Councillor Don Palmer Providing Local Leadership & Working for You

Unlike what happens at State or Federal Government levels Local Government must undergo an exhaustive exercise, including public consultation when reviewing their ward boundaries.

Council is about to commence a review, as required by the Local Government Act, a review of boundaries ready for the next council elections.

We were advised last night in a workshop that this will be a lengthy drawn out process that will involve us in many workshops and meetings and two (yes two) rounds of public consultation to review the boundaries but wait….there’s more.

We are required to consider the following issues and demonstrate that we have given due consideration to each before putting a submission to the electoral commission.

1 Consider how many wards we have, or whether or not to dispense with wards.

2 Should we have Area/Ward Councillors.

3 The number of elected members that we should have going forward.

4 Should we have a Mayor elected by the people or a Chairperson (who can be called Mayor if we want) elected by the elected members from within their own.

5 Quotas for each ward

6 Ward Representation.

Amongst other things which I have not the time to list here.

And we must find time while we are doing this to do the job we were elected to do.

I will keep you posted on this as it unfolds. Who knows you might be one of the 5 or 6 we think might be interested enough to provide public feedback at the appropriate times.