Temora Mayor Rick Firman is a member of the Boundaries Commission and was happy with the outcome on Thursday July 19. He said, “Mr. Duncan and Mr. Walter and Councillor Fagan, they’re all just a real pleasure to work with and it may have taken longer than we’d hoped, however, we wanted to do this thoroughly and properly and remember that’s this current commission, remember I’ve been on this commission since 2016 so I’ve been on that journey with Coota-Gundagai for that period and I’ve observed and have been very impressed the way that Mayor McAlister and his Council and his community, his staff and councillors have conducted themselves over that time.
“But what’s really, really, very, very clear is that the council has always been unanimous, whether it was from day one that they believed they would be much better off as separate entities, but their community is the one that they have not waivered.
“Now obviously we were concerned about the financial situation with Gundagai, however, we were convinced that there was enough determination that they are prepared to pay and do whatever it takes for them to have their autonomy back.
“I’ve got to say, I was a very moved when at our last public hearings that we had as a commission in Gundagai, to see Mayor McAlister, one of the toughest roosters you ever did see, particularly on a rugby league field or wherever, but when he broke down it hit home that this wrong needed to be righted.
“You are dealing with people with community and they have not waived as I’ve said, and I’m just proud of the work that we’ve done, it’s very intense when we do the work, obviously, because we like to make sure you read every single submission and re-reading transcripts, reading our notes from public hearings. And even, you know, Cootamundra, they had over 120 something at that last year. That’s unusual for Coota. But yet again, they were loud and clear in their view as well. And I think also what was very encouraging for us as a commission is knowing that we have the likes of Mayor McAlister, Councillor Graham, Councillor Nicholson, having those three keen to stand again and then encourage some new blood with the merged entity, but also again with Cootamundra, with former Mayor Sheahan and former Mayor Kelly, former deputy mayor Palmer, and those people prepared to stand with that experience, but also encourage new blood, that’s a big formidable combination, I would think.
“I feel so privileged to be involved in this commission and again I have a general view that if a merger is what or the majority of your council and your community want then let’s look at how that can happen.
However, when you have a council that is consistently unanimous in their view and you have an overwhelming majority of the communities that make up that merged entity consistent in their view of saying, no, no, no, this just isn’t right, then I think that we need to look at that very, very carefully.
“But again, when we looked at inner West, for example, that was a divided council, a divided community, you hardly had anyone that attended the public hearing. So that to me says, do they really care? They throw a rock and you’re in another shire?
“But again, the point is that I’m proud of the commission. We as commissioners look at every proposal put to us, we take it very, very, very seriously and we work very, very, very hard and as I said, I’m just proud to be part of it and proud of my colleagues and the staff that’s on the commission because there’s a lot of work involved when we do consider proposals, but we feel blessed to be part of it.
“There were some hard hitting submissions that had an impact on us.
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