A 'failure of the system' has prompted Wingecarribee Councillor Garry Turland to resign from his position as deputy mayor.
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Cr Turland turned his badge in after disagreeing with the Wingecarribee Shire Council General Manager, Ann Prendergast and council staff regarding the Berrima Deviation Project.
"I get paid $400 a week to stand up here and take the rubbish that I get from the public because of the failure of the system. It is not right," he said.
"I can see where this is going tonight. I will not stand here as deputy mayor for a group that will not take control of their actions. You choose somebody else as deputy mayor after me. You can choose somebody else to fail."
However, Cr Turland said he would not step down from his role as councillor as "it will cost the community too much money and I will not waste their money."
The explosive meeting focused on cracks in communication within council.
Mayor Duncan Gair accepted Turland's resignation and said that he was blindsided by the resignation of the deputy mayor.
Cr Turland entered a notice of motion in the council meeting, requesting that "the general manager provide a verbal and written report on how Berrima Road Project failed in its critical path process, that the general manager provide a verbal and written report on what measures and procedure she implemented to stop all projects failing and that the general manager provide a verbal and written report to explain what processes and programs she has implemented to prevent any future projects failing." The motion was defeated 5-4.
The 'failures' of the system with regard to the Berrima deviation project was the tip of the iceberg for Cr Turland who also listed other 'failures' such as the Moss Vale aquatic centre, Mittagong Bowling Club, the proposed sale of Frankland Street with an "outdated flood study" and Station Street.
"We've nearly sold Frankland Street with a flood study out of date, that's a critical part that shouldn't have been lost, it should've been picked up. I picked it up but I shouldn't have had to, I'm not employed by council," he said.
"[Regarding] Station Street, we still have not finalised the issue with relation to state rail."
"This is one of the most critical things we should've done up front. It is a failure of the process."
Cr Turland pointed out that following the budget blow-out of about $1million on the Moss Vale aquatic centre the council paid an estimated $200k for project management training, software and to employ people to come to them if the next project "falls off the line".
"We did project management training and still the next project that comes along, falls apart," he said.
"I want to know who's going to make sure this won't happen again.
"The issue I've got here is quite clear, we need to be reassured that you as the management team and you and the general manager can make sure that these things will not be falling off the rails.
"You are the general manager and we don't hear from you, we hear from support [staff] but it is your job as the GM to respond."
Councillor Ken Halstead, a former civil engineer said he firmly believed that the staff new about the 'trainwreck' coming, and that "there were problems with this job before it was indicated to councillors". However he said he did not know about this while he was mayor.
"I would be absolutely astounded if senior staff of this council did not know this was a problem way before September last year.
"People would have to be doing a proposition from the very beginning and looking at what all the constraints would be. They've got all the issues related to power and land acquisition and it was only after we squeezed it out of them earlier this year that we found out they knew September last year."
Cr Gair said he was disappointed the issue came back before council and that processes had been put in place so it wouldn't happen again and he was unaware until early October that there were major problems.
Cr Turland then hit back at Cr Gair after it was revealed that the mayor knew of these issues earlier than the rest of the councillors
"You just mentioned that you found out in October 2018 but we weren't told until February 2019. We were never told about this. I've made it quite clear, I want to know warts and all. We are representing the community. Now we find out you knew in October. Why weren't we told in October?," he said
General Manager, Ann Prendergast was not available for comment at the time of publication.