By MATT NICHOLLS
ARMIDALE Dumaresq Council will not be suspended or put in administration, despite the calls to do so by councillor Herman Beyersdorf.
An hour after the council announced it had officially terminated the contract of general manager Shane Burns, Cr Beyersdorf called on Local Government Minister Don Page to sack the councillors.
“While I have no wish to end my lengthy career of well over 20 years as a councillor in this fashion, I do think that events have now progressed so far that urgent intervention by the Government is the only way to turn this council around,” he said.
But those views were not shared by Mr Page .
“We do have legislation giving the Minister power to intervene with a council that’s dysfunctional, but there are certain criteria that have to apply before I, as Minister, would be prepared to do that,” he said.
“There’d have to be obvious evidence of dysfunctionality, then they would be given a Notice to Improve and, if that didn’t happen, then I do have the capacity to suspend the council for three months and try and sort out the problems.”
Mayor Laurie Bishop said he agreed with the Minister for Local Government and that councillors had to sort out their own problems.
“We are not a dysfunctional council, but we have to improve ourselves and work better together,” he said.
“I don’t think (Cr Beyersdorf)’s comments are justified.”
Cr Beyersdorf said he believed the council had become dysfunctional based on the lengthy delays on the establishment of a new landfill, as well as the sacking of the general manager.
“It is my belief that staff morale has hit rock bottom and the instability in the organisation over the next few months until a new permanent general manager can be appointed will not improve this situation,” he said.
“In addition, our standing in the community has also suffered, with council having become the butt of jokes and worse in the public eye.”
