Port Macquarie-Hastings’ nine councillors were sacked over the Glasshouse issue in February last year.

Now, council administrator Garry Payne has floated the idea of reducing councillor numbers and he wants community debate on the concept.

The Local Government Act requires a minimum of five councillors and a referendum would be needed to reduce the councillor contingent in the a new council.

Byabarra’s Carol Randall was involved a campaign in 1995 to get Jacquie Argent, Mavis Barnes and Lisa Intemann elected to the council.

And they were.

Mrs Randall favours keeping the status quo of councillor numbers.

“Everyone needs to be represented on the council and I don’t think five (councillors) are going to do it,” she said.

“That way, you have a better chance of gender and age distribution.”

Sandra Nicholson from Port Macquarie favours five councillors.

More councillors meant more arguments and made it harder to reach a decision, she said.

Josie Sutherland agrees.

The Port Macquarie woman said there were more complications with larger councillor numbers.

Too many arguments stemmed from too many councillors, Merle Kebblewhite of Port Macquarie also said, and she supported reducing the councillor numbers to five.

Dunbogan’s Glenn Bamford also thinks reducing councillor numbers would be a good idea.

“They should all work together if there is only a small number but you would need to ensure representation from the whole of the local government area, through possibly ridings,” he said.

Meanwhile, quick decision making would be an advantage of fewer councillors, Kylie Driver says.

But Simon Ross doesn’t want the councillor ranks to dwindle.

“You need that cross section of opinions and you need to have a decent majority (in voting),” he said.

Sam Spahich from Port Macquarie believes councillors should focus more on youth needs and that is more likely without reducing councillor numbers.

“I think it would be really nice if more people were involved with the town to face some of the issues we have,” he said.

Nikki Rudge of Sancrox is undecided about the councillor number debate but she questioned whether savings from fewer councillors would be put back into the community.