Now reaching the end of the first year of his retirement, former Noosa Council chief executive officer Brett de Chastel is busier than ever, but the self-confessed “local government tragic” made time to share his views on how councils should run in a recent podcast.
Taking time out from his mentoring work at Indigenous councils at Cherbourg and Wujul Wujul in Far North Queensland, Brett gave a rare glimpse into his local government philosophy in an episode of the Queensland State Development department’s So You Want To Be a Councillor series called The Community’s CEO.
While the veteran of two amalgamations and one de-amalgamation restricted his specific thoughts on Noosa Council to the historic, he provided some interesting insights into the challenges that face new councillors, presumably based on having had to nurture four of them at Pelican Street in 2020 and 2021.
“A local government CEO is there to give advice to what I call the board because it’s similar to a board of directors in the private sector,” he said.
“In this case you’re the conduit between the elected representatives and the rest of the organisation. “Another way of describing the role is to help the councillors achieve what their policy objectives are in short and long term. That’s one of the challenges for councillors – they want short term results that often have long term financial implications.
“The longer I was in local government the more I realised it was essentially about relationships – the relationship between the council and the community, the relationship between the mayor and the councillors, between the mayor and the CEO, the CEO and his senior management team.
“If you get them working well you’ll get through the problems in dealing with difficult issues, have your disagreements and then move on without a grudge.”
I looked back over three interviews I conducted with Brett during and after his final two years as Noosa CEO, and found that the ability to move on without baggage was a recurring theme in each.
He noted in the podcast: “The best first time councillors are the ones who are prepared to listen to alternative views rather than come in with fixed ones, because inevitably the reality of running the council is very different from what you see from the outside.
“The ability to listen, to learn is important. I’ve seen councillors come in on a single issue, like getting a toilet block built in their neighbourhood, and suddenly they have to deal with everything else. You’ve got to get your head around a lot.
“The one thing I’ve hear the most from incoming councillors is, gosh, there’s more to this than I thought.
“The most successful councillors are the ones who say, whatever the outcome of a vote, well, that’s done, what’s next? Never make it personal, just move on.”
And Brett’s final word to aspiring council CEOs? “Nobody ever sends you a thank you note when they get their rates notice.”
