Harden mayor John Horton has scotched rumours his council\u2019s submission to merge with Cootamundra and Gundagai under the NSW Government\u2019s Fit for the Future NSW local government reform proposition has been withdrawn.<\/p>\n
Mr Horton told The Young Witness yesterday the council had been advised by the NSW Government to put forward an alternative proposal for the merger of Cootamundra-Gundagai-Harden and that submission had been lodged by the new April deadline.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t been withdrawn, that sounds like Gundagai\u2019s talk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Horton said the Harden community had always been unanimous in their support for a merger with Cootamundra Shire Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cGundagai wants to stand alone but if we are forced to go with Gundagai we will make it work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The rumour reached Young Shire Council\u2019s monthly meeting last week, with general manager David Aber saying the local government minister wouldn\u2019t take the news too lightly if it was true.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s it is very poor play,\u201d he said at the meeting.<\/p>\n
Mayor Brian Ingram agreed it \u201cwasn\u2019t a good look\u201d.<\/p>\n
Of the alternative proposed merger with Young and Boorowa, Mr Horton said he didn\u2019t have a problem with Young per se.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess the only thing I don\u2019t like is your reverse-in parking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He speculated the community sentiment against Young could be put down to years of rivalry.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut from a business perspective we have a lot more in common with Cootamundra,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Horton said the two councils had worked hand-in-hand for years and had a good affinity with each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a marriage – if you have a lot in common with someone and you like each other it has a better chance of working than, say, a shotgun marriage which might not stand the test of time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Harden mayor John Horton has scotched rumours his council\u2019s submission to merge with Cootamundra and Gundagai under the NSW Government\u2019s Fit for the Future NSW local government reform proposition has been withdrawn. Mr Horton told The Young Witness yesterday the council had been advised by the NSW Government to put forward an alternative proposal for … Continue reading “Merger rumours scotched”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hume"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}