Survey results indicate significant decline in perceptions of Eurobodalla Council’s performance

Perceptions of Eurobodalla Council’s performance around community engagement and fiscal management indicate a significant decline across most service areas in the past year. Perceptions of overall performance have followed suit, with Council sporting by far its lowest overall rating since the Great Dismissal. This is a negative result for Council and will require a concerted effort to correct. When asked where Council was failing the most the feedback was that Council should focus on good communication and transparency with residents about decisions made in the community’s interest with one respondent succinctly saying "Council is currently rated ‘poor’ in this area and improved performance provides the greatest opportunity to drive up overall opinion of Council." While the General Manager continues to run the very expensive Mystery Shopper program that measures the performance of first line staff in regards to their politeness, willingness to help, capacity to help and the timeliness and quality of their response there is little if any indication that the Executive or Councillors are being formally assessed and measured. The primary criticism of the Council executive and councillors is that they have failed to engage the community in a truthful and meaningful way. Examples offered are the way the Council has handled and continues to handle the Mackay Park project, the continued retreat of Council to "commercial in Confidence" as a way of blocking access to documents, the oppressive removal of Live Streaming of public engagement and the continued failings that are revealed in the public domain. While the knowledge of this slide is well known to councillors they appear to remain indifferent to the decline and have the assumption that they will be re-elected in September 2021.