AS Cabonne Council prepares for its day in the NSW Land and Environment Court tomorrow, the touted top contenders for a merged council administrator’s job should Cabonne fail say they have still not been approached.
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Rumours have circulated around three main candidates - Orange mayor John Davis, councillor Russell Turner and even former state MP Garry West.
Cr Davis has been supportive of amalgamation throughout the process, while Cr Turner and Mr West are both former members for Orange.
Mr West was also the delegate assessing the Kur-ing-gai-Hornsby and Hills Shire-Hawkesbury mergers - the first he supported and the second he opposed.
Of the 18 mergers announced so far, eight have delegates as administrators - one of them is Richard Pearson, who assessed the Orange-Cabonne-Blayney merger.
Three have existing or former administrators, four have former councillors and two have community members with government experience.
However, Mr West said he had not been in contact with Local Government Minister Paul Toole.
“I just have to wait and see if it gets put to me,” he said.
Cr Turner said he had expressed an interest in the role and believed he would perform the role well.
“I noted I ran a business in Cabonne and went through the previous amalgamation in 1978 when Cabonne was born, so to speak,” he said.
Cr Davis said he too had not spoken to anyone about the issue and there were many names in the “rumour mill”.
“There’s oodles of people who could come into it,” he said.
The Molong-based Amalgamation No Thank You group questioned whether delegates could be truly independent if they supported forced amalgamations, however Mr West maintained there were a number of criteria to consider.
“I didn’t go with what was put in front of me and other delegates will have done the same,” he said.
