Surely it is the responsibility of the well paid, professional staff to advise and assist councillors to make decisions that are legal, moral, and in accord with the wishes of the community and not of  powerful lobby groups?

There are many glaring examples from the HuntFest saga of ways in which council has failed to communicate openly and honestly with the electorate, starting in 2012 when approval was given to The South Coast Hunters Club to hold a HuntFest in a public building in the main street of Narooma.

It was presented as being a photographic competition  but subsequent events have shown the publicly owned Sports and Recreation Centre was intended to be used  an outlet for guns.

Over the period of time since HuntFest was imposed on the community without adequate information, discussion, or agreement, there have been meetings, petitions, submissions, presentations to council, newspaper articles, rallies and  a formally drawn up petition of 940 signatures presented to the NSW Legislative Assembly by Andrew Constance.

All opposition has been contemptuously ignored or dismissed by councillors, with the exception of councillors Harding, Bryce and Thomson.

A report by the Environment Defenders Office, a dedicated group of eminent lawyers, appears to confirm the doubts that some of our citizens had when they investigated the legal processes that led up to the granting of the license and variations and found them to be inadequate.

The report the office issued to council just before the last HuntFest was rejected out of hand by some councillors who did not even bother to read it, although by proceeding with the event they could have been exposing themselves to the risk that it was not covered by insurance.

Why was the ABC’s Sydney television crew denied access to this public event? Was there something  happening there that viewers might find  illegal or controversial?

An internal review of HuntFest decisions is not going to restore public confidence and neither is amendment 13 of the Local Government Protection Policy.

This amendment can be interpreted  as  giving even less power to citizens to decide if a controversial event such as HuntFest, with sale of guns, should be held in a public building on crown land in the heart of Narooma.

With council’s credibility at an all time low, councillors should concern themselves with being as transparent and accountable as possible, but paying for expensive public relationship lessons at this late stage can only be seen as too little, too late.

Susan Cruttenden

Dalmeny