EDWARDS EXIT A BLOW FOR GOLD COAST

THE departure of David Edwards just three weeks into his role as Gold Coast City Council is a black eye for city hall. Mr Edwards, highly touted as the right man to lead the city’s bureaucracy and replace 18-year veteran Dale Dickson in the top role, presided over just one council meeting.

Councillors were told of Mr Edwards’ resignation in an email from Mayor Tom Tate, in what is believed to have been due to health reasons.

It is an unfortunate situation for the supermajority of 14 councillors who staked their judgment on voting to replace Mr Dickson with Mr Edwards, with only Nerang’s Peter Young voting to maintain the status quo.

Mayor Tom Tate particularly talked up his new CEO and laid out a vision for their work together.

“I’m looking forward to working with David,” Cr Tate said in March

“He has been exemplary. I would say in 12 months’ time when we look at some of the ideas that David and I will take to council, it’s timely for us to make our city resilient, broaden our economy, and recovering after this COVID. We’re in a good spot but we are going to take it to the next level.”

That next level will never come, with the Tate/Edwards team serving for just one week before the latter went on leave, not to return.

His exit under a cloud has occurred at the worst-possible moment and now leaves the council’s bureaucracy without a leader just a handful of weeks before critical budget deliberations begin. The council’s $1.7 billion budget is the second-largest in the entire country and its creation each May and June is a deliberate and painstaking process.

Given the critical nature of this year's budget in terms of resetting the Gold Coast for a post-COVID era, the loss of council’s CEO will leave a hole which councillors will struggle to fill.

Mr Edwards’ exit now means council will be on the hunt for a new senior bureaucrat to lead the organisation and potentially a new national search for a suitable candidate.

While acting CEO Joe McCabe is a fine public servant and universally respected within council, as a stand-in he will not be in a position to help Cr Tate prosecute his ambitious agenda on major economic development projects including the Hinterland cableway.

Regardless of what you think about controversial issues such as these, city hall needs a strong leader to head the bureaucracy and help the Gold Coast prosper in the aftermath of the devastating pandemic.

Councillors must think very carefully when they pick Mr Edwards’ permanent replacement as CEO.