DEAR News Of The Area,

IN the Mayor’s column published in the Manning River Times on Friday 31 May 2024, the Mayor says in part that Council is developing a plan “which sets forth a path toward financial sustainability” and ensures “operations are lean and efficient, and deliver value for money to the community”.

I was pleased to see these comments from our Mayor because some recent Council decisions seem to contradict the statements above.

Some of these decisions might be termed wasteful.

I define “wasteful” as monies spent which provide little benefit to the taxpayer.

In other words, money spent is way out of proportion to the benefits achieved for the community.

One example might be the construction of the new Council building, built for $18 million.

Another example would be the painting of the Martin Bridge at Taree and the Dawson River Bridge at Cundletown – using $22 million of the State’s money to do so.

There was no improvement whatsoever to either bridge after the painting.

We were left with the same width and the same height restrictions as before – and no improvement to traffic flow.

So, what was actually accomplished?

The $22 million grant is now one less grant from the State Government that MidCoast Council will get in the future, to do something useful with.

These two projects cost $40 million with no real direct benefit to the tax payers.

Yet another example is the Cedar Party Creek bridge project at Wingham- costing $39 million.

This is an overly complicated solution to provide a flood free crossing of the creek.

A simpler and less costly solution would have been to construct the new bridge immediately upstream of the railway bridge.

The Taree/Wingham road would then go straight ahead, cross the bridge, join Primrose Street on the other side, and use that railway crossing to cross the tracks.

A total of about $80 million has been spent on these three large projects, during which a large percentage of the funds have been wasted.

In addition, Council was approached about reducing wage costs with the suggestion of reducing the number of elected Councillors.

Council voted no change for the moment, and then turned around to vote themselves the maximum pay increase allowed.

Again monies spent with no direct benefit to the ratepayers.

Yet again, we have the strange case of Council taking one of its councillors to court over the Golden Turd Award.

The legal costs of this action were estimated to be about $50,000.

Who paid this money for that action?

Obviously none of the above reflect the newly elected Council.

And to be fair, not all decisions mentioned have been made by the previous Council.

Perhaps the plan mentioned by the Mayor in May, and currently being developed by Council, will see better use of Council funds in the future.

Regards,
R BEARDMORE,
Taree.