"A gun was to held to our head," Cr Dickerson said.

"We have been working hard for three-and-a-half years so we wanted some influence on the future and to finish the job from where we began."

Mayors and councillors from councils subject to a merger proposal were invited to express their interest in a variety of roles, including potentially being an administrator and continuing to serve as a councillor.

Mr Toole said on Thursday more than 500 serving councillors had expressed an interest in roles with new councils.

"This overwhelming response makes it clear that mayors and councillors just want to get on with the job of delivering good local government in this state," Mr Toole said.

It was one thing the Dubbo mayor agreed with. Cr Dickerson said the city's councillors wanted to end the merger talk and deliver results for the community.

"We have frustrations because we don't want this council merger with Dubbo and Wellington to exist," he said.

"We had to fill in these documents. This is our fall back position."

Mr Toole said a number of expressions of interest had come from serving councillors who were publicly opposed to proposed mergers.

"These expressions of interest have been provided in strict confidence, so many councillors have been able to honestly offer their services despite their public opposition to merger proposals," he said.

Thursday marked the anniversary of Mr Toole's statement when he told Bathurst's Western Advocate "The government has stated there will be no forced amalgamations and I aim to honour that, but there are also some councils who have already indicated they want to take up voluntary amalgamations with support from the state government to work through the process."

Cr Dickerson said these comments made by the minister needed to be retold.

"We have to hold them to account when these types of statements are made. So when did he suddenly think of this? Cr Dickerson asked.

"If they had gone to the election with a new policy of forced amalgamations the situation could always be different."

Cr Toole said at the time "being a minister means greater accountability and I welcome that, but it also means there's greater opportunities for me to look at securing bigger-picture projects for my electorate".

Opposition spokesman for Local Government Peter Primrose said mistakes made by the minister's department were turning the process into chaos and the government had become its chief agent.

"This whole process is a dog's breakfast and everyone in local government is totally confused by this chaotic mess," Mr Primrose said.

"Mistakes in a date sent to councils indicating an April election forced the minister to write to all mayors to 'clarify' his notice in the gazette. He explained contrary to his gazetted notice, elections would be delayed 'up to 12 months' and so could still be held in March next year. Confusion reigns.

"Mike Baird, Troy Grant and Paul Toole have absolutely no idea what they are doing. It literally is changing by the hour."

"This whole mess shows again that forced council mergers just do not work."

Cr Dickerson said there were also mistakes in the process for the expressions of interest for councils.

"They had the email address wrong in three different notices," he said.

Delegates' reports are still being finalised before the Boundaries Commission considers them.

Meanwhile Ku-ring-gai Council was in the Supreme Court recently, asking for the report by the delegate of the Boundaries Commission on its merger with Hornsby to be released publicly along with a crucial KPMG report which was being used by the NSW government to justify the savings from the 35 merger proposals.

During the hearing, Justice Elizabeth Fullerton revealed the delegate, former National Party minister Garry West, had recommended in favour of the merger, as was expected.

She agreed to the case being transferred to the Land and Environment Court, where Woollahra Council would challenge its merger with Waverley and Randwick this week.