Wednesday’s council meeting was a highlight for this community, though probably not too many people knew about it. But then that is the way council usually works, sometimes you have to look very hard to find out about some of the things they achieve because council is not an individual politician trying to claim credit for everything in order to keep his job.
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In fact councillors get paid very little, and they do rely heavily on the quality of the staff employed by the general manager, as do we all for the ongoing quality of the various services we have come to expect from a pro-active and successful organisation such as the Inverell Shire Council.
Now, that comment may bring jeers from some quarters, however, the proof is in the pudding, as they say, and this week the ‘pudding’ was placed on the table when council released its Fit For the Future Roadmap at its monthly meeting.
It is a document that took a team under the supervision of Ken Beddie months to finish and the outcome is one that general manager, Paul Henry, is very pleased with.
The roadmap was done within strict restraints of a state government template, which prevented any ‘fudging’ of figures, unrealistic predictions and over enthusiastic strategies from being advanced. In other words, councils right across NSW had to provide the government with an accurate assessment of their present situation and tell government what they intended to do about it.
That is what is in this roadmap, and it is now available for every ratepayer to read, You’ll get it at the council chambers, but it is also available online at the council website.
Our roadmap is a remarkable document that Mr Henry invited everyone to read and councillors thought everyone should read. It’s loaded with facts, and there are some things in it that may surprise even quite a few of the traditional ‘knockers’.
Basically it tells the state government that this council has worked hard in the past to remain independent and is now able to stay that way because we are in the top 25 per cent of councils in NSW. When you think about that it is no mean feat for a council this size.
When there are neighbouring councils all around this area pushing for their ratepayers to oppose amalgamation it says a lot that our council remains confident enough not to have to go down that path at this stage, and for that they do really deserve our ‘yay for the day’.
