Council wrong move on Sustainability

It is distressing to see the extent that Hornsby council is quickly moving towards government by General Manager and officers without community or even councillor oversight. At the recent council meeting the council General Manager had put up proposals to scrap several of the committees where councillors and interested members of the public can work with council officers to have input into council, and oversight of the performance of council.

Perhaps of chief concern is the proposal to scrap the Sustainability Action Committee. The view of the GM and council officers appears to be that this committee is no longer needed.

Yet in moving this way council ignores many fine statements made throughout council’s management plans and website, put succinctly on the website introduction.

“The Committee works with Council and community in order to achieve its strategic intent of creating a living environment towards a sustainable future.

The Committee’s mission is to ensure a healthy future for Hornsby Shire by fostering sustainable social, environmental and economic practices by council and the community.”

And elsewhere

“It is important in Hornsby Shire Council’s approach to sustainability that decision making processes create an environment in which all stakeholders can become involved in the planning and management of their communities. It requires an emphasis on open, deliberative approaches to decision-making.”

One has to ask why the GM is moving in direct opposition to these fine sentiments ?

Does the GM feel they have done all that is necessary on the sustainability front ? But you only have to look at the GM’s own report, measuring council performance against a fairly faint hearted set of sustainability ambitions, to see that even they do not think so.

Just to pick a few action items and the comments against them

• ·         Continue to implement the Hornsby 2020 Sustainability Framework across council – Limited progress due to resource constraints
• ·         Progress Quadruple Bottom Line sustainability decision making and reporting system within council – No progress due to resource constraints
• ·         Use GIS software to measure bushland cleared illegally – No mapping available.
• ·         Aim for 50% of waterways to be classed as healthy – only 36% measured as “good”, 56% as “poor”

And under the actions for a resilient local economy

• ·         Continue to implement the actions contained in the Sustainable Business Strategy – No progress due to resource constraints.

And as to the big ambition of council expressed in the Community Plan, to become “Carbon Neutral” ? The GM’s report does not even mention the word Carbon!

If the Sustainability Action Committee goes, who will oversight council performance?  GM’s report was waived through the council meeting, despite me putting my name down and requesting to speak on the matter. Not a single councillor questioned the general manager and officers on these complete failures of performance. Without the Sustainability Action Committee is this what we can expect to be the standard performance review from now on?

The community at the council meeting certainly expressed their dismay at this move. But it was very disappointing to see that some of our new councillors evidently were not interested, perhaps shirking the work involved on being on such a committee. Fortunately a holding move was successful, for the committee to be reviewed.

Again, one has to ask why the move, as there is not even any cost saving justification cited in proposing the scrapping of this committee. Does the GM think that the councillors and community are not interested, have nothing more to contribute ?Or that sustainability doesn't matter any more?

It is imperative that the community remind councillors that sustainability is the core principle of the council’s management plan, and that both councillors and the community must be able to oversight performance, and contribute fresh thinking to the council. We definitely need the Sustainability Action Committee.