29 March 2011

Full Council meeting March 28th 2011

While many things are debated at the City Services meeting, held in the week before Council, the decisions are usually passed without debate the following week at the Full Council meeting. Not so this week, 3 items were reserved out for further debate; One and half hours was spent listening to deputations that should have been made the previous week regarding the separation of dogs and children in McLeay Park. I believe that the deputations should have been moved forward and the entire matter rebated next month when all stake holders had had an opportunity to review the interim decision and see where the compromises might be so that both sides are happy. Unfortunately, my motion on this was not successful and 5 people were allowed to give their view but then had to leave with out a decision being made. Where did this leave them ? The decision to give the Unley Park Lawn Tennis Club an interest free loan was upheld as was the decision to change to one hard waste collection per year per household. Hopefully, this will mean shorter times between booking the service and the junk being out of your house and being recycled some where else. This may mean less illegal dumping. This will be monitored and the second collection reintroduced if necessary. The matter of interest free loans to sporting clubs should be of interest to some of our local clubs. We then debated;

  • Dog registration fees- to be raised to $55 per year with the usual range of rebates.

  • Recognition of Local Government in the Australian Constitution by a proposed referendum at the next federal election.

  • Open Space fund contributions being paid directly to Council instead of the State Government. This is in its investigation stage, while we loose little money from this at the present time we stand to loose a lot of revenue if multi storey buildings are approved on Greenhill Rd and Unley Rd.

  • The draft Annual Business Plan. This can now be downloaded at http://www.unley.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Item_111_FCM_March_2011.pdf..... Comment can be made by direct submission, by attending a community conversation style forum on 2oth April, by responding to the on line panel http://www.unley.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=1505 and via facebook and twitter.

  • The Brownhill Keswick Creek Stormwater Project which seems as though it has, at last some agreement for Mitcham Council.

I have written a seperate entry for the budget items of interest dated March 15th.


I welcome your comments.

22 March 2011

Messenger article 22nd March 2011

Unley Mayor publicly apologises
Council
22 Mar 11 @ 03:30pm by ALICIA MELVILLE-SMITH
UNLEY Mayor Lachlan Clyne has publicly apologised for breaching his council’s code of conduct.
The apology, made at last night’s committee meeting, follows an investigation by the Local Government Governance Panel which found Mr Clyne had committed a “technical breach” of the council’s code of conduct in an email he sent to elected members.
In the November 2010 email, he stated he needed a deputy mayor he could trust and asked councillors to vote for anyone but Cr Jennie Boisvert.
Mr Clyne told last night’s committee meeting he “did breach the code of conduct and for that I apologise”.
“I really do want to just put this episode behind us,” he said.
Cr Boisvert told the Eastern Courier Messenger after the meeting she was happy the saga had come to an end.
“I have accepted his apology,” Cr Boisvert said.
“He has apologised in public, which is what I asked for. As long as it doesn’t happen again, it’s over.”

Mayor apologises 21st March 2011



The Mayor publicly apologised last night at the City Strategy meeting to me for breaching the Code of Conduct in that he sort to treat me, and encourage others to, in a manner different from that of other elected members. Lachlan Clyne's behavior was unacceptable to me and the resulting report upheld my view that this type of behavior should not occur between Councillors. The report was leaked to the Eastern Courier, I will upload their report as soon as it is available.

Other interesting items from this meeting included;




  • Continuation of the left and right turn bans in what is known as precinct J (Goodwood Rd, Northgate St, King William Rd and Trevelyan St).


  • McLeay Park upgrade with total separation between dogs and children. While I support the sentiments of the Ward Councillors I believe the precedent that this decision sets may well have repercussions in other parks. We are lucky in Goodwood South to have two playgrounds that are dog free and other parks that are dog friendly, none are very far from each other.


  • Loan approval for $70,000 interest free to the Unley Park lawn Tennis Club. While I am happy to lend them money I would prefer for a interest charge to be added to the loan as we will have to borrow money to service this debt.


  • An increase in funds for the Hard Rubbish collection but still a reduction in service so that each property would only be able to book one collection each year. Currently over 700 homes book two collections but only 3,676 properties will avail themselves of the service. The actual cost is about $55 per collection. Council will still be vigilant in removing illegally dumped rubbish.


Council have organised for Community meetings to discuss the effects of the Greater Adelaide 30 year Plan on the City of Unley. While high rise on the corridors will not effect Goodwood South the infill development will. So have your say at any of the following meetings. This is an imposition from the State government and Council wants to hear the view from as many residents as possible;




You are invited to come along to any of the below information sessions -

Tuesday, 22 March - 1.30pm at the Goodwood Community Centre

Tuesday, 22 March - 7pm at the Unley Town Hall

Wednesday, 23 March - 7pm at the Unley Citizen Centre

Thursday, 24 March - 9.30am at the Town Hall

15 March 2011

Budget preparations

Budget documents are now in the Agenda for the Council meeting 28th March and then available for public consultation. It is important that you have your say directly to Administration by attending the public meetings or writing a submission if you are not happy with the proposals, including a rate rise between 5-5.5%. Details of dates later and in the Eastern Courier Messenger. So far for Goodwood South we have in the budget;

  • Footpaths for Lincoln Ave, Oakley St, Chelmsford Av (East to Oakley) and School Ave

  • kerb and water table for Cheltenham St, Churchill Ave, Cranbrook Ave and Cromer Pde

  • Fencing for Page Park

  • Rubber softfall at the Princess Margaret Playground

  • Road reseals for Cheltenham St, Churchill Ave, Cranbrook Ave and Cromer Pde

  • Replacing existing slow points in Mills St

  • Dog poo bag dispenser in Page Park

  • A traffic study for some of the area centreing around Byron Road

  • Money to complete works on Aroha Tce and Norman St.

City wide initiatives include the funding of ;



  • better hard waste collection services

  • The GAP water to Goodwood Oval and Orphanage Park

  • An enhanced graffiti management programme

  • More pocket parks

However, some items that are not in the budget include



  • More money for heritage conservation grants. See http://www.unleyherald.com.au/

  • Signs of the past project to celebrate our rich architectural heritage

  • Further works on Brownhill Creek at Orphanage Park

  • Increased money for footpaths.



03 March 2011

Full Council meeting Monday 28th February


This is the meeting in which the arbitrator's(Sue Vardon) report into the Mayor's alleged breach of the Code of Conduct was presented to the Council. The meeting only finished shortly before 2 am. While I am bound by confidentiality I am able to say that I was happy with the outcome and will let you know when I can reveal more information. The article at the following link makes interesting reading. http://www.unleyherald.com.au/city-of-unley/what-they-said-about-each-other/
http://www.unleyherald.com.au/city-of-unley/mayor-clyne-and-councillor-boisvert-move-on-from-post-election-differences/

The Glenelg Adelaide Pipeline is to be finally built so that this recycled water can be available by next summer to water our ovals and parks. There was much discussion about the quality of the water, however, the majority decision was to go ahead with the project although this will no longer include Windsor St. This is particular relevant to Goodwood South as the water will be piped to Goodwood Oval and Orphanage Park.


Councillors will continue to wear the current black robes after a motion was discussed to order new ones in double blue. The mood of the Council is that these robes are outdated and should be abolished. However, this will take a further motion next month to achieve.


Glen Osmond Creek redevelopment is to continue so as not to risk the Federal funding of some $2,500,000. Despite some contamination that may cost as much as $930,000 more than budgeted we have managed to achieve some cost savings by not replacing the Unley Road culvert (infrastructure that belongs to the State government).


There was some discussion about new sites for pocket parks, the one in Fielding Street is now complete, the Kelvin Ave park is waiting for DTEI approval to close the road and the widening of the footpath at the east of Spiers St should begin soon. Further sites have been identified in Eglington Ave, Ellesmere Tce and Merlon Ave. These are unlikely to be in the budget until 2013/14 at the earliest.


Cr Schnell called for greater policing of our 40km speed zones, however, we can only advise the police as to the streets that we wish to be policed. Cr Palmer and I have asked for a budget consideration to do some traffic flow studies in Goodwood South, if we get this funding we may be able to make some further decisions about traffic management, especially in Byron Rd.