Council not answering questions of project justification
I have been asking Council to justify and explain their actions regarding the Esplanade Shared Zone project since June this year.
Council staff have been delaying, denying, avoiding and obfuscating in responding to my repeated follow-ups.
The bottom line is that Council has refused to answer the questions of whether they had sufficient justification for the project and whether they followed proper process in developing, approving and managing the project - and spending public money in the doing.
The Administrator advised me on August 31 that a response from CEO would be forthcoming.
It still has not come forth, despite repeated hasteners.
I requested on October 1 that the Council internal ombudsman re-investigate a complaint against the director of infrastructure.
I have yet to receive an answer, despite hastening.
The Administrator met with me on-site on December 8 to see and hear and see my perspective on both the shared zone as well as on other nearby examples of Council maladministration and mismanagement that have been highlighted during the process.
I have yet to receive a response to the list which I provided to the Administrator at the close of our meeting.
During the process, Parliamentary Secretary Mr Adam Crouch referred my representation to him on the matter back to the Council and has taken no further interest in the matter.
I am awaiting a response from Member for Gosford Ms Liesl Tesch to my latest email to her to find whether she is going to proceed with any follow-up to her expression of interest in the matter.
The matter I raise is of failure of governance.
The Central Coast Council has failed to demonstrate that it followed due process and procedure in obtaining money from NSW government to undertake a project that has insufficient justification, which is not beneficial to the majority of the community and which is wasteful of state and local government money.
In so doing, it is failing to provide open and transparent local government services and is being dishonest.
This situation is indicative of the way in which this local council is continuing to operate following on from its disastrous performance that led to its current status under Administration and is not being held to account for its continuing failures.
My additional question now is why residents and ratepayers continue to have to accept the dual penalties of deficient provision of services as well as increased charges and costs from this unrepresentative and unacceptably inadequate Council?
I now ask the Administrator of Council to either answer my questions and provide evidence to support his answers or admit that Council got it wrong and outline his plan for addressing and accounting for this failure.
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary for Central Coast to make the NSW government aware of the need for it to intervene to ensure that the Central Coast community receives the provision of infrastructure, facility and services to which it is entitled - without further penalty for Council's continuing failure.
I ask the Member for Gosford to engage the Opposition to hold the NSW Government to account for its failure in overseeing operations of the Central Coast Council.
I ask editors to satisfy the public's right to know by publishing an expose of the ongoing mismanagement, maladministration and failure of governance of both Council and NSW Office of Local Government.
SOURCE:
Email, 9 Dec 2021
Ian Weekley, Umina