Hume mayor Casey Nunn and chief executive Domenic Isola met Local Government Minister Jeanette Powell last week over Sunbury’s vote to set up its own shire.
The meeting came three days after a council meeting in Sunbury heard Cr Ann Potter ask “as a matter of urgency” that the council get clear direction about the next stage of the Sunbury-out-of-Hume process.
“We have a right to know what’s happening,” Cr Potter said.
“As people are fully aware, the plebiscite results are publicly available on the VEC [Victorian Electoral Commission] website. The silence has been deafening.”
She said the council’s 1800-plus staff were unsure about the future of their jobs and their employer. “We need a decision before Christmas,” Cr Potter said.
Although he finally voted in favour of Cr Potter’s resolution to get in touch with the minister, fellow Sunbury councillor Jack Medcraft at first spoke against her suggestion.
“It’s a huge task; you can’t just set up a council,” Cr Medcraft said, suggesting ongoing concern about the process was “scaring the chooks”.
Aitken ward councillor Drew Jessop said there were many practical reasons why the council needed to find out from the minister what happened next.
“Clearly, this is not just a Sunbury issue,” he said. “All of Hume is affected. All council is saying about the issue is: what is the state government going to do next?”
Deputy mayor Adem Atmaca pointed out that the only figures the council had before it about the costs of separating Sunbury from the rest of Hume were contained in one of two independent KPMG reports the minister had commissioned.
One report found rates could rise in Sunbury by as much as 14 per cent.
Meanwhile, Ms Powell repeated comments she made to the Weekly that she was still considering the Sunbury poll result.
She also reaffirmed her contradiction of Cr Jack Ogilvie’s assertions that commissioners would be appointed to take over the whole of Hume in order to divide the city’s assets to set up a new Sunbury shire.
