While Council would dearly love to tell the community what is happening with regards to the proposed mergers the truth of the matter is we are all being kept in the dark. The following is what we do know:
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Council has always resolved as its first preference to remain a stand-alone entity.
In November 2015, Council resolved that if the option to remain a stand-alone entity was removed by the State Government then as long as certain conditions were met Council would consent to being merger with Cooma Monaro and Snowy River Shires.
The State Government again changed the goalposts and made it quite clear that our conditions on a voluntary merger would not be met. These conditions included the requirement that all merger costs be met by the State Government and the $15 million of community infrastructure be equally divided between the three Councils.
Once Council become aware that our conditions on a voluntary merger would not be met, Council again resolved to restate our original position i.e. we wished to remain a stand-alone entity and would only merge if all our conditions were met and if the Government forces us to merge, without meeting our conditions, then the merger would be viewed as a forced merger.
Council wrote to the Minister for Local Government on the 5 April 2016 restating our position of the November 17, 2015 and informing him that unless our conditions were fully met, we were withdrawing our support for a voluntary merger with Cooma Monaro and Snowy River Shires. In addition if a Proclamation was made to merge Bombala Council with Snowy River and Cooma Monaro Shires without our conditions being met the merger would be view as forced. Copies of this letter were sent to the Premier, Deputy Premier, State Member for Monaro, the Monaro Member of the Legislative Assembly, Federal Member for Eden Monaro and the Labor Federal candidate for Eden Monaro. To date we have received no response from any State Government politician, however we have received a letter in support from the Member for Eden Monaro, Dr. Peter Hendy.
