Four former mayors and six other former councillors are among 77 candidates set to stand in the September 14 Central Coast Council local government election.
Gosford West ward has a total of 20 candidates, Budgewoi has 17, The Entrance has 16 and Wyong and Gosford East wards each have 12.
Among the candidates are: the last mayor of the former Wyong Council Doug Eaton and another former Wyong mayor, Greg Best; the last mayor of the former Gosford Council Lawrie McKinna and the first mayor of Central Coast Council Jane Smith.
Best was also a councillor of the first Central Coast Council as was Kyle MacGregor.
Former Wyong councillor John McNamara, who was deputy mayor between 2008 and 2012, is standing for the Liberals in the Wyong ward and fellow former Wyong concillor Sue Wynn is standing for The Greens in Budgewoi ward.
Two councillors of the former Gosford Council are standing: Dee Bocking will stand in the Gosford East ward for the Liberals and Trevor Drake, who was a Liberal councillor on Gosford Council from 2004 to 2008, is standing for Labor in Gosford East ward.
Former NSW senator and Federal Member for Robertson Belinda Neal is standing in Gosford West ward for Labor.
She was also once a councillor on the former Gosford Council.
One potential Liberal candidate’s nomination was rejected by the Electoral Commission but the reason is not known.
It was possibly late or the paperwork had an error; the Liberal Party declined to comment.
This means the Liberal Party is missing a third candidate in the Gosford East ward and so the group will not have a box above the line on the ballot paper.
The Liberals have a group in four wards, excluding Budgewoi – where Doug Eaton, president of the Liberal Party Warnervale Branch, is standing as an Independent in a group with Allan McDonald and Greg Best.
He said he is working collaboratively with other Liberal candidates.
The Labor Party has a group in each ward.
The Animal Justice Party has a group in The Entrance Ward.
The Greens have a group in Budgewoi.
Central Coast Heart has a group in Budgewoi.
Minister for the Central Coast and State Member for Wyong David Harris has noted on Facebook that Central Coast Heart is the changed name of Save Tuggerah Lakes and that Doug Eaton was their party agent when it was Save Tuggerah Lakes.
“All information is on the Electoral Commission website in disclosures,” Harris said.
“Just for transparency.”
No other groups have a team name on the ballot paper because they are not registered as parties.
Ratepayers’ Choice; Team Central Coast and Coasties Who Care are listed in groups under their lead candidate’s name.
Ultra marathon runner Pat Farmer, who served as a Liberal Member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the seat of Macarthur in south-west Sydney from 2001 to 2010, is standing with Team Central Coast in Gosford East ward.
Kevin Brooks is lead candidate of Ratepayers’ Choice and Lisa Bellamy leads Coasties Who Care in Gosford West.
In total, there are 22 groups, 21 of them with three members, and another 12 individual candidates who are standing alone.
These individual candidates include Rebecca Smiley, the only ungrouped candidate in The Entrance ward.
Smiley says on her candidate information sheet (CIS) that she is a member of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation political party and runs a business taking music sessions into early learning centres across the Coast.
Previously she was a primary school teacher for 21 years on the Coast.
Another Pauline Hanson One Nation member is school teacher Andrew Baker, who is standing as an independent in Gosford West ward.
Also standing as an independent in Gosford West is Julian Richards, who has written a number of opinion pieces on what he stands for on his Facebook page but has nothing on the CIS.
Two women standing in the Gosford East ward are Sharon Andrews, who says she has 30 years’ experience in customer service in both the public and private sector, and Rosemary De Lambert, who says she has 20 years’ experience in banking and finance.
Chef Clive Lawnton, standing in Gosford East, says in his CIS that he has never lost a point on his driver’s licence and that he has been helping tens of thousands of people with their technology needs for decades.
Also standing in Gosford East is pastry cook and chef David Kings, who runs his small business of wholesale bakeries with six locations across the Coast.
Budgewoi has two ungrouped candidates.
Sandra Harris says she has lived on the coast for “45 of her 46 years” and raised her family here and has been running her own business for 14 years.
Kenneth Kozak says he represented Australia at the 1987 World Ice Hockey Championships and has a career spanning 40 years in business management.
In the Wyong ward, independent Daniel Craig says he is a public servant and first time homeowner on the Central Coast.
Michael Whittington says he is an actor, radio announcer and public servant and Jara Millward says he has eight years in community services, small business and has deep family ties to the Central Coast.
Merilyn Vale
Why would you vote for any previous councillors when we have been paying for their mistakes for years,
Thank you for this info, I have been unclear up to now. A shame that our local councils may be politicised. It’s not a great system.
Well hopefully it won’t be one John Moyland
SUSPENDED COUNCILLORS ‘MUST NOT RETURN’
15 April 2021
Amalgamation didn’t cause the financial collapse of Central Coast Council, which should remain in Administration pending a formal Inquiry, a Report says.
Central Coast Council’s administrator, Dick Persson, released his final report on Wednesday, six months after being appointed by the State Government to steer Council out of its financial dire straits.
In it, he urges Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock to “take whatever action is necessary” to prevent the return of councillors who were suspended last November (2020) after financial mismanagement left Central Coast $89 million in the red.
Mr Persson also calls for the September 2021 election to be delayed “to allow a formal Inquiry to determine what is needed to achieve the successful merger of the two previous councils”.
No evidence of corruption:- The report finds no evidence of corruption but says “there is absolutely no evidence that the financial collapse of the CCC was caused by the merger”.
“My investigation has concluded that by far the greatest reason CCC became insolvent was due to mismanagement of their Budget over the years following their merger and leading to their suspension.”
Mr Persson notes “unusual circumstances” that accelerated the collapse of the operating budget, including water pricing decisions, bushfires and flood.
But he says “nothing excuses the negligence of those in charge for their relative inaction, which was manifestly much too little and much too late.”
Central Coast – created via a merger between Gosford City and Wyong Shire Councils in 2016 which it had blamed for many of its financial woes – must remain in Administration to allow for the merger be completed, Mr Persson says.
“I believe the best outcome for Central Coast Council and the community would be a further extended period under Administration,” he said.
Mr Persson said his would allow the new CEO, David Farmer, and a new administrator enough time to complete the merger and rebuild community confidence “without the distraction of elected representatives intent on playing out broader political agendas”.
He said if Ms Hancock did see fit to allow councillors to return ahead of Local Government elections, performance improvement orders including the appointment of a financial controller should be put in place.
The Financial Controller should be Rik Hart, who has worked with Mr Persson to implement a recovery strategy for council, he said.
Time for healing, minister says:- Ms Hancock said the Report showed that not amalgamation, but the FAILURE of the former General Manager and the elected body, was the cause of Council’s financial collapse.
She said the local community had a right to feel angry and frustrated at the “gross mismanagement” that had led to the situation and now was the time for healing.
“I will now determine the future of the Council taking into consideration the Interim Administrator’s final report, his two earlier reports, the views of the local community and advice from the Office of Local Government,” the minister said.
Ms Hancock said she would announce her decision on 29 April 2021, when Mr Persson’s term is set to expire.
An interim report* released by Mr Persson last December found Central Coast was headed for a $115 million operating loss this financial year.
*
Mr Persson said had already put measures in place to restored the budget and pay down some of its $565 million debt, including slashing senior and middle management and reducing capital works by $50 million.
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That is a load of rubbish.
Wyong Shire Council was Fit for the Future and forced to amalgamate with an Unfit Gosford Council which absolutely precipitated the financial woes.
Just have a look at the cost of the I.T. department alone,not to mention the massive inclusion a whole new tier of management that was totally unrequired. The whole thing was a shambles and still is.
This is a democracy and we deserve representation. I agree those who were suspended should not be allowed to run again. But the way this election has been formulated is a disgrace. Most people have no idea who the candidates are or what they stand for. There has been no campaigning to speak of as the candidates were announced about a week ago, we no longer have a hard copy weekly newspaper, so people HAVE to spend their precious time surfing the web to find out about any local news at all.
What a debacle!
There still is a local print paper Coast Community News . 27,000 printed and distibuted each week – and this week as last a full run down of candidates to read through.