Full Council: 24th Sept 2012

The items  discussed this week included;

• Development Act Delegations; this was deferred from last month although why was not shared with me as a Councillor.PASSED
• Street Tree Removal-26 Porter St, Parkside; This was adjourned from last month as the structural engineer was unavailable for the last meeting. Decision is CONFIDENTIAL
• Nomination for the Energy Consumers Council; Sounded interesting but you need to be an expert in some area of electricity supply. No one was nominated.
• Centennial Park Authority Audit Committee; This is to approve the appointment of G Vogt and L Bishop to the committee and to confirm Lets Northcott from UCC as the staff representative.PASSED
• Signing off Financial Statements; PASSED
• Unley Oval Masterplan- Consultant brief; Contrary to what you may have read in the Eastern Courier, this is to employ a consultant to develop a plan not about what Council will do with the land in the short term. That is it has little to do with the Sturt Football Club other than as a stakeholder. The Masterplan will make suggestions, come up with ideas and present them to Council. PASSED
• Elector Representation Review; This is an important one for all of us; do we like the ward structure, the number of representatives per ward and the election at large of our Mayor or do we want to see changes in this?This review is a legislative requirement. However, we must make some minor changes as the wards must have approximately the same number of electors and this is not currently the case. The removal of many from the supplementary role due to failure to re-enrol (another problem with legislative changes) has seen a significant drop in voters in some wards. In Fullarton the increasing numbers in retirement villages has added to it's numbers. I would like to see our Mayor elected by Councillors after the election of Ward Councillors; these people know the capabilities of the person they elect as they may have worked with them for many years; they are not fooled by slick campaigns or words that are not carried through to actions. PASSED. This will now go to Consultation.
• Draft Community Plan- for Community Consultation; This is the end result from the Community of Possibilities. It will set a direction for the next 20 years. It is worth reading and commenting on if you have the time. PASSED

• Preservation of Grey Box Trees at 18 Winifred St, Black Forest; I am disappointed that the report did not suggest a way forward. I moved  a motion that does. The trees are original specimens from the original black forest and a way forward for their preservation must be found. At this stage Council will further investigate their potential listing on our Significant Tree Register. PASSED
• Update of Federally Funded Stormwater Projects; The money has now been used to complete Hamilton Boulevard (10ML),commence the Water Sensitive Urban design of Wattle St, developing tender documentation for the Ridge Park MAR (Managed Aquifer Recharge)(60 ML), Concept investigation of the Heyward Park MAR(60ML). The latter will store water from both Brownhill Creek and the Urrbrae Wetlands.PASSED
• Purchase of Land by Centenial Park; (Confidential)

 The full agenda can be found at; http://www.unley.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Council%20Agenda%20Sept%202012.pdf