Council has declined to invite Council Watch to a press conference on Wednesday morning when the Gosford waterfront and stadium precinct masterplan will be discussed.
Council Watch asked politely for entree to the event only to be told: no, this is by invitation only and you have not been invited.
Lucky I have a robust and sturdy resilience. It hurts to be cut. Cancelled. Ignored.
Actively ignored.
I have emailed MP Adam Crouch in the hope he can persuade Council to adopt an open and transparent relationship with the local press.
All of us.
Any other suggestions are gladly accepted.
I wrote a story on the masterplan and posted it both here on this website and on my facebook page on September 21 – five days ago – and it has attracted a lot of interest, as it does every time Council comes up with a masterplan for the waterfront.
For background, I began my career at the Central Coast Express in the 1980s and my first gig was to tag along with the senior reporter Joan Campbell to the Gosford Council meetings.
Over the years, the company moved me to other newspapers within the News Limited Group; I started the Lake Macquarie Advocate; became editor of The Glebe in the inner west of Sydney; was chief of staff for Cumberland and went on to become editor-in-chief of Murdoch’s group of Brisbane suburban newspapers, Quest.
Eventually I moved across to the regional newspapers owned by Fairfax and spent about eight years travelling the country training the company’s young journalists.
It was the world’s best job.
When I accepted redundancy in 2017, I had this mad nostalgic idea that I would bookend my career with one last visit to a Gosford Council meeting.
I am, after all, a Vale from Vales Point, born in Gosford Hospital, a student of both Gosford Primary and Gosford High, and I had returned to the Coast.
But, I found Gosford council no longer existed; we were now Central Coast Council, we were under administration (first one) and council elections were due soon.
I wanted to cast my vote diligently and I was annoyed at the lack of decent information about the candidates other than their own puff pieces.
I started Council Watch so when the 2020 elections rolled around, I would know how those 15 councillors had performed.
That went well, eh? If you’re a council watcher, you’re aware the elections were pushed back a year due to Covid and then the councillors were suspended and elections have now been pushed back again to 2024.
As for me? After five years, I can proudly say I have attended every council meeting since the councillors were elected, suspended, replaced with administrator (number two, Dick Persson and number three Rik Hart).
I write up every decision made at every council meeting.
On top of that, I write every other story that I think readers need to know about – and they are not necessarily the ones Council would want me to write.
I get that.
But Council says it values transparency and communication with the community.
I’m simply helping that process.
My loyal readers are worth every effort I make.
I thank you for your support.
Council can’t cancel me.
Not yet anyway.
- Merilyn Vale
Thank you for your diligence Nerelyn. The community appreciates your monitoring of Council meetings, especially given difficulties of access for many of us and reduced meetings
It is unbelievable that the press has been banned from the waterfront and stadium meeting: what gave they to hide? Why by invitation only? Local Govt office might be able to explain whether this new secrecy is NSW Government policy now?
It also raises the question of who is being invited and why?
GCC’s environment section advised that the Broadwater is the most polluted waterway in Tge tgen LGA because of fertilising activity from original orchards on nearby Creek, and significant acid sukohate soils that dhoukd not be distorted
The coincidences of high tide and Southerlies smashes waves against the shore of the Broadwater adjacent to the stadium with no exit except up onto Land
Past episodes have blown boats up onto the area- and increased Sea level projections for Thst area snd along the main drive on the eastern side are likely to exacerbate the problem ms which GCC and CCRDC were advised needed to be addressed before the then CCRDC development proposal proceeded. The previous proposal then lapsed
I wonder how CCC proposed to address these continuing – and worsening – issues? Perhaps only those admitted to the meeting will know??