Preferences were distributed today and the Ku-ring-gai Councillors for 2024-2028 are
Comenarra: Matthew Devlin and Jeff Pettett
Gordon: Barbara Ward and Indu Balachandran
Roseville: Sam Ngai and Alec Taylor
St Ives: Martin Smith and Christine Kay
Wahroonga: Cedric Spencer and Kim Wheatley
The Mayor will be separately elected by the ten councillors on Tuesday 8th October 2024
I look forward to working with everyone.
Sydney is projected to run out of inert landfill by 2028, making it important to reduce the waste we generate. At Ku-ring-gai, 61% of our waste is diverted from landfill and the EPA has set an 80% target for all councils by 2030.
One third of our red bin (by weight) is comprised of food scraps, and our current landfill captures the methane emissions to generate electricity. However, the EPA has mandated all councils to separately collect food organics collections by 2030.
Last term, we trialled separated food-waste collection at 2,400 households and found high contamination rates in food-only bins, as well as issues with funky smells and confusion between red bins and the State- mandated maroon bins. Further education will be required in supporting the rollout of food-only bins.
There has been considerable interest in soft plastics recycling and Ku-ring-gai is currently undergoing trials, however it comes at considerable cost and with a limited waste levy, solving food organics must take priority.
It’s been a quiet period where former Councillors are taking time off to rest while the election results slowly trickle in.
I’ve taken some time off…. We had a church camp where one of our kids picked up gastro and the last few days have been resting at home. Another kid joined girl guides and we’ve setup a playpen for the little one as she’s starting to propel forward and likes to explore.
I’ve been helping various residents with queries – mostly linked to tree issues, parking fines, stormwater issues, North Turramurra traffic problems, etc. This is despite none of us getting paid for the next three weeks, so it’s on an entirely voluntary basis.
I also attended the volunteer of the year awards (picture with Peter Tate, President of the Kissing Point Sports Club where I am the inaugural patron).
Plus I packed up the Mayoral office in a box and moved out, ready for the next Mayor of Ku-ring-gai to settle in. The robe has been dry-cleaned for a fresh start.
At the moment the Roseville Ward result is still too close to call. I know I am in but whether the second councillor is Alec or Kath it is not yet known and depends on the preferences. My prediction is Alec will end up ahead by around five hundred votes but that’s assuming that the vast majority of voters who went below the line chose the status quo by doing 1 Sam 2 Alec. We won’t find out until next week.
Last night I visited Depart gallery at 350 Pacific Highway Lindfield for the opening of an exhibition featuring Ian Fleming’s work. Ian works primarily in oil, depicting the Australian Landscape. It’s well worth a visit, and you may perhaps even consider purchasing.
I?d like to thank the residents of Roseville Ward for asking me to serve them as a councillor for a third term.
It was an incredibly hectic three weeks and this election campaign would not have been possible without the support of volunteers. We appreciate all of you who were willing to dedicate time to the cause, whether it be half an hour or a few dozen hours, and I will be coming to thank each of you personally in the weeks to come.
With counting still underway, our group total is approximately 63% on first preference. Historically, approximately 20% of votes are actually below the line so what that means is that Alec Taylor still has a chance of getting elected with the check count and distribution of preferences, or it could be Kath Johnson. It is too early and not appropriate to jump to any conclusion.
The full election result is not yet known, with ballots still being counted and some postals still coming in til 27th September. We actually won?t know who the ten councillors are until the distribution of preferences on the week commencing 30th September. Until then, the only councillors that I am certain of at this stage are Martin Smith (St Ives first pref 45%), Christine Kay (St Ives first pref 35%), and Cedric Spencer (Wahroonga first pref 30%). If I had to speculate, we may also have Matt Devlin, Jeff Pettett, Kim Wheatley, Barbara Ward, and Indu Balachandran but the preferencing could produce a different outcome.
Each of the ten future councillors were elected on a particular platform or set of objectives, and I look forward to working with them to see if most of these can be delivered in a collegiate manner (noting that some objectives are directly conflicting).
I would like to thank Kath Johnson for being an amazing running mate. I chose Kath Johnson because she has a relatively unique combination of competency, maturity, and willingness to serve but without the ego or wackiness that usually comes with aspiring politicians. I wanted a normal person that residents can relate to, and Kath is one of them.
As a Christian, I would also like to thank God for the election result. As some of you know, last decade I was actually training to become an Anglican Church minister and serving the local community through the church. I never really expected to become a politician, but had at the spur of the moment in 2017 wondered whether my commercial skills could be applied to serving the community in a different way as a councillor. My Christian values guide my approach and there is a stronger emphasis on seeking the interests of others than on promoting myself.
Finally I’d like to thank my long-suffering wife Kathryn Ngai and our three kids for putting up with this election campaign. It’s been a tough few weeks with the election, and Kathryn has had to juggle a lot in my absence. In the coming three weeks before the councillors are sworn in on 8th October, I?ll be spending a good chunk of time with family including some time taking care of our seven month old on Parental Leave Pay (thanks to the Federal Government for offering this, though I was far too busy as Mayor to claim the 10 available days).
The upcoming Council will have to hit the ground running.
In addition to Councillor induction, we have the immediate priority of seeking public feedback on alternative scenarios to the NSW Government?s Transport Oriented Development while simultaneously progressing with the legal action (to buy time and save ratepayers millions on acquisition costs).
We will also be renewing our Community Strategic Plan which, as per the General Manager?s Performance Agreement, must be a genuine overhaul of the document with input from over 1,500 residents rather than the usual document rollover with minor tweaks.
In the early months, the General Manager is also required to overhaul the Community Participation Plan and the Community Engagement Policy.
I am also keen to explore what mid-value (a few $m) services/infrastructure the ward councillors are keen to deliver to improve the quality of life in their area, whether it be footpaths, traffic upgrades, the maintenance of council tree branches and roots, new community facilities and parks, as well as the multiple options available for funding these.
There is also the issue of community facilities in Lindfield, Gordon and Turramurra. Council staff are preparing updated financials for hubs in light of the population uplift, and I hope that we can move quickly on all three of these without unnecessary squabbling. Marian Street Theatre is in a similar position.
As usual, if you have any queries as residents then feel free to contact us and we will do what we can to help you.
Last month we visited Depart gallery at 350 Pacific Highway Lindfield, where artworks are on for display and sale. I liked the bold colours and works.
Tomorrow on election day they are introducing the works of Ian Fleming from 5-8pm. Please consider going. Depending on how the election booth packup process is going, I may see you there towards the end. For more information visit.
https://www.departgallery.com.au/event-1
My parting gift as Mayor – The General Manager’s Performance Agreement FY25
In my first six years as a Councillor, the General Manager?s performance management process was always a debacle.
The Mayor of the day would set the GM?s performance metrics at some undisclosed date, and then at the end of the 12 month period the Mayor would call all ten councillors together to rate the GM?s performance in each area (usually over 40+ items).
The scoring system is typically as such.
5 Outstanding – GM consistently achieves extremely high-performance standards.
4 Exceeds Expectations – High standards are set and achieved. At times performance exceeds requirements.
3 Meets Expectations – Satisfactory performance and meets expected requirements.
2 Improvement Required – Minor shortcomings in performance but major requirements are usually met.
1 Improvement Required – Major shortcomings and important requirements are not being met by the GM.
NA – Milestone is not yet due, and progress cannot be reported on.
In the corporate world (which is where I come from), most employees typically score a 3 on each measure. If they have done poorly, then they may get a 2 and it would be accompanied with constructive management feedback. But if they get a 4 or even a 5 on any measure, it needs to be supported with extensive commentary and evidence to prove that they earned the score that they deserve.
But at Council, this has never been observed to date. We have had councillors who, because they liked the former General Manager, gave him 5?s without any substantiation whatsoever. On the other side we have had councillors who, because they were not satisfied with the General Manager, gave him 1?s without any constructive feedback.
Meanwhile I would give a mix of 2, 3, and 4 with appropriate feedback if I ever deviated from the 3.
With Council?s composition and numbers, the scores from all ten get averaged out and it always ended up with a score that was above 3. The headline promoted by the Mayor of the day would then be that the General Manager scored above average in his performance metrics and therefore should keep his job.
But of course it?s easy to score above 3 if it?s heavily skewed with multiple unsubstantiated 5?s.
What?s worse, the councillors were not shown the GM?s performance metrics until the end of the 12 month period. As a councillor, I had no way of knowing whether the performance metics were agreed to at the start of the period, or whether it was done just a week before the performance review.
Also on multiple occasions when I would give constructive feedback on the GM?s performance, instead of deciding to address the issue and lift performance the following year, the Mayor of the day would just delete the area from the following year?s performance metrics. So rather than seeking to improve for the benefit of ratepayers, she deleted anything that was too hard.
I was incredibly frustrated by the multiple manipulations of the process and it led to one of my election objectives for December 2021.
Align General Manager Performance Reviews with Office of Local Government Guidelines, setting ambitious but realistic performance targets and holding the General Manager to account.
Fortunately as 2024 Mayor I have had the opportunity to start this process. Together with Deputy Mayor of Ku-ring-gai, Cr Christine Kay, Councillor Kim Wheatley and Councillor Alec Taylor we have cast a vision of what we would like the General Manager to achieve in the next four years and then built his 2024-25 performance objectives to align with achieving this vision. This was completed last month.
Furthermore, the scoring for each area will be more difficult to game as we have provided constructive guidelines as to how each should be scored. For example on the topic of community participation we have said the following.
Initiative 1.2 Improve community consultation and notification (frequency, reach, timeliness)
FY25 Activity: Community Participation Plan and Community Engagement Policy updated to reflect community expectations
FY25 Success Measures:
[For a 2] CPP and CEP are rolled over from prior terms
[For a 3] Genuine overhaul of documents to reflect how we will engage the community in a range of different scenarios
[For a 4] Details of the overhaul are publicly accessible and well accepted by the community
Consultation and notification practices consistently implemented in line with policy
This makes it pretty clear what needs to be done to earn a 2, 3 and 4 and it makes it more difficult for a future council to just give 5?s and 1?s based on how they feel about the performance of the General Manager and our council staff. It also gives the General Manager and the staff a clear objective to stretch to if they want to be recognised for their performance.
I?d like to thank the residents of Ku-ring-gai and the councillors for the opportunity to reform this most-critical element of Council?s governance, and I hope that the next Council decides to continue this practice of shaping Council?s outcomes through proper professional performance management.
Come say hello to your friendly candidates and volunteers at Gordon Library prepoll. We are here til 8pm this Thursday.
So how will we pay for that?
We’ve been talking to residents at Roseville and Lindfield train station and their top issues (apart from development) have been
1. Proactive management of council owned trees (dead branches, roots causing problems) 2. Footpaths and road bottlenecks 3. Provision of playgrounds and toilets in town centres
We know that all councillors and council staff are keen to deliver on these, however, the real challenge is council?s own ?cost of living crisis?.
In the last decade, our operational costs (eg delivery of services, infrastructure and maintenance) has gone up 40% while our rates, which are regulated by the state government, have gone up by 28%.
Obviously when our income (rates) are growing more slowly than our expenses, something has to be done to balance the books. These options include?. 1. Looking for cost efficiencies 2. Reduction of services 3. Selling off assets (noting that this is not an infinitely repeatable process) 4. Increasing rates
In August 2022, before my time as Mayor, I actually moved a motion proposing that we look for these cost efficiencies. However my cost efficiency motion was defeated by former Mayor Pettett using his casting vote. He didn?t offer any alternatives to the efficiency motion either. He didn?t believe that we needed to improve on Council?s spend. He believed that Council was cost efficient.
Fortunately after becoming the new Mayor in September 2023 and with a new General Manager in place, we have started to look more closely at each of our key areas, identifying whether there is potential to improve the quality or volume of service with the limited funds that we have. We?ve looked at our customer service and are now in various stages of progress on looking at development assessment, compliance, communications, sportsgrounds, and other areas tbc. We?ve also looked at the long term maintenance of our assets and have identified significant cost savings with the maintenance of our ageing pipes, offset by increased costs with maintaining our community buildings. The overall cost savings identified to date have been $100m over the life of the assets.
What we find really bizarre though is when there are experienced candidates (current/former councillors) who claim that they will freeze rates while simultaneously delivering more footpaths and other social goods. It?s not possible or sustainable. I do firmly believe that there is still some ?fat? left in Council to trim out, and as a hopeful councillor-to-be we are keen to continue supporting that drive if the majority of the new council is on board. But we will also soon come to a point where there?s nothing more that can be done and we will either have to consider reducing services (e.g. slow down delivery of footpaths, reduce library, youth and seniors services, stop mowing the sportsfields), or look towards other ways of funding activities.
One candidate has inferred that she will revisit the long term financial plan, which implies that she will sell off public assets. But from my perspective, this will only plug a gap in council?s own cost-of living crisis by one or two years. After that we?d have to sell something else. And we don?t have enough assets to keep council afloat like this forever. Asset sales are also not the best idea when we have a projected explosion in population growth and need to retain a sensible portfolio for public open space and/or community space.
Willoughby and Hornsby Council have dealt with the solution through increasing their rates by 15% and 31% respectively. They did so by extensively consulting the public to see what they wanted to do, and the public told them that they didn?t want to see a reduction in service delivery by maintaining the status quo of rates growing slower than cost inflation. The public told them that they wanted to see a drive for efficiencies, and that they were also willing to pay more so long as the council proved that it was delivering more.
For an example of the options that Willoughby provided, visit https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ehq-production-australia/48dc3fb6900dda3aa80bc7064a3a026721b32213/original/1694751512/7d6aa9cd39fde884296f0699681668a8_A3_Options_Matrix_Chart.pdf
We personally think the most appropriate course of action for Ku-ring-gai is to continue its focus on efficiencies for the time being. Then if at a later point in time the majority of councillors want to explore the option of maintaining our current level of service, or perhaps even increasing services/infrastructure, then it would be appropriate to consult the public and give them the choice, much in the same way that other councils have. We are actually fine to respect whatever the public decides, and in each scenario I?m flexible enough to make it happen. But we?d only earn the right to go out cap in hand if we have first demonstrated that we?ve looked really carefully at internal spend first.
Going back to the original topic? Would you like to see Council take a more proactive approach to Council-owned trees? Would you like to have more footpaths and fix road bottlenecks such as Tryon x Archbold? Would you like to see faster planning and development? Would you like playgrounds to be upgraded? Or are you looking for something much bigger such as the upgrade of a theatre? When the new council is elected, please pass your feedback to the new councillors. It is our hope that the new councillors can put together a list, prioritise what needs to happen first, and have a serious discussion about how and when these initiatives can be funded (reducing another service, selling off assets, or revisiting rates).
At each election there are candidates who are lucky enough to be drawn out as Group A. They may not necessarily agree on everything, but they are each keen to represent your concerns in their own way.
I?ve been fortunate enough to get into Group A twice out of three times. Wishing all candidates the best as well as a fun time.
2024 photo taken by Michael Tumulty
The office of the Mayor often gets letters from residents with their concerns. Given the sheer volume of correspondence, our assistant often co-ordinates a response with council staff and the Mayor just signs the letter (after sense-checking the content).
On this particular occasion I received a handwritten letter with ‘Please Write Back!’ and I thought it required a personalised response. One letter suggested a sign and a gate. Another letter suggested weekly street sweeping. The staff ended up opting for a Wildlife Sign (which we don’t usually do) and it will arrive in the coming weeks. And I wrote back with a personal touch.
On another note, I appreciated that these residents made it clear that the issue was on Grosvenor Road ?????????. There was a situation last council term where staff realised that someone had accidentally heritage listed 15 Grosvenor Road Wahroonga instead of 15 Grosvenor Road Lindfield.
Yesterday before pre-poll I popped over at Ku-Ring-Gai Netball Association for their 10 and 11 year old Grand Finals presentations.
After that I had breakfast at the Golden Bakehouse – arguably some of the best pies in Ku-ring-gai! Council also happens to be doing Spring Flowers at South Turramurra this year so it was especially cheerful.
Come meet your friendly Roseville and Gordon Ward candidates here at Gordon Library prepoll. We are here today, plus Monday to Friday next week,
For the candidates reading, I?d also like to promote the importance of using sunscreen if you?re out here all day. I didn?t used to have freckles on my nose but after just one day at the 2019 State Election the sun had done its permanent damage.
Saying thank you to the 2024 leadership team at Ku-ring-gai High School, and welcoming the new team for 2025.
I got to hand out some awards (but don’?’t have any photos on me, it’s a bit hard to take a selfie during an awards ceremony).
Hi Roseville and Lindfield Ward (and slightly beyond). For some reason our brochure hasn?t arrived to all letterboxes yet so if you are missing it, can you please let us know? We can do a separate drop for you.
If you want an electronic copy please visit https://roseville.online/
I was planning to donate plasma today but ended up donating whole blood as they said they were desperately short of it.
Not sure if that’s a good idea right before an election, but we’ll make it work somehow.
If you are a healthy adult I encourage you to visit the Red Cross at Chatswood to donate blood. It’s a pretty straightforward process and they give you some snacks afterwards. Each blood donation can help up to 3 people in need.
Spring Flowers at Roseville and South Turramurra. Each year the council provides Spring Flowers to two suburbs. The Roseville pots are decorated by students from Roseville Public School, and will later be re-used for our Christmas.
