Dark days for local democracy under current council regime

Last month marked the first year of the McCloy-led Newcastle council.
The early days of this council stimulated local media speculation about a "new era of cooperation" among councillors, after the division that characterised the previous council.
In my December column last year, I questioned this depiction, noting a possible future 7-6 voting pattern evident at the first meeting of the newly elected council (in voting on the Deputy Lord Mayor position), with the four Liberals and two Independents combining with the Lord Mayor against Labor and Greens councillors.
I concluded my December column thus:

"So, as a glimpse into the future voting patterns and dynamics on the new council, the first meeting was really more a mixed bag than the love-in portrayed by the media.
I suspect this is a more accurate indicator of how things will be."

In hindsight, I have to report that I was both wrong and right.
Voting on the new council hasn't really been a mixed bag.
In fact, the 7-6 voting pattern that I noted as one possible trajectory has become so entrenched that regular council watchers now refer to the dominant conservative bloc as the "McLiberals".
Clr Andrea Rufo, who was elected on the ostensibly progressive, pro-community "Community One" platform, and who was touted by some as a possible moderating "balance of power" influence - has since left the Community One group, and now routinely votes with the conservative "McLiberal" bloc, along with the other "Independent", former jockey Allan Robinson, who controversially switched electoral horses in midstream from the Buman to the McCloy stable during last year's council election campaign.
Certainly, the conflict in the current council isn't as overt as it was in its predecessor, mostly because the real level of division is hidden to a large extent by local media coverage that continues to be either generally sympathetic to the dominant bloc, or relatively indifferent to issues of local democracy.
But the attack on local democracy that characterised the previous council has - if anything - intensified under the new regime.
The signal sent by the now dominant "McLiberal" bloc when it first flexed its voting muscle to overturn previous arrangements to share the Deputy Lord Mayor position among all interested councillors and give it exclusively to one of its own has echoed through the year.
Most recently, it was evident in the appointment of a new General Manager, on the vote of the "McLiberal" bloc in a confidential meeting that gave councillors almost no information.
This "it's our show" attitude of the "McLiberal" bloc has also excluded the community.
The first year of the McCloy council has seen a significant reduction in the already diminished number of open council meetings, and a significant increase in regular informal "workshops" between councillors and senior staff that are closed to the public and the media.
These meetings can't make formal decisions, and NSW government rules say they aren't even supposed to make "de facto" decisions.
But, while the official line denies it, I've heard councillors admit that "nod-and-wink" decision-making is common at these gatherings.
Most recently, the council has decided (again confidentially) on an organisational restructure that scraps the "City Engagement" division and creates a "Corporate Services" division.
Will the next step be the incorporation of community engagement into a "customer services" unit, that reduces citizenship participation to a marketised service, and democracy to corporate managerialism?
Watch this space.