Shellharbour City Council senior officers yesterday revealed a council too preoccupied with conflicts and politics to focus on the city's bigger strategic tasks.
On the second day of the NSW Government inquiry into the council, witnesses dumped explosive evidence before Commissioner Richard Colley.
The council's own corporate solicitor, Bruce McCann, took the witness stand last and declared he was convinced the inquiry could only result in the council's sacking.
Mr McCann said there were still instances of confidential information being leaked, so council staff could not trust councillors with sensitive information.
Earlier, Albion Park resident Paulla Turnbull said she had received a confidential report and passed it on to a resident involved with a community website in 2006, not Councillor Helen Stewart, who was found to have leaked it after an expensive drawn-out court action by the council. Cr Stewart has now launched an appeal.
A line-up of senior executive staff with decades of experience at Shellharbour and other councils gave frank accounts about the dysfunctional nature of the city's governance.
Visibly shaking or with slightly wobbly voices, the bureaucrats pulled no punches as they answered questions from the counsel assisting the inquiry, Daniel Meltz.
The six senior staff were quick to point out that general manager Brian Weir and Mayor David Hamilton had done their best in an extremely difficult situation.
However, they all agreed the general manager was too distracted by the problems among councillors to keep his eye on the strategic ball.
Mr Weir's executive assistant, Flora Mastro Domenico, said the events in the past term of council had severely affected his ability to do his job. "It's taking up a lot of his time to deal with these issues. There are some councillors that won't talk to him," she said.
Corporate planning group manager Peter Masterson said councillors tended to stray into operational matters, instead of focusing on strategic policy issues.
"But that's a criticism of not just Shellharbour but of local government in general," he said.
However, the other officers questioned stressed that in their years of experience at this council and others, it was only during this term that problems of interference, abuse of staff, and a total breakdown in relationships between councillors and with staff had occurred.
The council's group manager of organisation and development, Bruce Rose, said the general manager's required annual performance review had not been done for years because there was a group of councillors who disliked him.
On Monday the Mayor maintained the review had been ignored because of the council's court action against independent councillors.
Mr Rose said the fast-growing city had big issues that the general manager had no time to deal with: "It's more of a firefighting exercise."
Officers heavily criticised councillor behaviour at meetings. The council's director of community planning and strategies, Peter O'Rourke, said councillors deliberately overwhelmed the Mayor to make it impossible to chair their meetings.
He also launched a surprising attack on the ALP caucus system, after being asked whether councillors turned up to meetings with their minds made up.
"Yes. That's the big elephant in the room in terms of how decisions are made and how communities expect decisions to be made," he said.
Mr O'Rourke said Shellharbour's big issues such as Shell Cove were neglected and councillors often failed to grasp complex detail.
"Too often they sweat the easy stuff, whereas some of the issues such as the budget review, strategic management plan, have only just been summarily dealt with in a matter of seconds," he said.
Mr O'Rourke said the relationship between the Mayor and the general manager had weathered a fair bit of "argy bargy", with Mr Weir having to remind Cr Hamilton of his place.
"When they were elected, the Mayor pretty much said to councillors, 'If not with the ALP, the train's leaving the station, it's like you're either with us ... we've got a mandate to fulfil'."
Mr O'Rourke sympathised with the independent councillors, who had been excluded from the committees, and missed out on information passed on to the ALP caucus by the Mayor.
He said the general manager should do briefings for all councillors before meetings.
"It was decided not to do (it) because it would be unworkable with the differences among councillors.
"I think it is unfortunate that non-ALP councillors are left to their own devices," Mr O'Rourke said.
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