Jesson: the road to 2012

By ROD WISE

The new Administrator of Shellharbour City Council, Mr David Jesson, is no stranger to municipal conflict, nor to that between the elected councillors and the staffing organisation employed to provide professional support to that elected body.

As general manager of Bega Valley Shire Council, Mr Jesson once fell foul of a majority of the council who tried to sack him, which brought in Department of Local Government investigators, which followed, in due course, with him staying and the council itself being sacked.

Then he served on as general manager while the council was placed under administration and then continued in that role when democracy was restored.

“I have some experience of these matters,” he said drily, when alluding to the dysfunctional state of affairs that led to Shellharbour City Council’s dismissal, “but I don’t draw parallels when I consider what has to be done here.

“Commissioner Colley has laid out the roadmap for me to follow.”

The roadmap turns out to be the eight recommendations in the report of Mr Richard Colley’s public inquiry into the Council. They range from the self-evident – “No.1: All civic offices at Shellharbour City Council are declared vacant as soon as possible” – to the more complex – “No.5: The Administrator review Council’s performance, plans and forecasts in relation to Shell Cove, and ensure the adequacy of the ongoing supervisory and reporting arrangements”.

Indeed, Mr Jesson did not disagree that, on the face of it, all the recommendations, bar those on Shell Cove and reorganising the number of council wards, might seem like relatively simple tasks, that could be dealt with in three to six months not four years.

However, he said that there were other matters alluded to in the Commissioner’s report that would need his attention, although he did not want to highlight them at this stage because he has not prioritised the tasks before him. “I don’t want to set the hares running.”

In any event, he said, “I would imagine that issues that might seem comparatively simple in fact will require a huge volume of work if they are to be done properly. There will be no rushing to judgment. I want the best outcomes.”

Mr Jesson said the Colley inquiry showed that the aim of his administration must be to improve the channels of communication between the council and the community.

“As action plans are developed to implement the roadmap,” he said, “the community will be kept informed about it because (after the ongoing council strife of the recent past) everyone needs to be assured that all the protections of their interests are in place.”

As far as the ratepayers being left with a huge debt or a huge hole in the ground at Shell Cove, the Administrator said that he did not think that either outcome was likely to happen. He was confident that ”the developer will have made prudent arrangements to ride out the present downturn in the property market”.

And has the council been similarly prudent? “They are the sorts of issues I want to look at. And, while respecting commercial confidentialities, the community needs to know where it stands.”

And, as for who will be the real boss of Shellharbour Council, he replied that the 1993 Local Government Act makes it quite clear that he has replaced only the council, not the general manager.

“I will not be a super general manger,” he said. “The clear lines of responsibility between the two will not be crossed.”

rwise@laketimes.com.au