The Beagle Editor
The Distance Between Expectation and Delivery
The period following a change of management, such as we've experienced with the appointment of our new governing body of Councillors, is always fraught with feelings ranging from buyer's remorse to post-coital dysphoria. Somewhere between "I shouldn't have done that" to "Move on, nothing to see here".
What was said on the campaign trail, the inclusive performances before the electorate, and the promises made with absolute conviction seem so far in the distant memory as to be considered from a different time and space to the present. Yet, the ship of state sails on with nary a missed beat of its engine.
It would be easy to drift towards cynicism in this period so soon after the election since seemingly very little has changed. Our new Mayor tried to implement one of his electoral promises with the live streaming of the Council meetings, only to be neutered by the General Manager. Nevertheless, he persists. I recognise this as good leadership and respect him for it.
The Beagle's Editor reminded us that promises made by the candidates pre-election have seemingly not ripened into tangible policies. The new Councillors are missing opportunities shown to them by residents' submissions to Council.
In his rebuttal of the Editor's comments, Peter Cormick astutely suggested that the Councillors realistically do not have allocated Council resources to attend to the review and remake of any or all of the policies. That it is the public, the ratepayers and residents who should be actively involved in these reviews, if they expect change, I agree wholeheartedly with.
Frank Ross's timely reminder of the then-candidates promises to obtain an independent review of Council's management and processes should be seized upon by the governing body and actioned. I'm surprised that this has not been actioned.
The problem that this governing body of Councillors faces is that it has not separated itself from the executive management of Council and has acceded to the executive domination of the General Manager and her appointed Directors.
This means that there remains a two-tier structure in our Council management. The front tier is the Councillors under the new Mayor with all the good intentions, and the back-room tier of the executive and staff under their "business as usual" mantra, where the real power resides.
Contrary to what the new governing body may have been led to believe, the intention of Parliament in promulgating the Local Government Act 1993 was to empower a governing body, elected by the ratepayers of that area, to create an asset management entity to serve the ratepayers and residents.
The only individuals empowered under the Act are the governing body of Councillors, who are under the guidance and leadership of the Mayoral seat. This governing body then creates an executive level of management headed by the General Manager, who is invested with the governing body's authority to appoint an executive and employ staff. In addition, the General Manager takes instruction from and is responsible to the governing body at all times.
The Act clearly shows that it is the governing body that makes the decisions and creates the policies that are then given to the General Manager to implement, not the other way around, as is the case currently.
For us, the ratepayers and residents of the Eurobodalla, the voters, we all have expectations of the Council based on our personal circumstances. The burning question will always be whether our expectations will ever be what Council expects them to be.
When the tail wags the dog ……….
Mervyn Sher
Broulee.
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