Residents attend meeting on second Mosman merger plan
About 80 people attended Wednesday night’s public meeting on the NSW Government’s latest merger proposal for Mosman, which includes North Sydney and Willoughby, ahead of the end of the consultation period next Friday.
Illustrating the continuing community interest in Mosman’s future, the meeting followed last week’s NSW Government-run public inquiry held in Mosman attended by 200 residents and ratepayers.
Mosman Mayor Peter Abelson provided a brief update on issues relevant to the proposal and urged residents to have their say before consultation closes at 5pm on Friday April 8 before answering a range of questions from concerned residents.
He said there were a number of key concerns amid fears that “quality of service levels will decline” and that potentially being limited to two councillors representing Mosman on a bigger merged council would mean it is “simply not accountable to the Mosman community”.
Cr Abelson also referred to work by noted academic Professor Brian Dollery which showed that contrary to NSW Government predictions “costs almost always go up” following mergers that form bigger councils.
After the meeting Cr Abelson said it was vital residents again share their views: “The community is clearly still concerned and prepared to turn out in large numbers to be heard and we need them to follow up with new submissions as this latest proposal is totally separate to the first merger proposal involving Manly and part of Warringah”.
Mosman Council voted at its meeting on 8 March to oppose the Mosman, North Sydney and Willoughby proposal and – along with consistent community survey results – remains strongly opposed to any forced amalgamation.
After community consultation closes, the Government’s delegate will prepare a report for the Minister for Local Government and the Local Government Boundaries Commission. It is understood the report may only be publicly released at the Minister’s discretion.
Online submissions may be made by visiting yourvoicemosman.com.au/merger2