Cr Ward has moved a notice of motion to go before the full council meeting on August 12, calling for council’s general manager Russ Pigg to report on a number of issues relating to The Mail.

The notice of motion called for details of distribution of The Mail, handling of distribution complaints by council and The Mail, an analysis of costs between The Mail and council’s previous policy of advertising in Rural Press publications, and the advertising split between The Mail and Rural Press publications.

Cr Ward said his concerns were sparked by reports The Mail, and its six pages of council news and advertising, was not being distributed in the Ulladulla region.

Many local businesses were not receiving the publication, Cr Ward said, and the statutory requirements that resulted in some council notices being placed in Rural Press publications meant business operators could never be sure where to look for things such as tenders available.

“It’s no good for local businesses,” Cr Ward said.

He also questioned whether Shoalhaven’s ratepayers were getting value for money, given reports from council staff earlier this year that buying six pages of information in The Mail each fortnight would cost an extra $80,000 per year.

Now the experiment had been running for a while, council had the chance to see what the real cost was, Cr Ward said.

“I’d like to see some of the costs,” he said.

“Then with details of the distribution we can see if this is an effective mechanism for getting council’s message out.

“However for a council newsletter to be effective it needs to get to everybody, and a whole lot of people aren’t getting it,” Cr Ward said.

Distribution problems were detailed last week by Patricia White, a ward three candidate at the coming local government elections who has been endorsed by Cr Ward.

“People have never seen it,” said Mrs White, who runs a business delivering mail and for a short time delivered the Shoalhaven Mail around Ulladulla.

Yet she stopped delivering The Mail after her staff were abused by people who did not want the television guide, and later she received complaints that the publication had not been delivered to an array of addresses.

But when she checked out the complaints, the addresses were bogus, she said.

“I’ve never had the number of complaints in 10 years that I got in one week of The Mail,” she revealed.

“I wasn’t prepared to put the credibility of my walkers at stake, so I pulled the pin.

“And they still haven’t paid our bill.”

Cr Ward said the situation was concerning, and he wanted a report on options to be prepared so it could be considered by the new council following the September 13 election.