HOW do you sell the impossible? You can’t. So Tamworth Regional Council’s (TRC) bid to sell a special rate rise to the community was always doomed to fail.
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Council’s sales pitch was admirable: frame the issue around the projects the community would miss out on if they didn’t support a rate increase.
But in fishing for a response, council threw out a worm and hooked a whale.
It needed a mandate, and it got one.
The debate on social media was so heated it almost broke the internet.
Multiple petitions were launched on change.org and in an era when councils decry the lack of community feedback, more than 2500 submissions were received by TRC.
The extra cost may, as mayor Col Murray put it, have only amounted to a cup of coffee a week for the average ratepayer, but it was embarrassingly clear there was no appetite to forgo that cup of Joe.
Was this another failure by council to adequately communicate its vision?
It’s hard to say.
The consultation process did seem rushed, meaning council did not give itself enough time to move the debate beyond calls for it to find efficiencies in its own backyard before asking for more money.
Of course, part of that is due to the nature of social media, where substantive debate is so often replaced by cynicism and outrage.
And there’s a broader debate here that was never spoken.
How do councils build communities and keep pace with infrastructure needs in an age of rate-capping and
cost-shifting from the state government?
Forced to walk this tightrope, councils’ communication with ratepayers has never been so critical.
In a deft piece of spin, Cr Murray yesterday said he was “pleased so many residents and ratepayers have given council feedback”.
But privately, senior council figures are despondent – and understandably so.
This may have been a once-in-a-generation opportunity squandered, a chance to create a new works fund and truly make Tamworth “fit for the future”.