After more than a year of speculation, the state government has announced that Maitland City Council won’t have to merge with cash-strapped Dungog Shire Council.
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The decision, handed down on Friday, was a pleasant surprise for Maitland councillors and ratepayers, many of whom had lambasted the idea of a merger since it was first suggested.
Before Friday, there were no signs that the government was going to change its tune from a preference for Dungog Shire to amalgamate with Maitland City, where a major seven-year rate rise was approved last year.
But that’s exactly what happened.
While Dungog is not yet out of the woods, it’s great news for Maitland.
It’s also a valuable lesson in the importance of not giving up the fight until the final bell sounds.
The mayor of Maitland, Cr Peter Blackmore, his deputy Bob Geoghegan and the city’s general manager David Evans met with Local Government Minister Paul Toole recently in an 11th-hour bid to talk sense into the government.
It appears that the meeting was the turning point this city greatly needed.
Friday’s announcement means that Maitland ratepayers will not have their money spent on a costly, and unwanted, merger that would have likely led to more of the city’s rates being used to pull Dungog out of its financial hole.
Hats off to the councillors who voted in favour of nominating a merger partner last month.
It may have been an unpopular decision among some in the public at the time, but it could have been crucial in getting the city’s leaders to the negotiating table by showing the government that council was willing to have reasonable ongoing discussions about its future.
