Council Transparency Archives - Clover Hill Diaries

When democracy means more than Council making the decisions

In a previous post I wrote about the difference between community consultation and community engagement. They are not the same thing, no matter how often the words get swapped around.

Community consultation and community engagement are not the same thing, no matter how often the words get swapped around.

Kiama Council has adopted the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum as its model for community engagement. It is a useful spectrum because it makes one thing very clear. How much say are you actually giving people?

IAP2 level	What Council does	What it means for the community
Inform	Provides information	We will tell you what is happening
Consult	Asks for feedback	We will ask what you think
Involve	Works with the community as options develop	We will work through it with you
Collaborate	Partners with the community in developing solutions	We will develop the answer together
Empower	Places the final decision with the community	You make the decision

IAP2 is about the role the community gets to play before a decision is made, and who decides what that role will be.

IAP2 is not a campaign to abolish elected representatives and hand every Council decision to a show of hands in Hindmarsh Park. It is about the role the community gets to play before a decision is made, and who decides what that role will be.

Kiama Council says it has adopted the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum. Well, sort of. It has adopted a Kiama Council version of it, particularly at the pointy end. How much say are you actually prepared to give people?

Council explains its approach to Empower in its own community engagement document. In effect, you elected us, so we’ll handle the democracy from here.

Kiama Council is currently recruiting a new Manager Communications, Engagement & Customer Service. I am looking forward to seeing who gets the job.

I am not interested in whether they can run a survey, organise a drop-in session or put something on Your Say Kiama. Those are tools. I want to know what they think community engagement is.

Do they see IAP2 as a way to tell residents what Council is doing and collect feedback, or as a framework for giving the community a genuine role in defining problems, developing options and influencing decisions?

The community deserves to know who gets invited in, when they get invited in, what they can change and what Council promises to do with what it hears.

The appointment will tell us plenty. Good community engagement starts with deciding how much say you are prepared to give the community.

Councils rely on silence until a community remembers its voice

The three arrows represent the choices communities face when they encounter a council that holds all the authority and none of the curiosity. The left and right paths symbolise the familiar reactions that come with frustration, blame or fatigue. The path labelled Forward shows something different. It marks the moment a community steps out of the noise and moves with clarity and principle. Forward is the empowerment choice. It is the reminder that while we cannot control council’s behaviour, we can control how we act, how we respond, our character and how we treat others. It is the road that stays true to who we are.

When council forgets who the power belongs to

Power imbalance appears when a council begins to behave as if authority is ownership.
Information becomes selective. Access becomes conditional. The community is treated as an audience rather than the owner.

People feel the shift long before they name it. Straightforward questions turn into complicated pathways. Residents are managed instead of respected. Accountability starts to look optional.

How people get pushed toward the victim triangle

When the field is uneven, communities can slide into powerless roles. They feel dismissed or stonewalled and begin reacting from frustration, fatigue, or blame.
This is a predictable response to a system that holds all the levers.

The moment a community shifts from powerless to unstoppable

The way back is the empowerment triangle

Communities regain their footing when they centre the only things they control:
• how they act
• how they respond
• their character
• how they treat others

This is where agency settles in.
People organise. They ask precise questions. They document facts. They refuse drama. They stand in clarity rather than reaction.
The power imbalance may still exist, but it no longer defines the community’s stance.

The simple principles that turn frustration into power

The shift that matters

Once people anchor themselves in principle, the dynamic changes.
Council can still try to shape the story or slow the process, but they cannot control a community that knows its rights, its voice, and its values.

The forward road belongs to all of us – if we make courage a shared act
And even though some people cannot speak openly because they depend on Council, the community can still walk that road together. Forward is not the loudest choice, it is the principled one. It is how we hold our ground, protect each other and keep insisting on the standards our local government was meant to uphold.

#Kiama #CommunityVoice #GoodGovernance #Transparency #Empowerment #CivicEngagement #Accountability #LocalGovernment #PowerImbalance

I also acknowledge advocating/truth-telling at this level is easier for me. Once their actions forced me to leave a job I loved, I don’t rely on Council for anything, and I know many people who want to speak up but worry they will be punished for it. We all know examples of that happening in our community.

It’s not about heroes, it’s about all of us

This is a series for anyone who’s ever asked, What’s really going on in local government or why does this feel so hard to follow?

Reading my blogs takes you behind the scenes of local government, community advocacy, and the stories that don’t always make it into the minutes. It’s a mix of personal reflection, plain-English explanations, and shared learning – all with one goal in mind: to help more people feel confident, connected, and capable of being part of the change.

Whether you’re on the front line or watching from the stands, you’re welcome here. We all have a part to play.

My aim has always been to give others the confidence to ask questions, challenge what doesn’t make sense, and speak up when something’s not right. Not everyone needs to write or speak publicly. Not everyone wants to. That’s fine.

This is more like a surf club or a fire brigade. Not everyone is on the front line, but everyone has a role. It might be helping with background research, sharing minutes from a meeting, keeping an eye on council papers, or simply encouraging someone else to keep going.

This kind of community work isn’t about heroes. It’s about habits. It’s about people doing what they can, where they are, with what they’ve got.

If you’ve been watching from the sidelines and wondering how to get more involved, maybe this is your moment. If you’ve got time, skills, insight or even just interest, I’d love to hear from you.

We can do this together, because it matters.

#ReadingTheBlogs #CivicsMadeSimple #WeAllHaveARole #LocalGovernmentMatters #CommunityVoices #Kiama #InformedTogether

Timing the takedown. How long before the CEO wants it gone?

If you are new to my blog series “You wont believe what happens when the CEO doesn’t like your story ” will give you the back story

What a relief

This morning I woke up to a familiar ping from my calendar – Council Business Papers Released. It’s a standing reminder, set for the second Wednesday of every month. These days, it makes me smile. A quiet kind of relief.

Because for a long time, that ping meant game on.

Like the councillors themselves, I’d be facing anything up to a thousand pages. As the civics reporter for our local paper, I had to work out what mattered most to the community and turn it into two or three solid stories within 24 hours. That was just the start.

The rest of the week meant deep research. Back through past decisions. On the phone to former councillors. Listening to Public Access presentations. Sometimes speaking at them. Sitting in on community advocacy meetings to understand what people were pushing for.

Then came the council meeting itself – usually several hours of policy, politics and process. Lately, it’s felt more like theatre. Half the room auditioning for Utopia. Speeches aimed at the livestream, not each other. Lines delivered for effect, not impact. It’s not about getting things done – it’s about being seen to be doing something.

And after all that, I’d still have to write it up. Fast. The final 48-hour stretch often meant no sleep, just a deadline and the hope that the final version made sense to someone who hadn’t been living and breathing it for days. Then came the next round – usually wondering how long it would take for the CEO to demand the article be taken down. Sometimes I didn’t even get through breakfast.

What I didn’t realise at the time was how completely this cycle had consumed my life. Not just my time, but my attention, my energy, my bandwidth for anything else.

This morning, the reminder was still there – but the pressure wasn’t. I can choose now whether to open the papers. Whether to watch the meeting. Whether to write anything at all.

Better still, I’m no longer trying to figure out what we all aren’t being told.
Turns out, freedom feels like a Thursday morning without a thousand pages waiting for you.

#StopwatchIsTicking #LocalPoliticsUnplugged #WhatArentWeBeingTold #FreedomFeelsGood #CivicsUnfiltered #Kiama #TheBugle #TheBugleNewspaper #TheBugleApp

What the Kiama surf club saga reveals about Council culture

New here?
This blog is part of a series that explores how local government decisions affect everyday people in the Kiama area. I’m a long-time resident and former civics reporter, and I write to help our community stay informed, ask better questions and understand how things are meant to work – especially when they don’t.

In a 2024 media release, Kiama Council CEO Jane Stroud responded to community concern about the Gerringong Surf Life Saving Club build.

At the time, she said:

“There are several important lessons to be learnt in this project in terms of community driven replacement of Council owned facilities versus planned strategic replacement and renewal of Council assets.”

That’s a loaded sentence.

On the surface, it sounds like collaboration. But read between the lines and you’ll spot a recurring theme in how this Council operates: control, deflection, and carefully curated language that shifts accountability without ever saying the word.

When the CEO refers to community-driven replacement versus planned strategic replacement, she is drawing a line between Council’s preferred way of working – slow, top-down, internal – and what actually happened: a local surf club took initiative, secured $6 million in funding, and managed a major public project on community land.

The club did what Council didn’t. And instead of asking what Council could learn from that, the statement subtly positions the community effort as the problem. As if the real issue is that the community acted – not that Council failed to meet its own development consent conditions, failed to date the construction agreement, and allowed the building to be occupied while key access issues were unresolved.

When asbestos was discovered during construction, Council agreed to contribute an additional $370,000 to help cover remediation costs. It was a necessary move, but also a telling one, especially when paired with what the CEO said next:

“We hope this half-million-dollar shortfall serves as an important lesson and a model for better collaboration in future community projects.”

This reads like gratitude wrapped in a warning. A way of saying, thanks for doing the hard work, but don’t do it like this again.

This is the heart of the problem. At Kiama Council, there is a pattern. When something doesn’t go to plan, the instinct is not to own the issue or bring the right people to the table. It is to recast the story. Reframe the facts. And remind everyone who holds the pen.

That might pass in internal briefings. But in a community? People notice. Because they remember who showed up. Who fundraised. Who built the thing. And who quietly waited for Council to catch up or come clean.

And let’s not forget, this wasn’t a private build on private land. The new surf club was constructed on community land, managed by Council. That means Council was the landowner, the regulator, and the eventual asset holder. So when asbestos was discovered during construction, the obvious question is: why didn’t Council already know it was there?

If Council had done the necessary environmental due diligence, it should have been flagged long before the project started. Instead, the cost of that oversight was shifted, again, to the community group doing the heavy lifting.

This is what happens when governance loses sight of its core job: to serve, support, and safeguard the public interest. Not to act surprised when the cracks show.

It’s time we stopped mistaking polished press releases for leadership. Real leadership is about working with the community, not against it. It’s about learning lessons, not assigning them.

And most of all, it’s about being honest – especially when it’s inconvenient.

#KiamaCouncil #LocalLeadership #CommunityAccountability #PublicLand #SurfClubBuild #AsbestosOversight #GovernanceMatters #CivicEngagement #DevelopmentConsent #InfrastructureTransparency

Why doesn’t our community deserve Fortune 500 leadership?

In the past week, 17.5% of the adult population in the Kiama local government area has read my blogs. That’s one in five adults in our community who care enough to invest their time and energy. They know something is off in our community. They want transparency. They want honesty. They want leadership from our local council.

And let’s not forget the rest. Many of them are too busy putting food on the table, keeping businesses afloat, raising families, and holding it all together. They don’t have time to read blogs. But they still feel the consequences when leadership fails.

When I interviewed many of our newly elected councillors after the last election, one thing was clear. They were stepping into complex roles with very little support. There was no structured induction. No formal training in governance or local government processes. No shared understanding of Council’s priorities, history, or the issues still bubbling below the surface.

It wasn’t a lack of care or commitment. It was a lack of preparation.

In any organisation, leadership means understanding not just what you want to do, but how things came to be the way they are. That requires context. That requires proper briefings. And that requires those with institutional knowledge to step forward and help new leaders navigate what’s come before.

When that does not happen, people don’t step up. They step over. That’s not leadership. That’s a takeover.

So let’s ask some practical questions:

Do incoming mayors and councillors receive the training they need?
Does Kiama Council currently have any councillors with formal governance or leadership qualifications?
And why isn’t it standard practice for councillors to complete training such as the Australian Institute of Company Directors course or an equivalent local government program?

We expect a lot from our elected representatives. But if we want strong, confident leadership, we need to set people up to succeed, not leave them guessing.

We expect a lot from our elected representatives. If we want strong, confident leadership, we need to set people up to succeed, not leave them guessing.

It’s time to raise the bar and support our councillors to be the role models all councils deserve.

This isn’t a school P&C. This is a multimillion dollar organisation with serious decisions to make. If this were a Fortune 500 company, the CEO would be accountable. The board would be trained. Everyone would know the mission, the risks, the numbers.

So why should we expect anything less for our community?

What sort of community doesn’t expect this kind of training as part of professional development for its councillors? These are people stepping up on top of full-time careers, and that’s true of every one of our current councillors. So why isn’t the system built to support them properly? Why isn’t it fit for purpose?

Here’s what a proper induction should look like for anyone making decisions on behalf of the public:

Clarity of purpose and public value.
Roles and responsibilities, including who’s accountable for what.
Briefings on key financials, risks, and strategic documents.
Agreement on top priorities for the next one, two and three years.
Decision-making frameworks that promote transparency.
Governance training, plain-language briefings, and mentorship.
Ongoing development, not a once-off induction day

Instead, what we get is councillors fed just enough information to feel like they’re part of something while the real power remains hidden in the hands of staff.

Three of our current councillors were part of the previous Council that oversaw significant financial decline. So what lessons have they learned? From where I sit, not many. Councillors who tried to challenge the system were met with code of conduct complaints or ICAC referrals. Both amounted to nothing, except a hefty bill for ratepayers.

And now? There’s still no sign of change. There’s still spin on Council’s website. There’s still a reluctance to tell the full story.

And here’s the real kicker. Any councillor who has the courage to stand up and ask the hard questions is quickly isolated. Dismissed. Gaslit. The process is subtle, but the outcome is clear. Ask too many questions, and you become the problem. Not the broken system. You.

And let’s be honest. It’s a bit frightening.

Most people who run for Council do it for the right reasons. They want better outcomes for the community. But the job they step into is big. It’s complex. It’s political. Without the right training or support, they don’t just struggle. They get swallowed.

This is public money. This is real infrastructure. These are decisions that affect homes, safety, environment and future generations. If you wouldn’t be allowed to walk into the boardroom of a hundred million dollar company without preparation, why is it okay in a local government chamber?

So here’s a question worth asking.

Who do you represent?
Because if it’s not the people, then who is it?
And shouldn’t we all be clear on that?

And here’s the harder question.
Why don’t more people with the right experience and training step up to lead?

That’s the conversation we need to have.
Not just around election time, but all the time.

#KiamaCommunity #LocalLeadership #CouncilAccountability #GoodGovernance #CommunityFirst #PublicTrust #TransparencyMatters #LocalDemocracy #LeadershipMatters #CivicResponsibility

The real challenge isn’t the lease. It’s the leadership.

New here?
This blog unpacks the twists and turns of local democracy in the Kiama local government area. I’m not a councillor, not council staff, and not on any payroll. I’m a community member and former civics reporter for the local paper, and I care about transparency, process and public trust.

The post below is part of an ongoing series examining the drama around the new Gerringong Surf Life Saving Club building, and more specifically, the confusion over who runs what, who approves what, and why something as simple as a kiosk lease has become a political minefield.

If you care about good governance and strong communities, this one’s for you.

What would happen if we called time on the confusion and asked the one question that matters: What is the real stumbling block here?

That’s adaptive leadership. It’s when you stop pretending the issue is a line in the zoning code or the square footage of a kiosk and start talking about what’s actually going on.

Is it pride?

Because let’s be honest: Council is broke. Yet we’re sitting on millions of dollars’ worth of publicly owned assets and powered by thousands of volunteer hours – hours that, if costed, would amount to real economic value.

In Australia, volunteer work is valued at over $17 billion a year. That’s more than the national defence budget. It’s time to ask what that means when decisions are being made, when priorities are being set, and when access to facilities hinges on red tape and unclear communication.

And yet we treat some volunteers as politically convenient and others like they’re lucky to have a garage.

We’ve got Rural Fire Service crews operating out of mouldy sheds while surf lifesaving clubs are securing multimillion-dollar rebuilds and running coffee kiosks from beachfront locations. If you can raise the money and deliver the outcome, well done. If your organisation has the profile and networks to attract support, use them.

But let’s not kid ourselves that this is just a lease issue.

It’s about communication, consistency, and the credibility of those in charge. When a council can’t give straight answers about its own buildings, we don’t get governance. We get guesswork.

Maybe Council is embarrassed. Maybe they feel like they lost control of a project they now have to own. Maybe the surf club knows it has strong public backing and uses that to its advantage. Maybe there’s a bit of “we save lives” moral authority that lets things slide.

But here’s the thing: no one’s sitting down to name it. No one’s saying, Here is the sticking point. Let’s stop spinning and start solving.

That’s the leadership we need. The kind that brings people to the table not to score points, but to actually get the thing sorted.

Because in the end, good governance isn’t about who holds the keys. It’s about who’s willing to ask the hard questions when the doors won’t open the way they should.

#KiamaCouncil #LocalDemocracy #GerringongSLSC #GoodGovernance #CommunityAccountability #CivicLeadership #VolunteerVoices #PublicAssets #CouncilTransparency #LocalPolitics

$1 million on the table, $30,000 collected. Let’s talk about why

Cr Erica Warren calls for governance reform after developer contribution failures

We live in a world where most of us are juggling more than we can hold. Family, work, community, finances. In the thick of it, we trust that someone, somewhere, is keeping watch over the systems that shape our lives. We hope decisions are made fairly, money is spent wisely, and when mistakes happen, someone tells the truth.

But that trust only works when people are willing to shine a light on what is really going on.

That is what this blog is about. It is not written by a planner or a lawyer, and it is not written for them either. It is for people who care about what happens in their community, especially when public money and public trust are at stake.

This issue came to light after Kiama Municipal councillor Erica Warren asked a reasonable question. Why had Council shifted from one type of developer contribution to another, (19.4 7.11 20-May-2025-Ordinary-Council-agenda-3 ) and what impact did that have?

The response from Council left out a key fact. A Golden Valley Draft Consent Feb 2023 recommended a $1 million developer contribution under Section 7.11.

However, a majority of councillors at the time voted to reject the application, triggering an appeal to the Land and Environment Court.

While the matter was still before the Court, Council repealed its Section 7.11 contribution plans. By the time the Court ruled, there was no valid Section 7.11 in place. Instead, a Section 7.12 contribution applied, which meant just over $30,000 was collected at subdivision.

Additional contributions, up to $350,000, may be collected from individual homeowners as they lodge development applications to build. But the community still faces a shortfall of around $650,000. And the cost burden has shifted from developer to future residents.

When this shift was reported publicly, Council issued a statement accusing the article of spreading false facts. It did not address the existence of the original $1 million contribution recommendation. And it did not explain the implications of repealing the 7.11 plan while the DA was still under appeal.

This is not about technicalities. It is about transparency.

You do not need to be an expert to understand why this matters. You only need to ask whether important information is being left out, and why.

In the next post, I will walk you through the documents and decisions so you can judge for yourself.

Disclaimer: I am not a developer, a town planner, or a property lawyer. My blog posts are written in good faith and based on publicly available documents, council records, and conversations with professionals who work in planning, development, and legal fields. Every effort is made to ensure accuracy and clarity. These posts are offered to support greater public understanding of complex issues that affect our community.

#Kiama #Section711 #DeveloperContributions #LocalGovernmentTransparency #CommunityInfrastructure #PlanningMatters #PublicInterest #AccountabilityInCouncil #IndependentVoices #KiamaCouncil