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Council's GM resigns

The Bugle App

Cathy Law

18 January 2021, 9:06 AM

Council's GM resigns

Mayor Mark Honey has issued the following statement, run here in full:


"It is with regret that I announce that Kerry McMurray has resigned from the position of General Manager of Kiama Municipal Council effective from today.


"While Kerry was appointed General Manager of Council and CEO of Blue Haven on 10 April 2018, Kerry’s initial appointment with Kiama Council was as the Director Corporate and Commercial Services.


"He started in that position on 27 January 2016, at a time when the State Government proposed a merger of Kiama with Shoalhaven City Council.


"Kerry was instrumental in leading Council’s response including organising the merger plebiscite which resulted in 96% of our community voting ‘No’ to the merger.


"Kerry played a key role preparing Council’s submission to demonstrate Council could meet the 7 ‘Fit for Future’ benchmarks. Council was deemed ‘Fit for the Future’ and the proposal for the Kiama LGA to be amalgamated with the Shoalhaven ceased.


"Kerry came to Council with over 30 years’ experience in senior management roles in local government including the locum General Manager at Murrumbidgee, Group Manager Corporate Strategy and Finance at Queanbeyan and General Manager at Yass Valley.


"Kerry is passionate about identifying opportunities for improvement in processes and practices to increase organisational efficiency. His enduring legacy is Blue Haven Bonaira.


Kerry was successful in raising $60m from TCORP, the largest loan approved by TCORP to a Council, to enable the financing of the Blue Haven Bonaira development. At $106m this was the largest building project undertaken by a Council in Australia in the last 2 years.


"Kerry worked with staff and the Tourism Advisory Committee to establish Destination Kiama, which has increased visitation and spend to our municipality, and held events such as the New Year’s Eve fireworks, World Junior Surf Titles and World Body Boarding championships.


"During his tenure as General Manager, Kerry has overseen the development of many strategic plans including the Kiama Town Centre study, Local Strategic Planning Statement, Kiama Harbour Revitalisation and Draft Regional Plan.


"The results of the most recent Community Satisfaction Survey carried out by IRIS (an independent organisation) reinforced that a large number of our services and facilities scored the highest satisfaction rating in the IRIS database. Kiama Municipal Council is the “best performing Council” in their database and significantly above comparable Council’s.


"Over the past 12 months Kerry has been responsible for leading our organisation’s response to the COVID pandemic. He established the COVID Response team, and with this team, ensured that the staff and community were protected, whilst still delivering all of our services to the community. This included the redesign of a number of services, to ensure delivery, which met the issued Health Orders.


"With the closing of a number of our facilities, staff were redeployed to other parts of the organisation, resulting in no loss of employment for any staff member.


"We will now start the process of recruiting a new General Manager. Until an appointment is made, the role of Acting General Manager will be filled from within our existing leadership team.


"On behalf of Council I would like to wish Kerry all the best in his future endeavours."