I have just hosted a citizenship ceremony where we welcomed 80 new Australian Citizens. I?m then off to West Pymble Venturers to talk about community service.
However across the road there is an event which, on the surface, is regarding the role of community participation in planning. I was invited to attend and at a high level I?d agree to some of these principles, however from a governance and policy perspective it was inappropriate for me to get involved.
Council has a standing resolution that the staff will conduct studies around the four Transport Oriented Development (TOD) precincts to explore better resident outcomes. The studies and scenario analysis will be presented before the community in early November as part of a community engagement process. The new Council will then consider next steps (such as a potential update to the Local Environment Plan) early next year.
But around the same time as this council resolution, a separate organisation approached Ku-ring-gai Council seeking funding to use their own people to run the planning and consultation. This would bypass the regular procurement process and put the steering of a critical planning function and community engagement into the hands of an unvetted external party. It was an unusual proposal.
My own preference would be to keep it neutral by using council staff to do the planning and communication as is the practice at other councils in NSW. I want to give all members of the public an equal opportunity to have a say, and let them be involved in detailed discussions. And this November I welcome all members of the public (including special interest groups) to participate in the feedback process.
But I do not support the idea of Council paying anyone to participate in the process, nor do I support the idea of giving any one individual or special interest group greater weighting or influence in the process than another. And the final decision needs to be made by the newly elected Council with the support of staff who know the LGA, not co-erced by an external body of non-local consultants and lobbyists from a ?not for profit? entity.
I also understand that some election candidates and community members participated in tonight?s event. I wouldn?t necessarily see this as a negative thing. For some of them I think they just did not have the same background information as I had and may therefore not have been aware of anything inappropriate. But ideally they should have done their research.
