Are we there yet?

We’re midway through the current council’s term, and it’s timely to look back over the past 18 months. I campaigned over accountability and that transparency MUST be visible.

I pledged NOT to support anything that I wasn’t fully informed and briefed on. I would ask questions and persist.

If I didn’t get the information I needed to fulfil the oath I had sworn to you the ratepayers, I would speak up. I wouldn’t support anything that I couldn’t fully explain and be accountable for.

I felt from the beginning as a new councillor I was going to be side-lined. As we went through a recruitment process for a new CEO, a group of councillors refused to provide any information about the shortlisted candidates or their interview notes. I had no right . . . I needed to trust them . . . they had a delegated power — which, as it turned out, they didn’t. Those delegations expired at the end of the previous triennium, and they had jeopardised the entire process by proceeding without the endorsement of the new council.

My August 2017 article ‘There’s lots to fix’ echoed concerns that I and other elected members had received from you. My comment ,“For years we have had complaints about service, poor communication, obstructive behaviour, and even the occasional whisper of possible corruption,” resulted in a code of conduct complaint being made by senior staff. This alleged that my comments had compromised the integrity of all council staff and were “damaging to all our reputations and extremely hurtful to all staff, family and friends.” Sad, since I received quite a few communications from staff and the public urging me not to back off and expressing their concerns with the organisation’s culture.

What has followed has been two investigations costing thousands of dollars — and many valuable hours of staff time. Surely we have more important jobs to tackle?

I sought information about how much this investigation has cost, but to date have been denied the figures.

Like most issues I have raised, efforts to seek clarification and further info have been stymied, even to the extent that in December council tried to pass a motion that would require elected members to complete a four-page application in order to get more information. Very undemocratic.

At that same meeting I was served with yet another code of conduct complaint alleging I had failed to make an equitable contribution to council, and that I have again brought the council into disrepute. So we have more investigations spending thousands of precious ratepayer dollars to achieve what? To prove that I have been listening to your concerns? That I only want to fulfil the oath that “I will faithfully and impartially and according to the best of my skill and judgement, execute and perform, in the interests of the Far North District?” Most definitely.

As Martin Luther King once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

"So we have more investigations spending thousands of precious ratepayer dollars to achieve what? To prove that I have been listening to your concerns?"