Council behavior

MANY thanks for hitting the proverbial nail on the head with your opinion piece in last week’s Courier.

I feel sure that the cabal of councillors representing our two largest towns in Alexandrina will insist on yet another code of conduct against Councillor Lewis for her temerity in nominating for the Mayoralty in order to bring some common sense and responsibility back into the operations of the council.

She and two of her colleagues have been the only councillors prepared to question the profligate and costly budgets continually proposed and approved by the rest of council, which see ratepayers now hit with one of the highest rate increases in SA Local Government in 2022/23, with the prospect of enduring another 10 years of such levels, thanks to the short sighted presumptions made in the council’s Long Term Financial Plan.

It is interesting to note that they couldn’t stick to their plan for even the first cycle (page 19 – 3.4% rates average for first 5 years of the LTFP).

I look forward to a clean-out of the current parochial, short sighted crop of councillors in favor of a new team who place ratepayers’ local needs, ability to pay and balanced budgets at the forefront of their deliberations.

I suppose I’m up for a code of conduct violation now.

Stephen Corbally, Port Elliot