Dubbo Regional Council continues to be divided by the Regand Park masterplan

At the August standing committee meeting, Cr Black recommended the Chief Executive Officer provide a report to the September ordinary meeting of council, detailing all formal contact between proponents of the sporting facility proposal (St Johns Junior Rugby League Football Club) and DRC, including the dates of meetings and proper summary of what was discussed.

Two weeks later on Thursday, August 25, after a majority vote, Cr Matthew Wright's amendment that the Macquarie River Master Plan (North and South Precincts) progress report provided by Manager Recreation and Open Space be noted, completely replaced the existing motion.

Cr Wright said the current council was voted in on the back of trust and change to bring forward some new ideas and ways of dealing with things.

"Obviously there is a lot of conversations and a lot of angst in regard to Regand Park and as a nearby resident and a resident of the city, I'm interested in the final outcome of the development and the consultation," he said.

Cr Wright said council would "hopefully" come up with something that meets the needs of those in the community.

"...and not just potentially a small part of the community which the community seems to be up in arms about at the moment," he said.

"I would like to think this council is acting with a large part of integrity and honesty with respect to this, we are close to having a draft plan from the contractors, and the community will have a great chance to mould and change and give their feedback there.

"This council's role is to push and change and help the community adopt something the community would be very proud of."

He asked the community to be patient with the process.

Cr Black said he was "shocked but not surprised" that his original motion was knocked off.

"We can't really say we are all for openness and transparency on every single issue, having voted to keep the previous council dealings with the proponent St John's RLFC effectively secret, openness and transparency virtually died on this issue here this evening," he said.

"We can't as a council hide things and be secret and then claim to be transparent and open."

Cr Black said all the dealings with St John's RLFC should be out in the open for the community and councillors to know about.

"I encourage the community to engage with the process even if they don't have full confidence in the process, please still engage with it," he said.

"If people didn't have full confidence and did feel like stuff is being hidden, that may be understandable after what has just occurred but I still encourage people to engage and continue on with their activism."

Deputy mayor Richard Ivey said the Regand Park area is unique and it was on council to make the right decision for what happens next.

"We are aware of the issues, we know what the issues are, we are just absolutely committed to making sure we make the right decision," he said.

Cr Ivey said he had never spoken to anyone from St John's RLFC about the issue and he "didn't care" about what went on with them previously.

"We have got the opportunity for this council to make objective, sensible, professional, unbiased, uninfluenced decisions for the best purposes of that area for our Dubbo regional community and rest assured that is the approach I will be adopting when the decision is made for that area," he said.

Cr Jessica Gough who previously supported Cr Black's motion, said after deliberation she was starting the question if it was a waste of time because it was targeting one group of people.

"Believe it or not I have never spoken to anyone from St John's, I've also never been to Regand Park, so what I don't like is people questioning our integrity when there is a process," she said.

"Move on, move forward, what happened last year happened last year, we are a new bunch of councillors, let the process happen."

Cr Vicki Etheridge sided with Cr Black, stating it simply added another layer of transparency over the process.

"The process is ongoing and no one is saying it's not, we're saying let's see how this all started...let's find out how we got to this place, which in my opinion is very wrong," she said.

"I will always stand by that and I certainly hope the community has faith in us being able to do the right thing, trust us to make the right decisions."

The deputy mayor disagreed with Cr Etheridge saying that how council got to this point "doesn't matter".

"The fact is we are at this point, we have a transparent process and community members will be able to make some input," he said.

Cr Wright said going with the previous motion would have been a "waste" of council time and resources.

"Community will have their chance to consult and discuss and I would like to think this council has saved some time and resource for council and I think community will still have the outcome they are looking for and it is just time before we see that," he said.

Cr Black said no councillor's integrity was being questioned in the original motion, but it was a "natural reaction" to what had happened previously with Regand Park.

"We can't claim to be an open and honest council if we are going to hide things behind a vail of 'just trust us'..." he said.

"We want more transparency around this issue, for people to get offended and say 'we don't want the transparency, don't question my integrity' would be like a sailor saying they don't like the sea."

It was confirmed that by the November ordinary council meeting there would be a draft conceptual masterplan that will be open to the community.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: