The Mayor of Campbelltown, GEORGE GREISS, reflects on his first 12 months in the top job, and predicts that 2023 will be a great year for Campbelltown:
This week marks one year since my election as the Mayor of Campbelltown. I want to thank everyone for their support, advice, and engagement.
With the support of my fellow councillors, we have been able to achieve notable accomplishments.
The year was challenging – we were hit with unprecedented rain as we recovered from the Covid-19 lockdown and wanted to get some normality back. While the damage we experienced was less than our neighbours, it was significant.
Despite these pressures, we had some of the biggest attendance in our facilities, with the highest level of swim school enrolments, which led to the highest level of swim classes delivered by our Council. We also had the highest number of school swimming and athletic carnivals at our facilities.
We had an unprecedented number of attendances at most of our other facilities, from the Campbelltown Art Centre to our local fitness facilities, from Campbelltown Athletics Stadium to our local children’s playgrounds.
I think we all can agree that major festivals and events have also been a great success and attracted significant crowds.
Unfortunately, due to the extreme weather events, we have the least ever number of winter sports played on our sporting grounds, and we had to undertake an unrepresented number of road and facilities repairs.
I intend to provide more details and statistics of the extensive work that has taken place in our city in my February Mayoral Minute. I will also provide details of the projects that we have initiated and their expected delivery timeframe.
I am proud of all our good work throughout the past year. I thank all the staff at the council who work hard day in and day out to improve the lives of our residents.
Today I am optimistic about the New Year.
We are waiting for the new federal government’s plans for our region.
We hope to hear good news from the NSW Government on their WestInvest commitments any day now.
And, of course, it is an election year, and we are eagerly waiting to hear from all aspiring NSW governments on their commitment to our great city.
The reality is we may not be successful in everything we need, but our advocacy will not stop. We will continue to knock on every door to ensure that our community’s needs are heard and seriously considered.
But we will not just sit and wait. We will utilise our resources to deliver what our community needs. We will deliver on the projects that have been initiated and start planning and consulting for the new ones.
Most importantly, we will implement a comprehensive consultation strategy this year. We will be looking to the people of Campbelltown to help us shape the city’s future.
No doubt 2023 will come with its challenges, but I am confident that we are becoming more resilient and prepared to deal with them as they arise.
We will also get new and exciting opportunities.
I am optimistic that 2023 is going to be a great year for Campbelltown!
