Paul Garrard was a member of Steve Sharp's winning ticket in May and currently sits on the board of the Parramatta Leagues Club.
He's been a Councillor at the local government level for the past 41 years and is beginning his sixth stint as Lord Mayor of Parramatta.
As a fan base we keep hearing about how inexperienced our board is, how we don't have anyone with any business nous. That may have been how it used to be.
To have the sitting Lord Mayor of Parramatta sitting on the board is massive. Parramatta is the fastest growing city in Australia and one of the largest economies in Australia outside the capital cities.
Currently infrastructure projects are popping up all around the city as the region is being seen as the second capital of NSW.
There's no doubt that having Paul on the board will greatly help with the redevelopment of both the stadium and leagues club.
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Yea I heard that the 49ers are gonna pick him up :I
Actually Super, I have to disagree with you on this.
I was already a bit unsure of the conflict of angle with Paul being on the board and in council. Being Lord Mayor dramatically intensifies this, almost to the point where the roles are untenable.
Consider this. Every discussion now that comes up in the boardroom in relation to the Leagues Club redevelopment or the Stadium or any issue related to council, surely Paul is going to have to recuse himself from at both a Leagues Club and Council level. Every time a decision goes Parramatta's way at a council level, his political opponents will argue that we only got that way because we've got the Lord Mayor on our board. It's probably not unfair to assume that now every matter that goes before council now has a massive political agenda. Will councilors vote against issues related to the club because it makes the Lord Mayor look bad?
From the interactions I've had with Paul, he seems like a nice guy and I'm certainly not doubting his integrity in this respect, but I think it would be highly naive to think that politically this makes him a massive target at both levels.
Politically it does put him in a difficult position. But I assume he ran for the board knowing the risk of that occurring. But I mean, this is really small fry, councillors can already vote on multi-million dollar investment projects they have their fingers in. He's won his position by not being aligned to either major party and won the vote by a show of hands. He's clearly got a substantial amount of support in the Council chambers.
It becomes a conflict of interest if, and only if, Paul begins using his position as Mayor to move the redevelopments along to benefit the club. Don't forget the redevelopments were both approved before Paul was elected Lord Mayor so they've obviously already got support inside the Council.
Why would the 49ers want to sign the Parramatta Lord Mayor?
Couldn't do any worse than their current quarterback: 9/19, 4 intercepts, 2 returned for TD.
Let's start a Hayne to quarterback blog lol!
Super, I think you know my position on governance and removing even the perception of conflict. I don't want to compare it to other instances because I think that's unfair but let's just say you hear the "it only becomes a conflict of interest if..." justification thrown up endlessly in these kinds of matters before they eventually explode.
Let's just look at one recent example. Ray Hadley launched his attack on Parramatta council when they floated the idea of the Ambassador as a TPA sponsorship. Now, I honestly believe that there was nothing wrong with that Ambassador proposal and I think council would have gotten a lot of value from that TPA agreement as well as supporting one of the community's prized assets. However, there are obviously politics at play here from both a council angle and a Parramatta angle, so what would otherwise have been a nothing story got metropolitan airplay and newspaper coverage and it eventually sunk a very sizable TPA. You put Parramatta together with politics - even local - and what would otherwise be a blip on the radar becomes a big story.
Now, I hope this all goes well. Paul Garrard is obviously a very, very experienced politician and I'm sure if anyone is going to be able to negotiate the potential conflicts and subsequent negative outcomes that could be generated, he may be the guy to do it. But my point is, I'm not delighted he's now the Mayor because I think it applies more pressure for him to traverse the two roles without stepping across any lines and makes him a bigger target. The Leagues Club and Stadium are large multi-year projects and a lot is going to happen in local politics between now and then.