Ku-ring-gai council election, 2021

Why doesn’t the Liberal Party contest here? With two-member wards, their state and federal performance would have them winning 100% of the seats! (Of course I know the dynamic with independents is very different at a local level, but still.)

None of the parties really compete here so there is little point running endorsed candidates here.

Can confirm that all of the current councillors are running again except for Cheryl Szatow.

This is a very spicy council but people don’t realise it. There is an extra-ordinary meeting tonight, rumoured to be pushed forward by Christine Kay, Peter Kelly and Sam Ngai that will be intending on sacking the current GM, in the lead-up to the election.

Watch this space indeed. This is going to get hot.

Thanks hawkeye, just saw that in one of the local papers as well, shall be interesting!

Also with the recent change of Cedric Spencer being mayor, won after a tie-breaker, for only a couple of months before the election, shall make things more spicy this election. I note that Cedric has been running ads for quite some time now with a group banner including himself (Wahroonga Ward), Peter Kelly (Gordon Ward), Gurdeep Singh (Comenarra Ward) and Henry Yukun Song (St Ives Ward).

As Ben mentions in the summary there are no ‘teams’ per se, but I would say Spencer and Kelly would be at least an alliance. I am unaware of the others as don’t pay as much attention to this council, but the below votes for Mayor and Deputy Mayor also show some other broad loose alliances. Read into it what you will. If anyone local has more information, I would be interested to know.

Results of the Mayoral Vote on 21st September 2021.
For Jennifer Anderson (5 Votes): Councillors Anderson, Clarke, Greenfield, Smith and Szatow
For Cedric Spencer (5 Votes): Councillors Kay, Kelly, Ngai, Pettett and Spencer
Cedric was announced Mayor with the GM pulling his name out.

The same split of votes occurred for the Deputy Mayoral Vote:
For Councillor Smith (5 Votes): Councillors Anderson, Clarke, Greenfield, Smith and Szatow
For Councillor Ngai (5 Votes): Councillors Kay, Kelly, Ngai, Pettett and Spencer
Ngai was announced as Deputy-Mayor with the GM pulling his name out.

*Note: This information was obtained from the Minutes. If you want to look into it:
https://eservices.kmc.nsw.gov.au/Infocouncil.Web/Open/2021/09/OMC_21092021_MIN.PDF

*addendum to above post-as a FYI: 2 Councillors had to authorise another Councillor’s nomination for the mayoral vote, with that candidate then accepting. Kelly and Ngai nominated Spencer, Szatow and Smith nominated Anderson. For Deputy Mayor, Spencer and Kelly authorised Ngai’s nomination and Greenfield and Szatow for Smith’s nomination.

There is something weird going on here.
From https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/Council-meetings/Council-Meetings-and-Public-Forums
Sunday 10 October (Extraordinary Meeting of Council)
Saturday 9 October (Extraordinary Meeting of Council)
I wonder if they are trying to get something through before going into caretaker mode.
It seems odd to call multiple extraodinary Meetings on a weekend with no details.

Politics_Obsessed is on the Money. This Council is split 5:5 between supporters of Cedric Spencer and Jennifer Anderson. The Cedric Spencer supporters were mostly set up by Chantelle Fomari-Osmand, who was deputy mayor for a while.

Under-neath, it is predominantly Liberal Party Mini-Factions squabbling amongst each other for dominance of the council.

There will be a Town-Hall Debate happening in Early November, which I will be attending (on behalf of the Community Radio Station that I do work for on the side). There are already rumblings that Sam Ngai is pushing for the Cedric Spenser Team to boycott the Town Hall Debate due to the coverage that they are receiving from the Hornsby-KRG Post, who are running the event.

David Howard- for memory they were the meetings to discuss the replacement of the GM. Interesting to note those alliances for the mayoral vote have stayed, with Team Spencer (5) turning up to both extraordinary meetings of council during the weekend, and Team Anderson (5) all being absent. I watched these and a quorum of 6 is needed, so the meetings couldn’t proceed for council business.

Interesting note: Mayor Spencer made the move that while the Councillors for Team Anderson apologies for missing the meeting were accepted, leave of absence was NOT granted (about 15minute mark of the meeting). The threat being is if they missed a third one without prior leave being given, their civic office will become vacant! The extra-ordinary meeting this Friday and the usual meeting the following Tuesday could turn out to be a cracker!

Hawkeye_au – thanks for the info re: Chantelle having the form of this group before Cedric Spencer taking over as I was unaware. That wouldn’t be a certain Triple H would it? ;P Curious to know more about those ‘rumblings’ and why they would boycott? I don’t recall any coverage being that adverse.

(Normally I don’t take note of KRG Council but I have to say, with all recent events, I’m looking forward to this election.)

@Politics_Obsessed – 100% that this is going to get spicy. I didn’t get to watch council (family duties) but my contact within HK Post keeps me up to date on this.

In terms of the ‘rumblings’, it wasn’t towards Triple H Radio (Can confirm that :P) but was to HK Post. Triple H FM has been kept out as non-factional, especially as the President and Secretary of the station are from opposing ends of the political spectrum but do work very well together.

We have had another entertaining submission, again, from a candidate for either Comenarra (likely) or Gordon Ward in Boru Tumulty, who went on a massive rant on Triple H earlier this week.

You couldn’t script some of this stuff. Where is the popcorn?

It’s always interesting to read other people’s speculation because a number of the points mentioned here are very far from the truth.

For the record, I do intend to attend the community forum organised by HKPost on 15/11/2021 and I haven’t discouraged any candidate from attending. I also don’t understand the comment about ‘rumblings’ re: HKPost. The most recent article from HKPost was quite neutral, sticking to facts and a few quotes (opinions) from stakeholders and I went so far as to email the journalist and the editor, thanking them for their balanced approach.

More information to come in November. And Hawkeye, I don’t know who you are but I’m happy to catch up with you privately in the second or third week of November to discuss what I’ve observed in the first term of council.

Sam Ngai

I think (while knowing absolutely nothing about the goings on of the Ku-ring-gai Council) it’s absolutely hilarious when someone who is spreading unsubtantiated rumours about the internet get proverbially shat on.

There was a full page news item/political ad (depending on your view) under the heading “Ward Updates” appearing in a local paper. This featured a few paragraphs from 5 councillors out of 10. The 5 were all from the one faction. This is all OK if they paid for it themselves but if it was paid for by ratepayers are we seeing our own own mini-Victoria controversy? red shirts/ use of public resources for campaigning.

Few people are interested in local politics but there is nothing focuses attention like ratepayers funds being misspent.

@David – I did see that article in HK Post. It just keeps getting weirder and weirder. I understand that it was not paid by the campaign team so take it for what you will.

@Ryan – I think you will find people know much more about what is going on than what you think. These aren’t unsubstantiated. This is happening to a local publication, run as non-partisan, by locals, for locals and they are clear about some of the poor behaviour. Furthermore, as someone well connected in the area, I daresay that you are majorly under-estimating what is going on. But if you want to through around empty comments, go right ahead.

@Sam – Thank you for the invitation but I will pass. If the behaviour of 1-2 other candidates on Triple H FM is anything to go by, I daresay I won’t be getting anywhere with a “friendly chat”

Sam Ngai
All we have is speculation when the councillors won’t explain what these extraordinary meeting are about.
I watched part of one of the meetings, where the mayor read out rules that apply to attendance at ordinary meetings, the sought to apply those rules to attendance at extraordinary meetings.
What was that charade all about?

It keeps getting better @Steve. The Extra-Ordinary Meetings have failed to proceed because they have been unable to get Quorum. I note that the split is exactly down the grouping line.

This council is becoming a basket-case.

I know this site’s all about the horse race but I’m still utterly bewildered what the actual issues are that all these people are fighting over. Can someone give a quick run-down?

It looks like we will have a couple of weeks of non-meetings of council.

It appears to me to be akin to the occasional situation that arises in parliaments. The situation where a group that would normally be in minority find themselves with the power for a small window of time and seek advantage. It sometimes happens when someone is absent from the chamber and of course Whitlam got dismissed when Joh appointed a “Labor” senator who voted against Gough. We saw David Citer leave and Christine elected in a by-election for St Ives ward but that wasn’t sufficient.

Then, Council had to have a mayoral election before the actual election and it split 5/5. The election of a mayor became a selection out of the hat. The 4 that were elected at last Council election now found they had 5 AND the mayor casting vote so any split vote would go their way.

Like kids in a candy shop, they went to town and felt they could make major changes in the few weeks before the next election when they again lose power. They have nailed their colours to the mast of removing the GM.

Like a filibuster, the other 5 found a simple way to block them for the next few weeks. Without a quorum of 6, they can achieve nothing. I am betting the “mayoral 5” will campaign on “they can’t even be bothered to turn up”

I have no idea what the GM did to upset the mayoral group but it obviously can’t be something generally unacceptable because it wasn’t an issue until a week or so ago when the mayor came to power AND obviously half of the councillors don’t think he has done anything wrong.

Maybe it’s time to amalgamate LGAs on the North Shore that were spared when Mike Baird did his thing.

If it wasn’t an issue why would the gm be the first thing on the agenda?

Clearly it was something g they couldn’t do anything about with the other faction in charge

Sickofpolitics – love the handle name!

Meeting Summary:
I admit after a busy week I didn’t really look back here and saw I missed the two Ordinary Council Meetings (Tuesday 19th & Wednesday 20th October). They only last about 2-3 minutes each! Again, the 5-5 split endures. I don’t know if leave was accepted. If it wasn’t, then the faction sitting out would have to attend the next Ordinary Meeting on Tuesday (24th October).

Candidate Summary:
With Nominations officially opening tomorrow, we’ll start seeing where the candidates pin their colours. I notice that the Comenarra Ward has 9 people registered to campaign! (Registering to campaign and nominating are two different processes, but it gives a good indication of who intends to run.) Once nomination period closes, all candidates are deemed registered to campaign under the rules, so the two lists merge.

For those interested, the Public Register and List can be found at:
https://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/Funding-and-disclosure/public-register-and-lists/Register-of-Candidates/NSW-LGE21-Register-of-Candidates

Actually thought I’d delve a little more into the wards in a separate comment post. This is what I’ve been able to worked out so far:

Commenara Ward: This one is heating up from initial registrations!

Group: Comenarra Independents
Candidates: Boru Tumulty, Ali Rabiei

Group: Campaign for Comenarra
Candidates: Jayamala Gupte [Affiliation: Liberal Party], Kay Smede

Group: Roshan Wickremanayake Group
Candidates: Roshan Wickremanayake, Shavera Gunasekera

No Group: Jeffrey Pettett, Gurdeep Singh [Affiliation: Liberal Party], Greg William
**Trish Lynch is mentioned as running with Jeff in HK Post (as at 23/10). I assume this will be Jeff’s group. This ward is shaping up to be quite the contest!!

Gordon Ward:

Group: Greg Cook & Tori Huxtable
Candidates: Gregory (Greg) Cook, Victoria (Tori) Huxtable

**Peter Kelly has a public profile on HK Post so don’t doubt him running, just hasn’t registered to campaign yet.
**Barbara Ward and Mike Li also have a public profile (As at 20/10) on HK Post. To note, the register doesn’t always update straight away, so will be interesting to see who they align with.

Roseville Ward:

Group: (No Name)
Candidates: Anthony Ching [Affiliation: Liberal Party], Carmel Heffernan
Group: (No Name)
Candidates: Alec Taylor, Shankari Nadanachandran

No Group: Angelique Pettett (<< will be interesting to see who she groups with!)

St-Ives Ward:

No Group: Amanda Brien [Affiliation: Liberal Party], Yukun Song [Affiliation: Liberal Party]

Wahroonga Ward:

Group: (No Name)
Candidates: Cedric Spencer [Affiliation: Liberal Party], Tong Pang

No Group: Lisa Dixon, Adrienne McLean, Kim Wheatley

Hope that helps and promotes discussion. Interesting to see how the other sitting Councillors align and also how many more have Liberal Party associations. This sounds like Hornsby a la 2008. Perhaps next time the Liberal Party might contest here officially?

For those interested, here are the profiles: https://www.hkpost.com.au/ku-ringpgai-council

Can anyone clarify for me if they can identify any ideological difference between the Spencer and Anderson groups?

@Politics_Obsessed and @Ben Raue:

Can confirm the following:
*Boru Tumulty – Liberal-aligned
*Greg Cook – Liberal-aligned (fun-fact: also the president of Lindfield District Cricket Club)
*Adrienne McLean – Liberal-aligned

This is definitely a factional battle, split between the 3 major factions (HR, CR and Left).

I get the feeling that the Liberal Party would probably not want to run endorsed candidates here because the factional in-fighting over pre-selection would become a massive (and unnecessary) distraction.

Especially given the behavior of some of those at the top of your list hawkeye

Also Anderson doesn’t seem to have registered yet

An article that has come on line in the SMH suggest that the Ku Ring Gai situation is getting curiouser and curiouser. It would seem that if the situation is not resolved by the election then the Council is headed for a sacking.

@Redistributed – thanks for bringing that to my attention. Seems there were two articles on it. Things are definitely escalating!

Article earlier today:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/blue-ribbon-sydney-council-in-disarray-over-no-show-councillors-20211022-p592ec.html

Article later today: (I assume this is the one you were talking about)
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-mayor-banned-from-talking-to-staff-and-pa-moved-to-secret-location-20211025-p592vf.html
It’s currently 4th top viewed in ‘Most Viewed in National’.

Interesting about mentioning previous performance reviews of GM were carried based on the Mayoral casting vote. Now with the casting vote to the other faction, it’s all changed.

@Hawkeye_au
thanks for that extra information!

@politics_obsessed – this just gets better and better.

For those who are interested, there will be a Meet the Candidates on November 15th in west Pymble, hosted by HK Post. The way things are going at this stage, this could be one for the ages.

Re; the alignments of Councilors, Peter Kelly has previously been a member of the QLD One Nation Party (at the time of the last election) but claimed this was irrelevant to his candidacy as One Nation wasn’t then a registered party in NSW.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/one-nation-councillor-peter-kelly-has-links-to-a-muslim-sultan-and-a-questionable-phd-20170922-gymqz8.html

HK Post have confirmed that KRG Council failed to attain Quorum again, with the council meeting rescheduled for Melbourne Cup day at 7pm.

This keep getting better and better.

@Thomas, thanks for the article! Didn’t realise he worked as an adviser to ONP Senator Brian Burston.

I found this line interesting: “As a result of preference deal struck with former mayor Cheryl Szatow, he edged out his nearest rival, Liberal party member Greg Cook, to claim the second seat in the Gordon ward. ” And noticing Greg has registered to campaign, it’s going to be interesting to see who gets in, for Gordon Ward.

@Hawkeye_au thanks for the update. I think it’s going to be like this for the rest of the term.

Day 1 Nominations Update:
Comenarra Ward:
Roshan Wickremanayake, Shavera Gunasekera and Cameron Smith.

The first two being a group already mentioned but not sure who Cameron Smith is running with or who this is. Any posters have information?

Gordon Ward:
Anthony Carnovale – not sure about this one either. (Possible Peter Kelly running mate?)

Roseville Ward:
Anthony Ching, Carmel Heffernan. These two being the Anthong Ching group mentioned previously.

St Ives Ward:
No nominations confirmed yet.

Wahroonga Ward:
Tony Pang (As mentioned above with Cedric Spencer group), Adrienne McLean, Elizabeth McLean (I assume these two are the same group, family affair it seems.)

I note that Sam Ngai has gone very quiet since the shenanigans started. He does support Cedric Spencer so that wouldn’t be surprising.

There are some real concerns about the conduct of this council now, with word that Spencer is now on the defensive with local media, over the situation with the GM.

You have to wonder how far this will go before the State Government steps in. There must be something in the Local Government Act that stats thay failure to meet quorum for a certain number of council sittings collapses the council

Nominations Day 5:
Comenarra Ward:
Independent [Roshan] Group finalised (this includes Cameron Smith who I wasn’t sure who he was aligned to-a total of 3 candidates). Jayamala Gupte and Trish Lynch are the others nominated so far and not sure who Trish is affiliated with. (Otherwise we’ll find out in 5 days time!)

Gordon Ward:
Peter Kelly (Councillor) and Anthony Carnovale have nominated.

Roseville Ward:
Independent [Anthony Ching] group finalised. Alec Taylor & Shankari Nadanachandran (which we know will form a group) and Jennifer Anderson (Councillor-former recent Mayor).

St Ives Ward: finally some nominations in this ward!
Christine Kay (Councillor), Anna-Lisa Ryan and Audet Joseph. Not sure who the last two align to, so any information would be helpful.

Wahroonga Ward:
Independent [Cedric Spencer] & Independent [Adrienne McLean] groups finalised.
Adrienne has quite a serious webpage, mixing her business credentials with one sub-page based on her running for council. She confirms that Elizabeth is her daughter, her running mate in her group.

@Hawkeye_au – you are very much right about Adrienne being Liberal aligned, she mentions various Liberal MPs that she’s interviewed on Triple H. What I find most interesting is the Councillors she mentions she has interviewed…”including Peter Kelly, John Pettett, Sam Ngai, Christine Kay”. As Ben has discussed in the preview of this council, getting 2 members elected from the same group is near impossible under the current arrangement per ward, so I wonder if Adrienne is Spencer Faction aligned to try and get another number on council. All postulation, but at the moment, anything goes on Ku-ring-gai!

Anna-Lisa Ryan is an associate lawyer at Macpherson Kelley.
It’s actually Joseph Audet. He seems work at a tile company in Auburn.
Anthony Carnovale is an electrical design engineer at an aircon company in Granville.

this took me about 15 minutes to find btw
not sure whether there’s any political affiliation at all

@politics_obsessed I can confirm that Adrienne is Spencer-Aligned.

These nominations are starting to take shape now. Fascinated to see what happens next.

Cedric Spencer was a former Liberal candidate in Grayndler at one point, so it beggars belief that all these “independents” can all declare themselves under an independent banner, without publicly having to disclose their political party memberships.

Yes, it’s a fact that Cedric Spencer was a liberal candidate in Grayndler and perhaps sees Council as a stepping stone to State politics. Whatever, think only a couple of candidates could be called truly independent and these are not shown up in the register yet. Just hope it is civilised.

Echt, this practice has been going on for several years in Northern Sydney. Ryde Council is one example, where current councilor Roy Maggio was once a Liberal member but ran successfully as an independent at the last election. Even Labor is not immune to this, Paul Garrard was once a Labor member from Parramatta Council, then left the party to become an independent and served until the 2016-17 council amalgamations.

Nominations Day 7: I thought I’d break down who has their nomination confirmed, and possible/expected nominations. Ben has done an excellent article looking at the ‘factions’ on the council that I call ‘Team Spencer’ and ‘Team Anderson’. I’ve had a look (and please anyone with more information, correct me if wrong) and this is what I get:

COMENARRA Ward:
Nominated:
Team Spencer: (by virtue of voting block) Jeff Pettett Group (2) [i forgot Trish Lynch was mentioned previously in HK Post as Jeff’s running mate]
Team Unknown: Roshan Group (3), Jayamala Group (2) [includes Kay Smede]

Possible: (this is based off registered to campaign & public profiles)
Team Spencer: Gurdeep Singh Group (2) (by virtue of appearing on joint Cedric Spencer ads in HK Post)
Team Unknown: Tumulty Group (2) [inc. Ali Rabiei] (registered to campaign), Greg William (registered to campaign)

Notes: Team Anderson – Callum Clarke has yet to register or confirm nomination. (His public facebook page hasn’t been updated since 2018.)

GORDON Ward:
Nominated:
Team Spencer: (by virtue of voting block and HK Post advertisement) Peter Kelly Group (2) [inc. Anthony Carnovale]

Possible: (this is based off registered to campaign & public profiles)
Team Unknown: Greg Cook Group (2) [inc. Tori Huxtable] (registered to campaign, HK Post Profiles), Barbara Ward (Registered to campaign, HK Post Profile), Mike Li (HK Post Profile)

Notes: Team Anderson – Cheryl Szatow has yet to register or confirm nomination. (Her public facebook page hasn’t been updated since 2020 and website since 2017.)

ROSEVILLE Ward:
Nominated:
Team Anderson: Jennifer Anderson – a running mate hasn’t had nomination approved yet.
Team Unknown: Anthony Ching Group (2), Alex Taylor Group (2)

Possible: (this is based off registered to campaign & public profiles)
Team Unknown/Spencer?: Angelique Pettett (registered to campaign)
Team Unknown: Carmel Hoffman (HK Post Profile)

Notes: Team Spencer – Sam Ngai has yet to register or confirm nomination. Surprised this one hasn’t gone through.

ST IVES Ward:
Nominated:
Team Spencer: (by virtue of voting block) Christine Kay Group (2)
Team Spencer: (by virtue of appearing on joint Cedric Spencer ads in HK Post) ‘Henry’ Song Group (2) [inc. Joseph Audet]
Team Anderson: Anna-Lisa Ryan (I assume Martin Smith [Councillor] is running here as Anna-Lisa has his email addressed mentioned in the nomination.)

Possible: (this is based off registered to campaign)
Team Unknown: Amanda Brien

WAHROONGA Ward:
Nominated:
Team Spencer: Cedric Spencer Group (2) [inc. Tony Pang]
Team Spencer?: (by virtue of @Hawkeye_au comment) Adrienne McLean Group (2)

Possible: (this is based off registered to campaign)
Team Unknown: Kim Wheatley Group (2) [inc. Lisa Dixon]

Notes: Team Anderson – Donna Greenfield has yet to register or confirm nomination.

Nominations Day 8: (Update Only)

GORDON WARD:
-Now confirmed nomination of Barbara Ward Group (Independent) with running mate Mike Li.

ROSEVILLE WARD: (a few updates here)
-Now confirmed nomination of Jennifer Anderson Group (Independent) with running mate Annelie Kvisle.

-Sam Ngai has nomination confirmed (his group not yet, but assume this will go through tomorrow) and is running with what it seems two others, Amanda Blackman and Mitchell Frater-Baird. They have all listed Sam Ngai’s website which appears to be a blog of his time as Councillor.

ST IVES:
-Now confirmed nomination of Martin Smith Group (Independent) with running mate Anna-Lisa Ryan.

WAHROONGA Ward:
-Now confirmed nomination of Kim Wheatley Group (Independent) with running mate Lisa Dixon.

Nominations Days 9: (Update Only)

COMENARRA Ward: (aka group of death)
-Gurdeep Singh Group confirmed (running mate: Avtar Kaur)
-Greg Taylor Group confirmed (running mate: Mackenzie Sloan) *I made a mistake earlier with the candidates registered to campaign by quoting the candidate as Greg William.
-Boru Tumulty nomination confirmed. Currently listed as un-grouped. I assume he’ll become a group once running paperwork confirmed [and assume this is still Ali Rabiei].

GORDON Ward:
-Simon Lennon has had nomination confirmed with it seems running mate Philip Hext.

ROSEVILLE Ward:
-Sam Ngai group confirmed.

ST IVES Ward:
No Updates

WAHROONGA Ward:
-Donna Greenfield has had nomination confirmed with it seems running mate Sarah Beresford.

Still no nominations for Callum Clarke nor Cheryl Szatow. Tomorrow’s the last day, and with my above break-down, it looks like Spencer allies are quite a few and looking to seize a longer term control of the council.

As it stands it looks like:
Comenarra – 6 Groups
Gordon – 3 Groups
Roseville – 4 Groups
St Ives – 3 Groups
Wahroonga – 4 Groups

Hi Tally room,

I am running as a candidate for Wahroonga Ward in the upcoming Ku ring Gai council elections. I need to clarify a couple of things:

1. I have interviewed all levels of government in both Ku ring Gai and Hornsby on my program Monday Focus on Triple H 100.1FM – I have followed the Ku ring Gai Housing strategy situation last year interviewing the State members, Mayor Jennifer Anderson, Linda MacDonald President of Support Lindfield, Cllr Peter Kelly and Cllr Sam Ngai. I have not interviewed the current Mayor Cedric Spencer.

It is because of interviewing the members of our Kuringgai community that I have a strong respect and fuller understanding of the situations faced by our community.

2. Having grown and up lived in the Wahroonga Ward most of my life, I have some alignment with the Liberal party, seeing as this is a Blue Ribbon Liberal district, one of the biggest in Australia, however, these following points are important:

A. I am totally standing as an INDEPENDENT. I have no allegiances to any one and will be making my own decisions.

B. I am not joining the Liberal Party because two factors.Firstly the importance of a good Climate Change Policy seems a low priority for the Liberals , even after the Glasgow summit. Australia is not standing proud for addressing the Climate Change situation at all. This has been handled very poorly and the Nationals should be ashamed too.

Secondly, the destruction of TAFE, an important education facility for our community, the Liberals have privatised a lot of the functioning and this is a shocking situation. There are members of our community who thrive from attending TAFE, privately owned RTOs do not handle education the same way.

C. I am not aligned with any other councillor or candidate – I respect the point of being a representative of the community and will keep that at the forefront of my decision making.

I am running Wahroonga Ward Community Chats should you like to join me and find out more about what I stand for – https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/163597056199

@Adrienne McLean – thank you for that clarification and also informative post, and for taking the time to write that. I admit point 2B2 does resonate with me, having links to that industry.

Good luck for your campaign and good idea on your community chats. Hope they go well!

Nominations Day 10: (update only – nominations now closed)
While the final paperwork gets all checked and added, a couple of updates before final confirmations and ballot draw tomorrow.

COMENARRA Ward:
Boru Tomulty Group confirmed.

ST IVES Ward:
Amanda Brien Group confirmed.

WAHROONGA Ward:
Sheridan Evans Group confirmed.

Well it seems we have our first party to the table, Liberal Democrats snuck in a group nomination for the Wahroonga Ward. For each ward, in order, it’s 6-4-4-4-6 groups, with no un-grouped.

Gordon Ward: Greg Cook Group has nomination confirmed.

Post Nomination & Ballot Draw:

Saved the best for last. Ku-ring-gai is unique for sure. I guess due to the lack of a party nature, there’s been a surge in independent groupings. Comenarra and Wahroonga have doubled or more the candidates running and it could take the full allocation of preferences to work out the winners here. Some notes:
-Cheryl Szatow and Callum Clarke did not nominate. All 8 other incumbents did.
-There is definitely a faction forming around current Mayor Spencer and is looking to increase hold on this council. However, a huge increase in candidates may give that faction a run for its money, depending on how people perceive the news. (I was told through a source that even a couple of the local Facebook pages are basically saying WTF is going on at Ku-ring-gai. So people are definitely aware something is up.)
-One thing I missed was Jayamala Gupte was Callum Clarke’s running mate in 2017 and has his own group running the same ward. So I’ll put that down as a possible Team Anderson.
-Greg Cook is running again in Gordon Ward. Would be interesting to see if both him and Peter Kelly got in, as considering last time (as mentioned in above comment) Peter Kelly beat Greg Cook for the second seat.
-As mentioned previously, Liberal Democrats are running in the Wahroonga Ward (Group C on ballot). I wonder if any ‘confused’ Liberals will vote for them. Interesting they chose this Ward of all places to contest (And a random un-grouped candidate in The Hills).

I honestly can’t pick this council, but would love to hear everyone’s predictions!

Group numbers comparing 2017 to 2021.
Comenarra 2 > 6 (+4!)
Gordon 4 – 4 (0)
Roseville 4 – 4 (0)
St Ives 3 > 4 (+1)
Wahroonga 3 > 6 (+3)
[There were 2 un-grouped candidates in 2017, none in 2021].

Hi
I am the second half of the Brien Group. So, I think at the outset I need to include something that says to see my details you can go to http://www.davidhowardforstives.com.au. I realise that as the second candidate I am not going to be elected but without a second candidate Amanda would be struggling. I have never been a member of a political party although I did stand for St Ives ward back in 2008. Reasons then are much like now, to help challenge a disruptive influence that I thought was doing the ward a disservice.

I might throw in some interesting bits and pieces (although many reading this will be locals and know them).
Ku-ring gai is very wealthy but not at the level of harbour view suburbs. Last time I looked, Ku Ring-gai paid more income tax than Tasmania.
LGA residential rates are controlled by the state government, many LGA’s get money from industrial/commercial areas. Ku Ring-gai doesn’t really have one, certainly not like other LGA’s like North Sydney, Willoughby (Chatswood), Hornsby etc. So the Council income is not at the level of surrounding areas.
4 of the wards have rail stations, St Ives does not and was the last to be really developed. When the state government imposed high density housing, each ward got its share, 4 of the wards developed around their train station but St Ives developed near their shopping centre.
Ku ring gai was pretty much number one vaccination rate across Australia all through the program. Some attribute this to wealth/privilege but wealthier suburbs like Vaucluse and Woollahra were well behind. It is probably more about having a demographic that is upper management rather than celebrities and perhaps a higher level of tertiary education.
I wouldn’t put much weight in being a member of the liberal party, it is one of the safest seats both state and federal, most wanting to be involved in politics are likely to be party members. With no official endorsed Liberals, many will be keen to associate with the party. I have manned booths a couple of times and it is not uncommon to be asked “which one is the Liberal?”
St Ives ward has a synagogue, for many of the Jewish faith, they do not like to use vehicles on the sabbath so live within walking distance. More recent census figures indicate the percentage of the population of Jewish faith is falling. The biggest change has been a rise in those of Asian background.

I am a candidate, to see my details you can go to http://www.davidhowardforstives.com.au.

All roads lead to the ‘Meet the Candidates’ event on Monday in West Pymble. Should be an interesting night.

Hawkeye_au
Is it going to be livestreamed online?
I live in Perth so seeing in person as a student about to partake in school exams is completely impossible.

@Ryan I do believe so through TripleH the Local Radio Station. https://www.triplehfm.com.au/ that’s the website but can’t seem to find a specific event or link to the event. Perhaps released closer.

After taking a closer look of the board of directors, didn’t realise Adrienne McLean was a board member nor Janelle McIntosh (Hornsby Ward B-Labor Councillor) was one as well. Just little tidbits, nothing more.

@Hawkeye_Au are you going in person to either or both events?

I’ll be like Ryan and hopefully get to follow some of the meeting online after work. I also hear there are some strict rules for the candidates in an attempt to keep things civil.

@Politics_Obsessed and @Ryan Spencer

Yep, Adrienne and Janelle are on the board of 2HHH. They actually do very well to keep the station civil and apolitical.

I can confirm that Triple H FM will be live-streaming and broadcasting live on 100.1FM or through the website. I believe that HK Post will be live-streaming as well through Youtube and Facebook so there will be plenty of opportunity to follow.

I can confirm that I will be attending the Monday event, which is for KRG Council. I can also confirm that the struct rules are real and HK Post are taking a no-nonsense approach to running the event. You might have to keep an eye out for me.

Finally, I can drop the hint that 2HHH, along with HK Post, will be doing a special broadcast on Election Night to track the results of Hornsby, KRG, Northern Beaches, Hills Shire, Willoughby, Ryde, North Sydney and Mosman.