The first mayor of the Central Coast and the last mayor of Wyong were two of more than 50 people who attended Central Coast Council’s candidate forum on October 18.
The evening session saw Administrator Rik Hart and guest speaker John Rayner give an overview of the role and responsibilities of a councillor.
Both former mayors were moved to interject during Hart’s rundown of the reasons why the Council got into financial strife and was put into administration in October 2020.
Former Wyong mayor Doug Eaton disagreed when Hart said the reduction in Wyong Council’s staff numbers in the lead-up to the 2016 merger with Gosford Council was organic.
Eaton said it was planned.
Inaugural Central Coast mayor Jane Smith disagreed when Hart said the councillors made no decisions to cut the budget in the lead-up to the financial crisis.
Smith said a list had been drawn-up.
Hart said the role of a councillor was akin to a director of a board and councillors could not get involved in the day-to-day running of the council, but made strategic decisions on the direction of the council.
“If you have a problem with electricity, you don’t go to the board, you go to customer service,” Hart said.
He also spoke about perpetual succession – the fact that each councillor was merely a temporary custodian of an ongoing organisation and the long-term view was important.
Rayner, a former CEO of a number of NSW councils, spoke about the separation of powers between councillors and staff, explaining councillors could ask for all the reports they wanted but it was “noses in and fingers out”.
Councillors could hire and fire the CEO but only determine the senior staff positions and organisational structure and the CEO does the rest.
He told the story of a person who decided to stand for council to get more resources for the sporting group they were associated with.
But, Rayner explained, the Local Government Act states that a person has to declare an interest in such groups and the person would have to declare an interest and leave the room every time an item about the sporting group came to the chambers.
The point of both presentations was to highlight the strategic planning role of being a councillor.
Rayner said councillors should not ignore poor behaviour and that the community would assess their performance.
He said a strong and confident CEO was key to the next council and the Coast had that in current CEO David Farmer.
“It would be perilous for new councillors to change CEOs at this point in time,” Rayner said.
He said Council was heading in the right direction of having a good name and attracting good staff.
Council has said two more candidate forums will be held next year in the lead-up to the local government elections to be held across the state on September 14.
Merilyn Vale