Maximise the mandatory, minimise the discretionary
The Central Coast Council Administrator and senior Council staff are quick to accuse people of destructive comment and criticism of their efforts.
My suggestion to them is that it might help if they spend more time ensuring their own left hands are working with their right hands rather than biting the hands that feed them.
If Council really does want to reduce spending and decrease debt, it should change the way it does things.
Spend the majority of Council time, money and effort on doing things that will benefit the majority of residents and ratepayers the majority of the time.
Put the small numbers of activists, "influencers" and minority, self-interest groups and their requirements at the bottom of the list.
Maximise mandatory spending and minimise discretionary spending.
Maximise spending on roads and rubbish.
Improve the road surfaces, the guttering, the foot and bike paths - in laneways as well as roadways.
Make sure all the drains actually drain.
Get rid of the rubbish on the roadsides, laneways, waterfronts and vacant land - be it private, council or other government land or water.
And rubbish includes weeds and fallen vegetation as well as litter and general pollution.
If Council does want more commercial activity and better use of the area's waterfront assets, rather than selling carparks and constraining traffic flow in those areas, improve them.
If you want to increase residential density and maintain or improve liveability and environmental amenity, improve rather than sell-off green spaces.
And to help Council reduce the workload they keep telling us about, let them reduce the amount of managing, supervising, overseeing, directing and dictating.
Spend more time listening to, hearing, heeding and then attending to the needs and wants of the majority.
Get on with more doing.
That should include getting white collar managerial staff off their bottoms and out into the street doing some doing and seeing what more needs doing at street level.
Oh, it would be most helpful if Council would enforce the rules by punishing the minority who break the rules, ignore the signs and make the mess.
That would be a great service to the public.
SOURCE:
Email, 5 May 2021
Ian Weekley, Umina Beach