Central Coast Council financial crisis: Resigned councillors Troy Marquart, Rebecca Gale speak out
Two Central Coast councillors have spoken out about their decision to resign, sending a ‘strong statement’ to the Local Government Minister and community.
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The two Central Coast councillors who resigned on Monday have spoken out about their sudden decision.
Troy Marquart and Rebecca Gale, both Liberal councillors, handed in their resignations just after 5pm on Monday before the council meeting where councillors debated their response to Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock’s suspension order.
Mayor Lisa Matthews and all councillors are facing suspension over the council’s financial crisis.
Mr Marquart said the resignations were a “strong statement” to show Ms Hancock that they had lost confidence in the council.
“We don’t want people to see this as us jumping out of a sinking ship,” he said.
“We wanted to make a significant statement that we have lost confidence in council, the chamber and the back room staff. We don’t believe that they can control the situation in any facet.”
Ms Gale said while she resigned with a “deep sense of contrition”, it was in the interests of the coast community for councillors to step down and allow an administrator to be appointed. She said the council’s 100-day recovery plan is not going to help the dire situation.
“It’s not going to get the result that the community needs,” she said.
“There was an $18m deficit announced in June and that blew out to $41m. The public figure is now $89m. I look forward to when the true figures come out.”
Mr Marquart said councillors had been wrapped up in confidential sessions since the crisis was announced, only to see media statements being put out which understated the seriousness of the issue.
“It’s such a downplay of the situation that it’s embarrassing. The residents deserve better.”
Cr Greg Best has been openly saying the deficit figure is likely to be as high as $300m.
“We are in a loss reaching a magnitude of $300m,” he said at last night’s council meeting. “I suggest councillors Marquart and Gale have recognised the reality.”
Mr Marquart said the grossly high figures that Cr Best was talking about had been “bandied” around.
He said councillors needed to be honest with themselves.
“They all know this is over. The situation cannot be remedied,” he said.
“There’s embarrassment and desperation. There’s a few councillors that believe that this situation can be saved.
“If this cancer is allowed to go on much longer it will go from catastrophic to generational. I don’t want my three boys to be paying for this.”
Ms Gale said between councillors asking for advice in using its restricted funds for day-to-day cash flow to the revelation that council was unable to pay staff last week, the Liberal councillors wrote to Ms Hancock asking for her to step in.
“There needs to be a full investigation,” she said.
“We as councillors cannot do that. We need to recognise the situation for what it is. It will ultimately be our children and our children’s children that pay the consequence.”
Both Ms Gale and Mr Marquart, who have been calling for more fiscal responsibility in council over the past few years, believe all the information around council’s financial crisis should be made public as soon as possible.
“We could have sat in the council meeting meekly last night but we thought this gave us an opportunity to tell people on the Central Coast that they are being treated like mushrooms,” Mr Marquart said.