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Wollongong City Council’s general manager says his organisation faced a no-win situation when it chose to appoint a citizens panel to review its budget.
David Farmer spoke out in defence of the council’s controversial consultation process yesterday, after it was criticised for producing vague, confusing and ambiguous recommendations like ‘‘youth services – revenue’’; ‘Customer service – reduce – apply an efficiency target’’; and ‘‘crematorium – exit’’.
But Mr Farmer said the report, which was unveiled this week, was just ‘‘a conversation starter’’ intended to set ‘‘values and priorities’’ rather than outline specific budgetary measures.
‘‘If you look at that report, I think you can see the themes quite clearly,’’ he said.
‘‘Yes you can pick apart the specifics, but the themes are quite clear: leave alone the big highly-used assets, have a look at some of those assets that aren’t as heavily used, and we want to make sure that rates only go up as a last resort.’’
He admitted he would have liked to see more detail in some of the recommendations but said he and other council staff were at pains to stay away from the citizens panel so they could not be accused of leading them in their decisions.
‘‘No doubt I would have preferred to have more detail in the report and in the responses, but it is what it is,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s work of those people, and there were people rolling around saying ‘This is going to to be the work of evil council staff and these are just going to be puppets’.
‘‘If you stay away, then you don’t necessarily get what you want to hear – and if I was running this thing, the answers and form would be different, but I wasn’t, and it’s the community’s work.
‘‘And I would also point out this is the first time anyone has been brave enough to put something together that gets close to adding up to solving our problem.’’
Mr Farmer also noted the much-criticised two-week exhibition period of the citizens panel report was just ‘‘preliminary consultation’’.
He said other residents would get ‘‘at least two more’’ chances to have their say once the council investigated the recommendations further.
The proposals developed from this round of community consultation would be on exhibition between December and February, and decisions arising after that would also be open for comment before they were incorporated into next year’s annual plan.
No final decisions on service cuts would be made until June next year when the council approved its annual budget, he said.
However, he confirmed the council needed to make a decision by December 13 whether to notify the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of its intent to apply for a rate rise above the roughly 3.4per cent rise set by the tribunal.
Mr Farmer also said he wanted to shift the focus on the citizens panel debate from looking at problems with the process to the overall financial sustainability issue facing the council.
The council announced in May it needed to free up $21million a year to meet an infrastructure backlog and ensure its current assets – including roads, footpaths and stormwater drains – can be maintained.
Mr Farmer pointed out there were already several council projects which could not be funded, including Mount Keira Kiosk, the North Wollongong Surf Life Saving Club refurbishment, roadworks on Harry Graham Drive and Stanwell Park Beach kiosk.
‘‘We have to make a fundamental strategic change in what we do...and unless we do, people will start to see things fail and services being withdrawn anyway, not by choice but because they will just happen,’’ he said.
He warned the city faces a rate rise of more than 18per cent, on top of any statewide increase, without cut backs and savings.
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