine, who is retired from paid employment and self-identified as being in the 70 to 84 age bracket, wants less Council money spent on artworks painted on footpaths, and on parks and playgrounds in general.
However, Madeleine is prepared to pay the special rate variation for another seven years.
Older residents were more likely to favour the SV extension option, while younger residents favoured the reduced services option.
Madeleine said it was something that residents were being forced into but the RV was “a no-brainer” because “who would want to reduce service levels”.
“We are not being given any other option,” Madeleine said.
The survey showed that Warnervale airport and childcare centres were the least used of services Council provided while roads and rubbish and public toilets were most used.
Respondents were most satisfied with lifesavers, libraries, leisure centres and waste services and least satisfied with council’s performance on roads, the airport, estuaries, coastal lagoons, creeks, wetlands and coastal management.
But when it came time to decide where Council should spend less money, most respondents still preferred to have the same or more investment across 47 identified service areas.
MicroMex Research said that a number of those who chose the reduced services option may have been doing so due to dissatisfaction with Council more than a real desire to see service levels drop.
The report about the survey said that one in two respondents mentioned Council should be held responsible for its financial situation.
But these comments are not public – only Madeleine’s comments are public.
Like many of the older, long-term residents who did the survey, Madeleine said she was dissatisfied with Council.
Madeleine recounted how she and her husband watched an ad on TV promoting NSW tourism.
“It highlighted the southern highlands, Sydney, Newcastle, the Hunter Valley and Port Stephens as well as other further north destinations – not one word about the Central Coast – it just beggars belief,” she said.
Madeleine requested that her completed survey be identified and provided to Council.
It was attached to the survey results that were presented to Council on December
20 last year.
At that meeting, the Administrator Rik Hart agreed to a raft of Council strategies going out on public exhibition over the Christmas-new year holiday period.
Council needs to prove to IPART that it has met its requirements to apply for a SRV.
As part of IPART’s process, Council must update its Integrated Planning and Reporting documents to identify the need for an SV and to detail the options or scenarios that are available.
These documents remain on public exhibition for your comments until January 21.
Go to Our Coast Your Voice to see them all.
https://www.yourvoiceourcoast.com/
Merilyn Vale
The way we are being railroaded into eternal rate rises without any option is disgusting. As a former business owner I know that when faced with reduced income you need to change the way your business operates. Simply increasing prices would drive your customers away. This administrator doesn’t see us as customers, he sees us a resource to be plundered, with the added benefit that we have no option but to pay for his whims.
It’s time for a revolt from rate payers. We need to demand a return to a democratically elected council, and a rapid de-amalgamation and return to seperate Wyong and Gosford councils.
It is interesting to note that the rapid increase in land valuations doesn’t seem to play a role in the administrator’s figures going forward, meaning that his proposed rate rises will be compounded to much greater income levels, all at the expense of long term residents.
Finally the fixation on the Warnervale airstrip is comical. Pandering to a handful of wealthy flying enthusiasts with ridiculous proposals of “aero based industrial development”, this must rank as a giant rort! There are no industries looking to relocate to Warnervale – if they were going anywhere it would be Toowoomba or Western Sydney, where proper facilities exist or are being constructed. If these supposed industries exist, where is the documentation or development proposal? Recreational flying is well catered for at the much busier facility in Belmont. Since having its restrictions lifted very little has changed at Warnervale, just the same handful of light aircraft utilising the strip – no massive upswing in utilisation from my outside observation. I fail to see how any investment in this facility would generate a return for rate payers.
I’m not sure that picking one response from 744 survey responses is representative of the overall survey? The survey was already slanted to what the current administrator wanted from the survey getting the ratepayers to agree to more increases in fees and charges. The only option was the reduction in services! No other alternative options were explored because that was not the point.
The demerger of Wyong and Gosford was not entertained? Surely splitting up the Central Coast Council as it is now would reduce the debt? Maybe not by half but it would reduce it for the separate ratepayers. I suspect that is not what the State government wants. They must be held responsible as the cause of this present predicament? The Local government minister has done a runner and the new one is nowhere to be seen. The State government Audit office did not do its job or perhaps that was the objective?
We need to get a local election with local Counsellors and reintroduce democracy back on the the coast. I agree with John Hunter we are being railroaded in increases for the next 10 years that is not a solution its a sentence