At last night’s (Tuesday, 26 May) extraordinary meeting, Council voted unanimously to defer a decision on its future until it has direction about what criteria will be in place to assess submissions about proposed amalgamations.
“Let’s be very clear on this – we are against forced amalgamations. We would prefer to stand alone and we have evidence to show we are Fit for the Future,” Mayor Tsirekas said.
“We have been looking at a range of options over the past nine months, including the State Government’s preferred option of an inner west mega council involving us, Ashfield, Burwood, Leichhardt, Marrickville and Strathfield. Independent modelling on this option has been undertaken by Morrison and Low demonstrating that financially, for the long-term future of our community, this simply does not stack up.
“Council is in a position where it needs to choose between submitting a stand-alone proposal or a merger proposal in line with the State Government’s requirements by Tuesday, 30 June, 2015.
“To date, all of the feedback suggests a stand-alone option will not be considered, which is why we commissioned another independent report to look at what amalgamation options will be in the best long-term interest of our community. We firmly believe it needs to be an option that has a strong economic base and reflects the long-term state and regional priorities of growth around Sydney Olympic Park precinct.
“As a result we have been in discussions with Burwood and Auburn in recent months and all of the modelling suggests that financially, this is a very strong option for our community.”
Mayor Tsirekas said Council was also mindful of the fact that the criteria for judging Council’s applications had not been released, hence why it voted to defer a decision until after its release, which is expected to be Monday, 1 June, 2015.
“How can we expect to submit an application when we don’t know what it will be judged against? That is setting all councils up to fail. We are also concerned about the timeframe as we will only have until 30 June to submit our proposal once the criteria is released,” he said.
The resolution that was passed also asked that a further report be presented to Council on any changes that IPART has made to its methodology and to also present a report about the outcome of Burwood Council’s deliberations on a proposed merger of Burwood, City of Canada Bay and Auburn.
In addition, it was requested that the State MP for Drummoyne, Mr John Sidoti investigate what options might be available to the City of Canada Bay in terms of their submission to IPART.
“It was pleasing to see the State Member at our meeting last night, supporting the City of Canada Bay in terms of what we are doing for our community and putting forward suggestions for proposed amalgamations,” Mayor Tsirekas said.
The Mayor included in his recommendation to defer, a clause about wanting information on Burwood’s deliberation as they have been part of the discussion in recent weeks with Auburn.
“If we are not permitted to stand alone, which is the very real indication so far, our best option is Auburn, Burwood and Canada Bay so we need to continue that discussion which was reflected in the resolution that was passed last night,” Mayor Tsirekas said.