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If anyone in the Hawkesbury thought leadership was representing the people, think again. Last Council meeting, our Mayor, caught between majority community opposition to a 40% rate rise and five determined Councillors, decided to go against community sentiment, declaring this vote will “hurt me”!
And yes, he is right.
In the deciding moment, when he could have backed further investigation into alternatives, or at least pretended to explore innovative ways to avert the fiscal cliff facing Council, he lined up neatly beside the five female Councillors including two past Mayors to side with the General Manager, a coalition now dubbed by a local wag as the “Mean Girls.”
With only ten months until the mid-term mayoral elections, one can only imagine the Mayor’s sense of dread as he realizes his fate now rests in the manicured hands of the very bloc that has the numbers to bury him politically.
And judging by the community backlash over the proposed rate rise, the infrastructure delivery failures, the culture of excuse-making, and the increasingly creative ways council blames the state and federal governments for giving them grants they can’t manage… well… let’s just say no life raft appears present in the deep waters Council now flounders in.
The Deputy Mayor triumphantly proclaimed that the new alignment of Councillors is “the best the chamber has worked together in a decade.”
As the majority bloc busies itself perfecting the art of obfuscation, the remaining four male Councillors are left to carry the community’s frustration, cast as the reluctant knights in armor. Will they slay the dragon of dysfunction or merely polish their shields for show?
The community, once again, may have to rescue itself.
Ratepayers are already whispering about an organized campaign to IPART to oppose the rate rise and to the NSW Government to consider Hawkesbury’s amalgamation with a rich neighbours or appointment of an Administrator to reinstall efficient and effective governance.
Why continue with an administration that burns through grant funding like a summer bushfire and says they can’t handle grant money anyway? Why give them more money when they say they can’t manage what they have? These questions are being asked.
The “Mean Girls” now hold the mayor’s political fate the way a cat holds a half-dead mouse, bored, but aware that one final tap is needed to finish the job. Then all that’s left is to lower him gently into the metaphorical coffin of his own making.
And when the mid-term elections arrive next year, presuming the Council still exists, and the powerbrokers of the chamber circle like crows over fresh roadkill, we will see what deals are struck, alliances reshuffled, and egos soothed enough for him to keep the chain of office and the General Manager her job.
One thing is certain: the community isn’t laughing; they are considering all options.
Now over to our General Manager for a word on how Town Planning is going: https://www.tiktok.com/@ben_woodbury/video/7571213379025505544
