Council transparency is important

Gosford councillor Mr Peter Hale is talkative since the very public blow up between Gosford Council and the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce over the offensive Peninsula Special Business Rate.

The first surprise was heard at a very well attended community meeting under the shadow of Blackwall Mountain, where Cr Hale was prepared to display an uncommon yet surprising openness about the Ettalong Club's arrangements with Multiplex, and other stakeholders connected with the hoped-for high rise.

The next was a bombshell he dropped during a council inspection on Tuesday, June 14, of the Ettalong Foreshore Reserve, an important area in front of the Ettalong Club and Tesrol site.

Cr Hale was heard to agree with many community members and dune care representatives that their suspicions about the group at present implementing the Ettalong Beach Foreshore Plan of Management was a "Vested Interest Committee".

Cr Hale said, as Ettalong Club held a deed of agreement with council for $300,000, his position on the "committee" was to represent Ettalong Club and to ensure plans included what the club wanted.

Minutes before this revealing statement of obvious conflict, council staff had categorically stated that the group implementing the "plan" was a "working group within Council", made up of staff and interested councillors.

This was an assertion which is in conflict with the remarks of another identified staff member who had referred to the group as a "Stakeholders Planning Committee"

Bob Staines has allowed the councillor to make one more interesting remark in his 'Straight from the Shoulder" comment in the Express Advocate.

Cr Hale has pointed out the litter of syringes and drug paraphernalia that we know flows directly from overdevelopment without the infrastructure.

Transparency in our council's business activities is important, particularly where the public gets stuck with the bill.

I believe readers will no longer be happy with the written response that "it was not possible to provide an outline of the implementation process" that requests of council have been met with in recent times.

Perhaps in light of the much publicised and disastrous Special Business Rate, our local councillors should ensure Gosford Council distances itself from the processes that it knows from recent experience to be flawed.

Edward James, Umina