“Wollongong books in the red

BY LAUREL-LEE RODERICK Illawarra Mercury 27/06/2009

Financial matters are looming as the greatest challenge facing Wollongong City Council’s administrators, 15 months after they were appointed to clean up corruption.

The administrators’ 12-month report to Local Government Minister Barbara Perry, obtained by the Mercury, says it will take a “number of years of focussed attention” to bring the council’s operating budget back into the black, after a series of substantial deficits.

Operating deficits of about $26 million, excluding capital grants, are projected for each of the next three years, despite $6.7 million in savings during the past year and more projected savings.

The report says the administrators “inherited significant financial problems” in meeting the increasing costs of basic needs and catching up on a backlog of unfunded infrastructure maintenance.

It also suggests the council cannot afford to complete its ambitious plans to revitalise the Wollongong city centre – including Crown St Mall and Civic Plaza – without securing additional funding.

The update reports enable the State Government to gauge when the organisation is ready to return to a democratically elected council.

But the administrators make no mention of that issue in their report and in May, Ms Perry confirmed the administrators would stay until 2012.”

Full story

http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/news/local/news/general/wollongong-books-in-the-red/1552205.asp

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Media Release – 24 June 2009

The Australian Government has delivered $8 million for the new Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government – the first of its kind in Australia – to promote best practice, innovation and professionalism in local government.

The Centre will be based at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), as part of a consortium that includes the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), University of Canberra, Local Government Managers Australia and the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia.

The announcement was made to mayors at the second meeting of the Australian Council for Local Government (ACLG) at Parliament House today.

The Centre will work with stakeholders to:

* showcase outstanding examples of innovation and best practice;
* deliver training and development including leadership programs; and
* stimulate debate on critical issues facing local government.

Check out
http://www.clg.uts.edu.au/

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Due to an increasing number of spam comments being received everyday it has been necessary to turn off the “comments” facility for this blog.

If you wish to make a comment to share with others, send it to me by email.

Bruce (email brucer at reformwcc.info)

SPEECH

ALGA’s National General Assembly 2009

Monday 22 June 2009 – 9.15am

ALGA President Cr Geoff Lake’s Opening Address

Welcome to ALGA Board members, delegates and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Anthony Albanese.

Good morning delegates.

I am delighted you could join us for the 15th National General Assembly (NGA) of local government.

Never before have there been more issues at stake for local government at the national level.  And never before has there been more of a need for us to come together – from across the breadth of Australia – to debate and shape a national agenda for our sector.

We find ourselves in both challenging times but also exciting times. I say challenging because it is possible that unless we address some critical issues soon, local government will fail in some areas over the coming decade.

However, I also say exciting because there is also unprecedented opportunity for councils to play an effective and prominent part in some of the key issues that currently face our nation.

How well we navigate these waters over the next few years, will determine whether we are a strengthened sector in the future – or one hamstrung by responsibilities beyond our capacity and finances well short of our needs.

Make no mistake, this NGA is not a mere talkfest and a few days away from your day to day responsibilities in your council area. This is an opportunity for us collectively – as a bunch of disparate and diverse councils – some 565 in total – to debate the role we want to play in building sustainable and resilient communities in Australia into the future.

The themes of this year’s General Assembly are Infrastructure, Climate Change and Financing.

These areas define ALGA’s lobbying efforts for coming year and beyond. Indeed, they also define local government’s future.

Over the next three days, we are looking to you to shape and guide how we are to prosecute the case for change and reform in these areas.

By way of overview, let me make some comments on some recent developments in these areas to help set the scene for our discussions…

rest of speech:

http://www.alga.asn.au/newsroom/speeches/2009/NGA_Opening_speech.pdf

“Sweeping claims of council corruption rejected

BY LAUREL-LEE RODERICK Illawarra Mercury 24/06/2009

One of Wollongong City Council’s three administrators has vigorously defended the existing council against sweeping allegations of corruption aired at a public meeting.

“The administrators reject any suggestion of corrupt conduct on the part of this council,” a fiery Robert McGregor said yesterday.

The comments, made at Wollongong Town Hall during a public forum to discuss the draft Wollongong local environmental plan, were made in response to claims made by former council employee Vicki Curran.

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This note, which i wrote in reply to a correspondent may be of interest to others. You will see that Precinct Committees are quite different to the Neighbourhood Forums presently being trialled by WCC.

The Precinct Committee model is quite simple – it involves having both elected Councillors (what’s new?) and properly funded and properly resourced Precinct Committees which are part of the organisational structure of Wollongong City Council.

Precinct Committees have to be carefully designed to ensure that they too are both democratic and accountable. This was a shortcoming with the earlier WCC Neighbourhood Committees.

This (in part) allowed the ALP critics of WCC Neighbourhood Committees to attack and dissolve the committees when what was really needed was a new and improved model which looked at the short-comings (on both sides of the Council-community experiment) and came up with good solutions.

What the ALP did (in abolishing the WCC NCs) was like a certain kind of man who, in having difficulties with his life-partner, tosses her away rather than maturely accepting the need for some work on the relationship.

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There is an Open Forum as part of the National Human Rights Consultation going on at the moment (until 26 June).

Two of my postings:

Right to democratic representation in local government

Extract:

The right to be represented by democratically elected Councillors in local government needs to be protected at the Federal level to ensure that State governments cannot simply dismiss Councillors who have not been found to be corrupt or incompetent.

Corrupt Councillors must be prevented from standing again. By-elections should be held to replace them as soon as possible and as a matter of course.

In extreme cases where whole Councils are sacked, there should also be a Council election within one year when a Council is dismissed to allow local people to return their democratically elected representatives. In this situation, State governments could also require the Council to meet other conditions (such as working with an Administrator for a longer period).

See also:

Protection – right of community to partcipate in government

The right for local communities (below the level of elected Councillors) to have effective participation in local government by way of democratic and accountable Precinct Committees or Community Boards (as found in New Zealand/Aotearoa) of some kind is a major and important reform to Australia’s system of government.

from http://www.openforum.com.au/NHROC?page=1

Interested people can add their own comments and views to this forum.

For Forum see http://www.openforum.com.au/NHROC

“Illawarra council service prices to rise
BY ALEX ARNOLD AND LAUREL-LEE RODERICK
Illawarra Mercury 15/06/2009

Dumping waste, taking a holiday or being buried at a cemetery are about to get much more expensive for Illawarra residents.

The region’s two biggest councils – Wollongong and Shellharbour – are planning rate rises of 3.5 per cent and hefty fee increases across a range of services, with cemeteries and waste disposal copping the biggest fee hikes.

…

In Wollongong, spending on infrastructure – including roads and bridges, footpaths and cycleways, car parks, buildings, parks and beaches – will be slashed by nearly $19 million from a record $67million this year to just $48.36 million in 2009-10.

According to Wollongong City Council’s draft management plan, the reduced spending is due to the completion of “high value projects”, including the Thirroul Library and Community Centre and Southern Gateway information centre at Bulli Tops.

Around 60 per cent of the capital budget will be spent on replacing and maintaining infrastructure.

To combat rising costs, garbage collection fees will rise by 19 per cent, taking the annual cost for a 240-litre bin from $400 to $475.

Tip fees at Whytes Gully and Helensburgh are to rise, along with fees to use Dapto and Corrimal pools and Beaton Park and Lakeside leisure centres.

Burial and cremation fees, tourist park charges, hall hire, and council inspection fees are also slated for increases.”

….

Full story with details regarding Shellharbour and Kiama Councils rate plans at:

http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/news/local/news/general/illawarra-council-service-prices-to-rise/1541242.aspx?storypage=0

There was a news item on WIN TV last evening (Tuesday 2 June) about material going to the Public Prosecutor from ICAC for assessment (i guess) for charges to be laid against some of those found to be corrupt in the ICAC WCC inquiry.

Nothing on the ICAC website and nothing on the WIN TV website (where sport is far more important, apparently) and nothing in the Illawarra Mercury?

And there was also a visit to the South Coast by ICAC a few weeks back.

“”The ICAC activities will include workshops on protected disclosures, the lessons learned from the Commission’s investigation into Wollongong City Council last year, school workshops and liaison visits to some and local councils in the area.”

It would be good to obtain a copy of exactly what those lessons from Wollongong are.

See more for the full presss release.

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