A CANDIDATE for mayor of Warringah Council, Vince de Luca, orchestrated the chaos that led to its sacking and should not be elected on Saturday, the council's outgoing administrator says.
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In an extraordinary break with convention for a neutral bureaucrat, Dick Perrson, a former public service chief who was appointed to run the council in 2003, entered the political fray, saying Mr de Luca was a divisive community leader who frequently disrupted council meetings and mounted campaigns against his opponents.
Mr de Luca is a leading figure in the Community First Alliance, an organisation that is running candidates for Sydney councils this weekend.
The founder of Community First Alliance, the Baulkham Hills Mayor Sonya Phillips, said she hoped the fledgling party would become a force in local government politics.
Two Community First Alliance candidates in Sutherland Shire, David Redmond and Magdi Mikhail, are former Liberal Party members; Cr Phillips once worked for the conservative Liberal MP Marie Ficarra.
"We have no political doctrine. It's about being an alternative to the major parties," Cr Phillips said. "We are not Liberals in disguise. If you ask the Libs at Baulkham Hills, they say we are Labor in disguise."
George Capsis, who is standing for Community First in Sutherland Shire, is a former member of the Christian Democratic Party, while Mr de Luca, also a former Liberal, acknowledges his long friendship with Ms Ficarra.
"I have known her since I was at school," Mr de Luca said. "She has come to several community meetings on the peninsula. I have been in her office to help with voluntary dinners."
But he denied having written a series of questions that Ms Ficarra asked in Parliament, which attacked Mr Perrson's administration of the council.
"Marie has been in local government for many years," he said. "She is highly expert in the field. I have not had to write anything for her."
Mr de Luca does, however, include Ms Ficarra's provocative parliamentary questions on his website, under the section headed: "Media releases and letters."
Mr Perrson, who took over Warringah after the State Government dismissed the council for being dysfunctional, described Mr de Luca as "a very clever operator [who] developed a strategy to get the council dismissed. He is the only candidate in Warringah whom I sincerely hope does not get elected."
But Mr de Luca pointed to an official commission of inquiry report that rejected accusations of a conspiracy theory in the council's downfall, and described him as a "legitimate critic" of the council.
He criticised Mr Perrson for approving high-rise development in Dee Why during his final months as the council administrator.
"When Dick came to Warringah, we all had great hope for him and we were fair and supportive," Mr de Luca said. "But in his dying days, he has attempted to ram through proposals against the wishes of the community."
Mr Perrson is not the only person to suggest Mr de Luca is a puppet-master who attempted to run Warringah from the public gallery after he failed to get elected at the 1999 elections.
In 2004, a former Liberal MP, Andrew Humpherson, told Parliament Mr de Luca had orchestrated walkouts by councillors, throwing meetings into chaos.
