Administrator Rik Hart does not think there will be a council election this year.
In an interview with CCN, on Thursday, April 27, the Central Coast Council administrator said it was only his gut feeling but he doesn’t see an election until after the next NSW state election.
“I am certainly very interested,” Hart said when asked about an election time frame.
“Reading the tea leaves, I don’t think there will be an election now prior to a State election,” he said.
The next NSW State election is scheduled to be held on Saturday, 25 March 2023.
Hart said that “clearly” there would be no announcements until after the federal election was held (on May 21 this year) and that meant no announcements could be made until the end of May.
He said he felt that was leaving it very late to announce an election for September of this year.
He was more inclined to think the election would be held in September next year.
“But I have to stress, it’s no more than a gut feeling,” Mr Hart said, adding that CEO David Farmer agreed with him that it was the most likely timeframe.
“I’m sure the Minister will announce it before the next State election but I don’t think it will be implemented until after the next State election,” Hart said.
The Central Coast has been under administration since October 2020 when the CEO at the time, Gary Murphy, said the organisation had immediate and significant cash flow issues.
A few weeks later, the Minister for Local Government at the time, Shelley Hancock, suspended the councillors and installed interim administrator Dick Persson who then hired Rik Hart as interim CEO.
When Persson resigned after six months, Hart took on the role of administrator and David Farmer had been hired as CEO.
The councillors have since been sacked following the recommendation of a public hearing and the new minister for Local Government Wendy Tuckerman has said she is working closely with Council on complex factors that needed to be resolved.
When asked earlier this month about the timing of the election, she said an announcement would be made “in due course”.
The State Government has the power to decide how long a council term would last.
Normally, elections are held every four years with the next NSW-wide council elections scheduled for 2024.
The State Government could allow any new council to continue for five years so it didn’t have to confirm with the rest of the State by holding council elections a year later in 2024.
In that way, the Council would get back in sync with the election cycle in 2028.
Merilyn Vale
Openness, transparency and good governance demand that the Minister, Administrator and CEO inform ratepayers what are the ‘complex issues that need to be resolved ‘ .. and why these are delaying an election.
Along with others, I’m very concerned that an unelected Administrator is asked to rescind notions of an elected Council .. apparently because staff have taken two years to action them ..
It does tell a tale .. the staff are clearly wagging the dog .. a highly undesirable precedent, given almost the whole executive level of Council is recently appointed.
Is one of the ‘ complex issues’ separation of CC Water from CCC .. and takeover by another entity .. at likely massive loss of value to ratepayers.
Why would the administrator hand back to us our lawful rights when he has such a well-paid job and the NSW government has total control of what they want to do with us ratepayers.
Why anyone would even consider getting rid of the current Administrator and replace him with “elected councilors” is beyond my logic.
You would have to ask what / who got all Central Coast ratepayers into this half a billion dollar almighty mess in the first place ?
Clearly it was the sustained efforts of our previous “elected councilors” whose financial incompetence was only eclipsed by the negative impact of their politically green, anti development, woke ideals that propelled our once strong and effective council to the top of the list for the most broke and debt-ridden council in Australia.
The Administrator was not installed to take away your rights. He was installed to fix the mess.
Central Coast Council has grown to be a multi million dollar business and it requires a financially competent Administrator who has no political bias to effectively run the Council in the best interests of the ratepayers and unfortunately, the best interests of the ratepayer were not even on the previous “elected councilors” radar.
While ever we ratepayers are forced to pay back the huge debt they left via a levy on our already expensive rates and water charges then a competent financial administrator with no political agenda should lead the way back.
When we finally get back to a financially secure position we then need to look for councilors who are willing to leave their political bias out of council matters and, most importantly, run the council with the best interest of the ratepayer as their primary focus and objective.