Peter Harle JP
Councillor
At several recent Community Forums Mayor Mannoun tells everyone that he inherited a $15Million “Net Cost of Services” deficit from the previous Council, in fact it was $11.6 Million and mainly due to remedial action Council took to limit the impact of the Covid pandemic on ratepayers and businesses within the Liverpool LGA.
He also fails to mention that of the seven bordering Councils, Liverpool had the lowest deficit, in fact it was similar to the deficit created during his term of Council in 2012-16, ($8.3M + $2.1M = $10.4M) although no Covid or Asbestos remediation issues were around to cause it.
( Info here: Minute Item Attachments of Ordinary Meeting – Wednesday, 25 May 2022 (infocouncil.biz)
But that is an inconvenient truth, unlike Mayor Mannoun, Mayor Waller never complained about inheriting a $2.1M deficit from Mayor Mannoun or suggested that he badly managed Councils’ finances during his previous term of office.
Bear in mind that Councils’ annual budget exceeds $300 million not $200M as is often misquoted, and $11M is just 4% of that budget, not the kind of deficit that places this Council into Administration.
As a Councillor during the previous 5-year term, I am proud of what we as Councillors collectively achieved, no previous term of Council has ever achieved that despite Covid 19 and record Asbestos remediation works.
Liverpool’s appearance may not be what we would all like to see and sadly in the current term it has dropped to levels of neglect not seen before and like the levels during Mayor Mannouns’ previous term.
As a comparison, just like in Roman times, the Emperor focused on entertainment to distract the people from the realities of life, that’s what is happening here, as it was during Mayor Mannouns’ 2012-16 term. Enormous amounts of money are being spent for the benefit of relatively few ratepayers. The number of attendees quoted are often highly exaggerated, 1,000 visitors are quoted at 40,000, or even 100,000, the circus is in town and it’s costing ratepayers services.
Cllr Peter Harle JP
7th December 2022