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.
Great news that they're looking to recognise Local Government in the Constitution. It is an entirely valid and vital tier of government in Australia and it is high time it was formally recognised. Additionally it would be good to see it having some more power instead of being bullied by the State Government so much.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately not so good about McLeay Park - I live on the street and feel that there should be more emphasis given to children, especially toddlers. We have been unable to use the park for the past few years because of the damage to the park's grassed areas caused by excessive dog usage, the amount of dog droppings and the danger from dogs potentially biting a child. Unfortunate because it is a really great park. If we have separation via a fence and provision of dog exercise areas, well then that is a great outcome for everyone. However it needs to be equitable for both dog owners and parents and children.