It has been an interesting time since the elections, getting to know fellow Councillors, working to understand existing policies, review some policies and plans and creating new ones.
Congratulations and thank you to our community for supporting each other through the pandemic and returning some normality with markets, speedway events, the fishing comp and town hall events, and others. We need and love our events and appreciate your work.
Policies and plans are developed to guide how the HRCC organisation operates, hence, as Councillors we need to ensure that they provide the greatest net community benefit and follow the principles required in the 2020 LGA Act.
These principles include the community being engaged on local priorities, Councils using openness, accountability, and honesty and developing long-term and transparent approaches to planning, plus responsible spending to ensure financial, social, and environmental responsibility and delivery of services that meet the needs of our whole community.
Our challenge as Councillors, will be to carefully balance services and maintenance of infrastructure, with long awaited plans for Horsham North, railway yards, and community plans for Haven and rural areas, while considering current and future projects and remaining focussed on affordability and sustainability for ratepayers in the long term.
Developing our Community Vision, then our Council Plan to reflect our vision, will create a great future for our Horsham Rural City community, with community members participating in the design and actions that build our community vision as a healthy, caring, and inclusive place.
We will do this by sharing conversations and building on shared ideas to protect what we value and plan improvements to the lifestyle we offer, but most of all doing that in a way that represents our whole community and not leaving anyone behind.
Our responsibility as Councillors, is to ensure the Vision and Council Plan represent the community's ideas.
John Reuter summed it up well:
"Cities aren't just their governments. They are the people who live, work and raise their families there."
When we recognise this, we suddenly gain huge new capacity to create the kind of places we want to call home.
So, let's get the conversations started, I can't wait to hear them, and remember, as demonstrated in so many community plans, the wisdom of local people always exceeds the knowledge of the experts.
I feel proud to live in this community and honoured to represent you.
