Size of council gives greatest cause of concern

I was not particularly interested when the Premier forced us to merge with Wyong since I had not had much time for the previous councils, with their wheeling and dealing, usually behind closed doors.

Gosford was one up due to its excellent COSS Lands policy, those corridors of public and private land, which at least gives the native flora and fauna a chance to survive and made Gosford a unique Council.

However, I now believe that the amalgamation has really been a takeover by Wyong staff hardly conducive to a happy, productive workplace.

Above all it is the enormous size of the new Council area which gives greatest cause for concern.

There are so many problems here which similarly sized Councils in Sydney by population, don't even have to think about.

Canterbury Bankstown might have more people but it doesn't have the huge terrain to deal with, it doesn't have to worry about its water supply; it doesn't have coastal erosion problems.

The Central Coast Council will be a grand bureaucracy and if you want to know what that is like, just watch Utopia on the ABC on a Wednesday night.

The Administrator seems incapable of dealing with any important matters such as a tree policy.

Everything is in the air awaiting our new Council and we must vote but how can we ensure that we don't get more of the same?

Will we get more of the usual adversarial system between two parties?

Will the developers still be in the background pulling all the strings?

Where are the independent journalists able to delve into these matters?

We do have a chance on September 9 to vote for a new Council.

There are several New Independents as well as Independent people standing, many of whom I know.

They are really interested in the Council area in which they live and have been working hard for it for many years.

I admire their pluck but feel that they are walking to the guillotine.

Government is arranged by big money and little people will not be allowed to get in the way.

One must question some of the so-called Independents too.

How can they have represented this area for a big party in the NSW Parliament and then want to return to Council as an Independent?

As Fred Charles said recently in this paper "If we re-elect those who have failed to serve us before...they will not have changed their spots, we have only ourselves to blame."

We must always ask at all elections, just who is pulling the strings?

How many developers are already banging on the doors of prospective Councillors?

Donald Horne's book is often misquoted.

What he really said was, "Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck."

Let's hope that Peninsula News can bring us the true facts about the people standing for the Central Coast Council.

We live in a beautiful part of the world: let's keep it that way.

Email, 4 Aug 2017

Margaret Lund, Woy Woy Bay