“I've never met a politician who is as connected to her community as Cath!” said the Greens’ Jess Whittaker. “She's the reason I got involved in politics because she made it accessible to a regular person who wants to see positive change. Cath is a gem!”

Jess also paid tribute to outgoing Ward 1 Greens councillor Mithra Cox, “a passionate advocate for climate action and community”.

“She’s a natural leader and a fantastic public speaker. She’s incredibly kind and has been so generous in helping the next bunch of council candidates find their way.”

The man who has led Wollongong for the past 13 years, Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery AM, was Jess’s final choice. “Gordon led Wollongong Council out of some very dark times when restoring integrity and trust was desperately needed. He's championed a collaborative approach to decision making and remained connected to the community and in touch with local issues throughout his time as mayor.”

... And finally, Andrew [Anthony] picked outgoing Ward 2 Greens Councillor Cath Blakey, “who I deeply admired for her commitment to environmental protection and social justice issues”.

“The number one concern for people is affordability of housing, food, power bills and transport,” said the Greens' Jess Whittaker. “Every dollar counts for many families right now.”

Story Genevieve Swart in The Illawarra Flame, 12 September 2024.

Cr Cox said she had noticed, when checking her emails or phone messages that there was "a wave of hatred" in among the genuine requests for help. A wave she said increased during COVID.

"I think the job itself takes its toll," Cr Cox said.

"It's not just the amount of time, but it's also the amount of responsibility and the amount it bleeds into your personal life that it takes.

"It's not really possible to be a private person and go to a festival or go to the pool or go to the shops anymore, and that really takes its toll after a little while."

Cr Cox acknowledged there was a risk in both Wollongong Greens councillors leaving at the same time that it may mean the party not holding onto those two spots. "Of course, that is a concern," Cr Cox said.

"Managing a transition is a challenge. I really hope that we've done it in the best possible way. To leave with grace, to leave willingly, to support the new candidates as they come in and have a public demonstration that we think these people are going to be great.

"So often, you see those transitions can be rocky, and people want to hang on to their position and don't want to go, and it's a challenge."

She added that it was inevitable that the party had to put forward new candidates. "It's difficult to bring in new people that people don't know, but you've got to do it too," Cr Cox said.

"You've got to have new blood. You've got to have new ideas. And I'm well aware that I was never elected because of me - I was elected because of the party."

There was also a segment of voters who will vote Greens because of the party, rather than the candidates, because "people know us, people are pretty clear what we stand for".

"I think we might well actually get a third, and I think we may even get a fourth," she said.

"Partly because there's more votes and there are so few candidates."

Cr Blakey said there was no intra-party fighting that led to all the Greens councillors stepping aside at the same time - it was simply a coincidence.

"The NSW Greens are a federation of local groups, so we each make our decisions independently," Cr Blakey said.

"Actually, the Illawarra Greens had our preselection back in October last year. So I made the decision then not re-contest this council election, before we knew what was happening with any other candidates."

Cr Blakey also acknowledged there was a "risk" involved in putting up new candidates - "it's up to the electors, it's up to the people voting to determine who the council's going to be" - but was confident with the Greens candidates running in Wollongong.

When it comes to new candidates without the same name recognition as the incumbents, Cr Blakey said she was in that situation when she first ran for council in 2017 - and was elected.

"When when I took over and became a city council candidate people expressed the same concern," she said.

"Mithra and I didn't have the same recognition that Jill Merrin and George Takacs had."

Story by Glen Humphries in the Illawarra Mercury, 9 September 2024.

Outgoing Councillor Cath Blakey put the ambitious motion to this month’s council meeting.

“We have an obligation to suspend trade and investments that support Israeli illegal settlements,” she said.

“This is an opportunity to reflect the community’s concerns about what is happening in Gaza, and ensure ratepayers’ money is being spent responsibly.

“This council has a track record of standing up for peace, and this is something we can do to improve the transparency of our financial dealings.”

Cr Blakey said other local governments, such as Canterbury-Bankstown Council, had conducted similar reviews.

Cr Mithra Cox defended the motion. She said ensuring the council purchased from ethical suppliers was a way for the organisation to support peace.

“Making sure our suppliers don’t profit from war is something we can do easily and can create real change,” she said.

Story by Zoe Cartwright in Region Illawarra, 22 August 2024.

Cr Cox echoed the praise, highlighting the assistance she got when she started on the council, offering thanks for "the immense patience that people in this place had in teaching me about how the planning system works, how to read the council finances, to answer every single question in detail".

"I really do thank you for your patience and some of those people that helped me in those early times have since moved on. But I am and I remain immensely grateful for the time that they took in explaining all of that stuff to me."

Story by Glen Humphries in the Illawarra Mercury, 13 August 2024.

Cr Mithra Cox agreed that the city needed tourist drawcards, but they could be the same things that appealed to locals.

"It is things like good public transport, like pleasant streetscapes that are wide enough that you can walk with your friends that are quiet enough that you can have a conversation," she said.

"Streets that go somewhere where there's live music, where there's art, where there's interesting people where there's good food, where it feels like a place that people want to hang out.

"All of those things that we want for our city are the things that will draw people to it. If we create those things, then people will want to come here."

Story by Glen Humphries in the Illawarra Mercury, 13 August 2024.

Cr Cox said she was proud of the many things the council had achieved, including doubling the footpath budget, building new cycleways and introducing FOGO.

"When I first was elected to council I had a three-year-old who was in preschool and our community was asking for a pedestrian crossing to get across the road from the preschool to the shops - and we still don't have it," she said.

"And you think if you can't get a pedestrian crossing when you're on the city council, how do you do it?"

"I do think local government would be stronger if it was professionalised, if these meetings were held in business hours," she said.

"If we had an office and time in our days to respond to constituents, to meet with constituents, that's what they expect us to do.

"But, for most people, what we are paid, it's a reality that you have to have another job.

"And what the community expects and what we're able to do, it's really difficult. You've got a choice between working evenings and weekends and burning yourself out or not meeting people's expectations and that's really tough."

Fellow Greens Cr Blakey noted the collegiate nature of the current council make-up.

"I've really felt I've been incredibly lucky that we've been able to find common ground and work together with that focus on the benefit for the community," she said.

"I recognise that being a city council is an incredibly under-resourced role with great community expectations, as there should be.

"I want to thank you all for the great learning experiences and the great collaborative work that I've been able to be part of over the last seven years.

"Those seven years that have included for me having a baby and for this council having a pandemic that disrupted how we do things. In some ways it led to some innovations and in other ways, it made it incredibly difficult."

Story by Glen Humphries in the Illawarra Mercury, 13 August 2024.

Councillor Mithra Cox said the possibility of food trucks was first brought to the council in 2017 as part of a push to stimulate the night-time economy.

She said the limitations on opening hours put a stop to that.

“They’re only allowed to open during daylight hours, so essentially they’re only going to be coffee vans,” she said.

“It’s just rules for the sake of having rules, and I think we can improve it.”

Story by Zoe Cartwright in Region Illawarra, 2 August 2024.

Cr Cox said for some people, playing weekend sport was "their mental health outlet".

"It is something that anchors people's lives," Cr Cox said.

"It's a thing they look forward to on the weekend and when an entire season is wiped out like that it actually has a really big impact on people."

Cr Cox's motion said grounds like Roy Johanson Park in Figtree or Nicholson Park in Woonona could be used on a temporary basis and the council could work towards access to grounds owned by the University of Wollongong and the Department of Education. "It's a question as to whether there's anything we can do to explore saving this season by opening up, maybe a few extra grounds." Cr Cox said.

"To the question about cricket being interrupted, I think it's the reason I said 'community sport'," she said.

"My heart is with soccer, but it applies to all sports and you can easily foresee a future where it is 40 degrees every day for a lot of the summer weekends and it's not safe for the cricketers to play and they need to extend their season.

"I think this equally applies across those codes and especially cricket, which is out there in the hot sun."

"It's about planning now knowing that we're going to have droughts and we're going to have wet years again," Cr Cox said.

"What can we do to be hedging these things? I know a lot of clubs immediately look to synthetic pitches as the answer and it could be that it's part of the picture.

"But the one synthetic pitch that we already do have has provided no relief really for washed-out games because it's already 100 per cent in use."

Story by Glen Humphries in the Illawarra Mercury, 30 July 2024.

"Having art that is provocative, controversial to the point where it has been now immortalised in T-shirts and kind of entered the zeitgeist of ironic youth culture - that is actually what creative cities do," Cr Cox said.

"You have provocative art that gets people talking and there is no piece of art in the city that has stirred passions like this one.

"If you want to provoke people, to make people interested in art and have big philosophical conversations about the point of it, we've done a really good job." She worried if the motion was successful it would be "a sign of us being kind of small-minded and unable to kind of appreciate the complexity of art and be a grown-up city".

Story by Glen Humphries in the Illawarra Mercury, 30 July 2024.

More weekend soccer games have been cancelled than played this season, said Wollongong Councillor Mithra Cox, who has called for the 2024 winter sporting season to be extended.

Councillor Cox, herself a keen soccer player, will move at Monday's meeting of Wollongong City Council that the season be extended, and that the city develop a longer-term climate adaptation plan which would include better drainage and shade at council grounds.

"This is the second season in three years to have severely restricted community sports through ongoing wet weather," Cr Cox said.

"Many teams have played less than five games since April, with more games being cancelled than have been played," she said.

"This is incredibly frustrating, especially for the hundreds of new football players who have registered off the back of the Matildas' success at the World Cup.

"To keep those players engaged, we need a way to ensure they can actually play."

Cr Cox said alternative venues, including schools, could be explored for use on weekends.

"While some solutions will need time and money and planning, there are some quick fixes that could be employed to extend the season this year.

"With the simple addition of line markings and temporary goals, some unused fields could be freed up to enable the season to overlap with the cricket season, or we could work with schools to access some of their grounds."

Greens candidate for Wollongong Lord Mayor Jess Whittaker said solutions would take time to they should be planned now.

"We are already seeing climate impacts significantly impacting community sport, and we know that these impacts are only forecast to get worse," she said.

"It's important to start planning now so that our community members of all ages can continue to play sport in the summer or winter seasons. Facilities like all weather multi-use sports venues are big and expensive and take many years to fund, so the work needs to start now if we are to have these sportsgrounds in the future."

Story by Ben Langford in the Illawarra Mercury, 5 July 2024.