Mainland Australia has been having what might be called 'a rough trot' and that is never a good time to start pulling machiavellian stunts. Lismore's council is a council with elements of contention in its past but by-and-large the council has served its community well enough.
Overlay some disastrous situations and like old rope what was once good and reliable becomes less so. The situation is never helped when bureaucracy steps in and starts making decisions in isolation and insulated from accountability processes.
When the decisions have financial consequences to be born by the community and the bureaucrats deem that the community will just have to wear it, the rope is likely to get quite twisted. This is the point as often as not when politicians start looking after the stakeholders who scratch their back looking out for future favours.
And there are trickle downs that start to get diverted here and there and then the fraying starts to show when the ‘money thing’ starts to kick in.
Some time back a council in Lismore took a punt that floods were not going to 'that big again' and the community took the punt too. When the flood, the ones Lismore has every year and sometimes more often, was significantly larger, well that’s history now.
When the climate deniers called out ‘that hippie bunch’ life was sort of OK but the rainfall was down and it would rain one day – wouldn’t it because it always did. But when the place caught fire and in places it never had before ‘that hippie bunch’ might have been right and anyway there are good things happening – and they sort of were.
When everything started to change in every way it doesn’t help when the bureaucrats act unilaterally without the community, or even the council, supporting the decision making or being considered in the process storm clouds are likely to gather.
In changing times, it is the time to change rather than pretend that it is possible to return to the past however good that was, or is, imagined to be.
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Lismore Mayor Isaac Smith said councillors were struggling to contain their frustrations after facing a run of natural disasters and major financial challenges during the current term. ................. Veteran Councillor resigns citing a 'terrible' culture and a disconnection from decision-making Financially strapped council still struggling after $6.1 million deficit revealed in 2019 Council general manager defends governance procedures Lismore Mayor Isaac Smith said councillors were struggling to contain their frustrations after facing a run of natural disasters and major financial challenges during the current term. ................. Last week, councillors Gianpierro Battista and Greg Bennett both resigned, leaving nine elected representatives to serve the remaining 12 months of the extended term. Lismore Mayor Isaac Smith said councillors were struggling to contain their frustrations after facing a run of natural disasters and major financial challenges during the current term. ................. Councillor Battista, who has served on the council for more than a decade, said it was with sadness and relief that he was leaving. ................. But he took a parting shot at council management, saying he felt disconnected from the decision-making process in recent years. ................. "It has been terrible," he said. ................. "Trying to deal with a bureaucratic machine that is bent on making some of us redundant and disconnected from the decision-making process has taken its toll." ................. Councillor Gianpiero Battista said it had become 'extremely hard' to carry out civic duties.(Supplied: Gianpiero Battista) 'Wasn't feeling part of the group' Councillor Battista cited one of his many concerns as how the General Manager and Mayor had rejected a Federal Government $2-million election pledge in 2019 to refurbish the Lismore Lake Pool. ................. "For the life of me I don't know why the General Manager and the Mayor decided we didn't need to be informed," he said................. "I started thinking of that from a governance point of view that two people who are in charge, one is the general manager and one is the mayor … making a decision for the whole of the council. ................. "We should have every proper document to make our decision. ................. "You can't ask people to make decisions with an hour's notice of what they are going to decide on. ................. "I wasn't feeling comfortable being part of the group." ................. Lismore City Council's general manager Challenging circumstances Mayor Isaac Smith agreed with this description, which he said had been brought on by the challenging circumstances. ................. A $6-million budget deficit was revealed in 2019, at a critical time when the community was trying to recover from one of its worst floods in recorded history. ................. The local government area has also been affected by bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic. . ................. "We've faced too many natural disasters, it really would have been unthinkable at the start of the term, so there's been a lot of friction amongst the elected body, that's absolutely true," Mayor Smith said. ................. "We've had 12 per cent more briefings and the quality and integrity of information before councillors has more rigour than what I've seen and what I inherited," she said. ................. Ms Oldham said in relation to the Lismore Lake Pool, councillors had unanimously decided they did not want to spend money on a third pool in Lismore and instead passed a motion to explore other options for the land. ................. That vote occurred before the Federal Government offered financial support for the project. . ................. Statewide council elections [NSW] will be held on Saturday 4 September, 2021.
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