Long-term Councillor Abb McAlister has been returned to Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council and also returned as CGRC Mayor after the Council held the vote for Mayor and Deputy Mayor at their Tuesday meeting this week.
Mayor McAlister has more than 20 years experience in local government and has been an ardent opponent of the forced merger of the two Council areas since day one. He and fellow Councillor David Graham were so passionate, that when they were being forced into the unwanted marriage between Cootamundra and Gundagai they were prepared to fight the matter in the courts with their own money.
Both Graham and McAlister have been proven right in that the forced mergers have not worked at CGRC and anywhere else in the region and have made the merged Councils unsustainable.
The Times caught up with McAlister who was volunteering at Gundagai South Public School on Wednesday morning and was being kept bust by parents and students.
He said, “I’m just volunteering at the Gundagai South Public School.” We asked, ‘Have you got any plans to jump on that you hadn’t been able to fix while you were out of the seat?’
He said, “The merger hasn’t been good to anyone. We have to look at getting financially sustainable. All merged Councils over the last eight years have lost money. To me it was a wrong decision but the Minister has given us our pathway to the demerger, but it will be up to him in the long run if he gives us that and we have to wait and see how that goes and hopefully we will know something in the next few months.
“There’s a lot of things we can do where we don’t have to spend money and that is lobbying for things in your town such as the Cootamundra Hospital. We want to retain the services there and hopefully one day get a new hospital.
“Council has to lobby to get those things through their Local Member.
“Cootamundra has the abattoirs there and there’s a couple of issues I’d like to see sorted.
“We have to look at housing and in the long run when you have to look at getting at least 600 new residents into your town you have to look at the housing side of things and that’s not only for the workers, we want to try and attract people to our area and also attract other industry.
“We have the perfect area. In Gundagai we have Australia’s most major highway and the river and in Cootamundra you have rail link from Sydney to Melbourne and you are also going to have the Inland Rail going past Stockinbingal and Cootamundra is also on two highways and their topography is very good to attract industry, so we have to look at that as well as the residential side of things.
“The big thing is as Mayor, I’m only one vote. There’s eight other votes there, as there’s nine on Council and we have to work as a team. If you want to win the game you have to work as a team for the betterment of the total Council area, your towns, your villages, the outlying areas.
“I’m very happy with the makeup of Council. They all seem very keen and want to work as a team and have transparency and transparency is another big thing that you need.
“Council is like the board of any large business, you have to be fully informed and that is one thing that we want to make clear is that all Councillors are kept fully informed.
“I’d like to think over the next three months or so we will know where the demerger is going.
“I think the demerger is the best for both Council areas, both towns, but until that happens we have to work together for the whole Council area.
Rosalind Wight was elected as Deputy Mayor and the Times will speak with Ros next week. Congratulations.
Incumbent Mayor Gil Kelly was quick to congratulate new Mayor, Mr McAlister. He took to Cootamundra Matters to state. “Congratulations to Councillor Abb McAlister on being elected to the Mayoral position at last night’s extraordinary meeting (Tuesday). Congratulations are also ex-tended to Councillor Ros Wight for being elected to the position of Deputy Mayor. It was truly a privilege and an honour to have been Mayor if even only for a short time I look forward to working with the new team to lead our Council forward.”
Local committees requiring Council representatives were allocated at the meeting and Council re-solved that Ordinary meeting dates for 2024 – 2025 take place at 6:00pm on the fourth Tuesday of the month from January to November. The Council workshops will take place at 4:00pm on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month from February to November. The December Ordinary Council meeting and workshop will take place on the second Tuesday of the month. The January Council workshop will take place on the fourth Tuesday of the Month. The current arrangement of alternating meetings between Cootamundra and Gundagai. The first Ordinary meeting for the new councillors will be held on Tuesday 22 October 2024 in the Alby Schultz Meeting Centre, Cooper Street Cootamundra at 6pm.