I’m pleased to announce that Council has appointed our Acting General Manager David Marshall as Ku-ring-gai’s next General Manager.
During his seven months in the acting role, he has led a range of process improvements.
We conducted a customer service audit which led to improvements to our training, procedures and systems that will lead to more timely response in the coming months.
For residents concerned about the ongoing loss of tree canopy and habitat destruction, Council’s response is limited by State law but we have introduced order provisions under the EP&A Act to require replacement planting of illegally removed trees, with regular follow-ups and fines if the order is breached.
With our asset infrastructure backlog, we have identified new methods which may significantly bring down the cost of maintaining our ageing stormwater infrastrucutre…. expected savings of ~$100m over the lifetime of the assets.
We have introduced a library app and are investigating the provision of an app to cover borader council services.
We are now reviewing the Development Application process, seeing what we can do to streamline the process and improve the customer experience as a whole. Other service reviews will be announced in the coming months.
Internally, councillors are also getting better follow-up to their queries, regular activity updates, and a proactive response to regulatory change.
In particular, David has been responsive to each councillor’s concerns regarding the upcoming Transport Oriented Development and Low- and Mid-Rise Housing policy changes. His role is to proactively provide the councillors with information and options to consider, then to carry out whatever it is that Council resolves. It was also his proactivity that resulted in early resident notification in January when other councils had not yet grasped the implications.
There were other promising candidates in the selection process as well. I would have been happy to work with any of them, though was of the view that David would be the most appropriate for Ku-ring-gai at this point in time. Local Government plays a sepcial role in the community and I am encouraged at the talent that is contributing to the sector.
