dick for council

If I am elected these are promises I make to the Alma dog walkers:

1. I will implement the dog waste bag trial that the current councillors refused to countenance.
2. The vandalism of the Alma Dogs Notice Board is disgusting and depressing. It has been like this for ages and shows that the current Green councillor never visits the park. It will be repaired ASAP.
3. Explore options for off-lead opportunities in the open space of Port Phillip.
4. Conduct consultation and feasibility study on fencing (full or partial) of Alma Rd side to curtail escapes.

 The current Port Phillip Council has botched childcare.  Nothing really has happened in obtaining funds since 2007.  All the current councillors have done is to slow things down with micromanagement and laziness.

 
In 2007, when I was on Council, I visited Minister Maxine Morand and hosted her visit to St Kilda to secure funding for the St Kilda Childcare Centre.  We obtained Commonwealth and State funding of about $1.5 million dollars for two centres (when Port Phillip secured two out of ten federally-funded centres in the State).
 
In the four years of this Council, Port Phillip has endured unconscionable delays on the St Kilda site through the incompetence and micro-management of the project at Councillor level.  Five years after the funding go ahead was given, the facility is still unfinished.  This is a disgrace.  Because of the GFC, 2009 saw an explosion of publicly funded capital works but due to the Green Councillor in Junction Ward and councillor interference, the St Kilda Childcare Centre was not commenced.
 
Is this not a classic case of Councillor interference in breach of models of good governance that has led to such poor and slow outcomes and betrayed the parents of young kids in this City?
 
There are rumours that Council incompetence, indecision and delay almost led to the 2007 funding being withdrawn.  And the Council has made no business cases and obtained no funding for future child care centres in Port Phillip in the course of this Council.
 
Were seven members of the Childcare Services and Asset Management Teams (that were so highly successful in obtaining unprecedented levels of funding in 2007) chased out of the Council into the waiting arms of Casey Council?  In the time that Port Phillip has achieved no new projects, merely given scandalously delayed delivery of two prepared projects, Casey, using the previous Port Phillip staff (with an admittedly different growth path) has funded and built 4 childcare centres!
 
A copy of the March 2012 Capital Works Program of the City of Casey which shows that there are 3 childcare facilities being constructed with a total budget of $6.22 million. 
 
Has not Council betrayed the parents of Port Phillip with the documented delay and incompetence?
 
Is not the hopeless performance on child care symptomatic of the total performance of this indecisive and inept Council?
 

All of us have history. Mine involves many things. Some of these are good and some not so. The good might include my Presidency of the Municipal Association of Victoria for several years when I was the most senior figure in Victorian local government. Another good one might include the Order of Oz (an AM) for service to local government and the environment.

The less glowing history in my past years of service include the development approval around the Palais known as the Triangle. The decision may have been approved subsequently by VCAT but that did not make it popular. I include here a PowerPoint display written 4 years ago. I include this just for information. The proposal is dead and will NOT be revived. But the PowerPoint shows that it was not as sinister as some have made out. There are no towers. There was heaps of open space. The Palais was still the biggest building on the site. And as we now know, the current council, led by the grouping called UnChain are kings of the car park. In 4 years they have no funded or costed plan. They threaten to borrow or levy rates for hundreds of millions of dollars.

tri