Ipswich Mayor Teresa Harding has thanked special advisor Steve Greenwood for his term assisting the city’s newly elected representatives.
In another sign of confidence in the new Ipswich City Council, the State Government has advised Mayor Harding that a special advisor is no longer required and council can resume “normal operations”.
Mayor Harding said the government had written to council this week saying the role of Mr Greenwood, special advisor to council, would end from Monday 12 April after one year.
“This a tremendous sign of faith from the State Government that the City of Ipswich is back on track and doing an excellent job,” she said.
“We have gone a long way in our first year to restoring that public confidence, with our local government-leading Transparency and Integrity Hub, the business transformation program, plus many other key measures in place to establish and open and accountable council.
“Steve Greenwood, and before him Greg Chemello and the interim management committee, set the bar high bar and I sincerely believe we have achieved many of those targets and will continue to perform over the remaining three years of our term.
“I am proud of where we have come from in this first year and look forward to being able to report back to government that we achieved everything we set out to do.”
Mayor Harding thanked Mr Greenwood for his work over the past 12 months.
“Steve Greenwood has completed his one-year term and I want to thank him on behalf of Ipswich City Council, councillors and the community for the thoroughly professional job he has done,” Mayor Harding said.
“We came into this job after the March 2020 local government election and Steve was able to provide valuable advice and guidance as we quickly got to grips with the demanding role of restoring confidence and trust in council.
“He regularly attended council and committee meetings and was there to oversee the transition from interim administration back to elected representatives doing the job for and on behalf of the Ipswich community.
“It was seamless and smooth and we can’t thank Steve enough for his oversight.”
Mr Greenwood, who served on the Interim Management Committee advising previous Interim Administrator Greg Chemello, took over the role after Mr Chemello was appointed CEO of Moreton Bay Regional Council in January 2020.
He was then appointed by the Local Government Minister as special advisor to Ipswich City Council in April 2020.
Mr Greenwood said at the time that being special advisor would be a vital link between council and the State Government.
Council will continue to provide quarterly reports on its performance and achievements and maintain a close working relationship with the Queensland Government moving forward.
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>>>Interim Administrator to become special adviser to incoming mayor and councillors
Gee whiz. The council may learn to stand on its own two feet and make its own decisions. Granted, apart from two, the rest are somewhat inexperienced. But there is no evidence the less experienced are prepared to listen and learn from the experienced. Oh. By the way…..did you hear all charges against Logan councillors were withdrawn today? (One still pending again the ex-mayor). It used to be one was innocent until proven guilty. Not any more; in almost every facet of human endeavour (especially sport, I may emphasize).