She may be relatively new to town, but candidate Rebecca Morgan believes she has the skills and enthusiasm to make a real difference if elected to Cowra Council come December 4.
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Ms Morgan and her family have resided in Cowra for more than three years after her sister made the move from the Penrith area.
"My partner Lachlan and I were both working in the city but living in Penrith so we were travelling for three hours everyday," she said.
"We looked at how we were saving and we looked at what our future life was going to be like and with the cost of housing and the travel... it doesn't make for a good, happy, productive, healthy life.
"We moved to Cowra to be with my sister and then mum and dad followed us. The whole family is now in Cowra and this is our forever home... Cowra has all the facilities that we need."
After working at Cowra's TAFE NSW campus for three years, she recently went back to her previous role with a life reinsurance company.
She believes the skills gained during her employment will make her an asset on council.
"I'm a details person... I like spreadsheets and I like processes. Anytime there is a problem, I look at, do we have a process in place that is sufficient? Was this just user error... was it one mistake because somebody didn't follow the process? Or is the process wrong?" she said.
"This is me participating in the way that I feel I'm best at participating, ideas around building businesses or dealing with companies that could help us."
After deciding to run for council, Ms Morgan said a number of residents have approached her and raised issues around communication.
"A lot of the time, we don't hear from council about why they're making decisions," she said.
"I feel like I'm a good communicator, I look at ways to make things clear to people, it's something I've had to do in my professional life and it's something I try to do in my personal life."
One way to address this issue, Ms Morgan said, is to allocate councillors to people who address council's public forum.
"With the council meetings that I've watched... what I've noticed is people will come in and they give their five minute speech but nobody owns that issue, and that is a problem," she said.
"If people actually had a resolution each time they came to council and spoke, then that would make them feel so much better about their contribution. They would feel heard, they would feel listened to and it would stop things from potentially falling through the cracks.
"I'd be happy to take on things people are really passionate about."
With her experience in business and finance, Ms Morgan would also like to see Cowra Council expand their opportunities for funding, saying there is potential to attract superannuation funds to invest in the shire.
"We know that Super Funds have trillions of dollars under management," she said.
"I would really like to go to some super funds and say, 'come and invest in Cowra and let's make us a pilot program to see what can be done to diversify your portfolio that also makes the lives of our residents better'.
"We need to make ourselves sustainable and self-reliant and if we can prove that different initiatives can be successful and can make money... well perhaps that creates further opportunities in ways we can't even contemplate."
With investment from superannuation funds, Ms Morgan said Cowra could become a hub for environmental, cultural and tourism industries.
"Unless we find ways to build enterprises from the ground up... none of these changes ever occur," she said.
"I'm not seeing anybody being that change so I'm going to try and be that change."
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