An independent candidate for the seat of Manly is demanding that reports into a bungled multi-million-dollar development plan be released before the April 8 byelection due to Liberal candidate James Griffin's involvement in the decision-making process.
Mr Griffin was deputy mayor when Manly Council voted to award contracts for a controversial plan to build a car park beneath Manly Oval and lease a council-owned carpark to developers.
Successful tenderers Athas Holdings and Built Development agreed to enter into a $37.5 million, 99-year lease on council-owned Whistler Street carpark and library sites.
Five liberal councillors used their numbers to enter into the contracts at a closed meeting in April last year, shortly before the council was merged into Northern Beaches Council under administrator Dick Persson.
But after receiving independent reports on the project, Mr Persson announced the following August that the contracts would be cancelled due as they were too "risky" to proceed with and the financial bases were flawed.
On Saturday Mr Persson announced the reports would be considered for public release at the council's meeting on April 26, three weeks after the byelection.
However independent candidate Kathryn Ridge told Fairfax Media she believed the reports should be made public before April 8 and as early as the next council meeting on Tuesday.
"It's in the public interest for residents of Manly to have the full facts before them when they're deciding whether they will vote for an independent or a Liberal candidate with a history in this matter," she said.
Ms Ridge pointed to comments Mr Griffin made in the Manly Daily about the oval plan in which he was quoted as saying: "I was a junior councillor, I worked as part of a team, but I really learned that you have got to listen to people and that is one of the things I would take from that and apply to this."
She said this meant Mr Griffin "has certainly put the issue of his history and involvement in this matter in the context of the election."
Mr Griffin said the Manly oval plan had been discussed "for many years". He declined to say whether he took any responsibility for the contracts as he had not seen the independent reports.
Asked if he would release the reports before the byelection, Mr Persson told Fairfax Media: "I don't believe there's any state government issues involved."
"When I cancelled the contracts I make it clear that the quality of the work was a problem and I felt the general manager had let the council down," he said.
"People can draw their own conclusions about the respective responsibility of councillors."
Mr Persson said he was unable to release the reports before the April meeting due to "quite complicated" legal issues exacerbated "by action taken by a former Manly council staff member in relation to the Whistler St car park project".
