Letter to the Beagle Editor
Council Stonewalling Surfside Experts
The editor must be getting sick of hearing from me, but this council forces me to keep on writing.
The NSW Coastal Alliance has received a formal complaint from the “Save Surfside Committee” claiming that Council is refusing to provide its technical advisers with the consultancy brief from which the Eurobodalla Coastal Management Program (ECMP) is being prepared. The advisers have a number of issues with the stage two hazard study and without the brief (the written instructions from Council) they cannot establish whether it is the consultants or Council who must explain the anomalies.
It is very poor form when a handful of local government public servants can issue instructions designed to decide the future of over 100 million dollars worth of property in Lower Surfside, and then deny the intended victims access to those instructions. Claims that briefing documents are commercial in confidence is a load of “codswallop”. Briefs are public documents that are freely released to the contractors who tender for the work. It is an even bigger farce when the mayor is trying to organise a meeting with Surfside’s team of experts to talk with councillors, while at the same time council staff are withholding information and undermining her efforts.
Once again, it is time our councillors got off their backsides and instructed the General Manager to deliver the transparency many of the current councillors promised their constituents. It is also time the public servants being paid by the ratepayers of this shire, learnt how to serve the public.
Ian Hitchcock
Eurobodalla Regional Coordinator
NSW Coastal Alliance
