Council had originally agreed to $150 000 however, the amount was increased to allow for additional rallies to help drum up support against the merger.
Funding will also be spent on establishing a submission to present to the State Government in February.
Deputy Mayor, Chris Doohan says the merger will be devastating for Port Stephens.
"This is nothing personally [sic] against Newcastle, it's just a crap deal for the people of Port Stephens that are going to have to fund the major amounts of dept incurred by poor Governments in the Newcastle City Council."
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| Fighters: Bruce MacKenzie and Chris Doohan |
However, Doohan claims their is little reason to merge.
"They've given us a bunch of reasons why they [the Baird Government] want us to merge, but the only one's that got anything to do with local Government is the Newcastle Airport."
"The rest of them are all actually State Government type things, like hospitals and schooling, so the arguments flawed from the get go."
Council has also ruled out backing down should the submission be rejected, with Mayor Bruce MacKenzie evoking the ANZAC 'never give up' attitude, and quoting British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, saying "we will never surrender."
Deputy Mayor, Chris Doohan evoked the same attitude.
"We will fight until it's craved in stone that the merger has to happen."
"I won't even call it a merger, it's
a takeover as far as I'm concerned and it's a bum deal for the people of Port Stephens."
Image Courtesy of Stephen Wark, via Port Stephens Examiner (LINK).
