The Festival of Democracy is about to start, said Central Coast Council CEO David Farmer when he addressed the final candidate information night this week.
About 50 people, mainly men aged over 60, as pointed out by one of the speakers, attended the session held at Erina on July 16.
Mr Farmer outlined the key assets of the council, pointing out its geographic challenges; the size of its infrastructure costs which run into the billions and the issues new councillors will deal with after they are elected.
These included refreshing the overall vision for the coast in the document called the Community Strategic Plan down to adopting a public toilet strategy.
But other major issues to be dealt with included the long term financial plan and Coastal Management Plans.
Mr Farmer didn’t go into the details but Council Watch can assure you the long term financial plan has big issues for councillors to consider such as:
# do you vote to keep the one-off rate rise from 2021 which is supposed to drop off after ten years or, do you, as Mr Farmer advocates, keep it there?
Like the rest of NSW, the Coast will vote on September 14 for 15 councillors in five wards.
Registration for candidates opens on August 5 and closes at noon on August 14.
Administrator Rik Hart spoke about the referendum which Coast residents will vote on at the same time.
The constitutional referendum asks residents to consider whether they want fewer councillors and fewer wards.
The result will be binding.
Mr Hart outlined the Yes case and was heckled by a voice in the room asking if would also outline the No case.
He didn’t, but he said the council website had the details.
The Deputy Secretary of the Office of Local Government, the State department with oversight of councils, also addressed the meeting.
Brett Whitworth explained the role of the governing body – the councillors – and pointed out how crucial it was for them to work as a team.
If a councillor wants to get something done, they only have one vote in the council chamber so they will need to engage with their colleagues to get enough votes to get their particular issue adopted.
That, Mr Whitworth said, was local democracy.
So, here we are: about to attend – or suffer – the festival of democracy.
Are you ready?
1/ Are your enrolment details correct? Check here: https://www.aec.gov.au/enrol/update-my-details.htm
2/ Who are you going to vote for?
We won’t know the entire list of candidates until the afternoon of August 14.
Some people are publicly saying they will stand but nothing is set in stone until August 14.
3/ WIll you vote yes or no in the referendum?
Go to this link below for council’s explanation: https://info.centralcoast.nsw.gov.au/election2024 You will need to scroll down the page to get to the referendum information.
Photo is a doctored image from the evening.
