The commissioner questioned general manager Vic North over community awareness of council matters including proposed capital works and the council's strategic plan.

He asked Mr North to explain the failure of council to achieve the targets set out in the plan.

"It's a pretty poor report card when instance after instance you don't achieve what you set out to do," Commissioner Bulford said.

Mr North conceded there was times when objectives set out in the strategic plan were not met.

"We need to be more realistic about those targets," Mr North said.

One of the issues that continued to be examined by the Commissioner was the apparent split between the Walgett and Lightning Ridge councillors.

Mr North described the split as 'progressives versus conservatives', and agreed with the commissioner's comments that the split was ‘predominately a philosophical rather than geographic difference'.

Mr North said the ‘progressives', referring to the Lightning Ridge councillors, looked at the ‘big picture' and were not concerned with the details, while the ‘conservatives' were more concerned with the core business and financial management.

Mayor Alan Friend described the split as ‘something like a bad marriage', and said he expected the new council would continue to be split.

"It's certainly a worry. It's one of those things that will be very difficult to resolve because...whichever way I as the mayor with my casting vote, it's going to be divisive."

Mr Friend said he did not think the split had ever stopped Lightning Ridge receiving funding for projects, except in cases where the costs were considered unreasonable.

"I can't remember in these past four years that we've been on the council that we've denied Lightning Ridge anything that was reasonable. We haven't been in favour of this HACC building because of the amount of money needed to build it. Where was the money going to come from, who was going to pay for it and who was going to pay the interest?