Full Council; 26th August 2013

As usual the Agenda  lead to robust debate. Items included;The Eastern Courier was noted by the absence of their reporter.
King William Road Refuge (again); This motion has been back and forth for at least two years, there are now two separate locations that are subject to two separate motions.  The traffic expert attended to answer questions and added some sense to the debate. It is hard to tell if the issue is about loss of parking or safety.What I do know is that residents were not asked if they thought there should be a pedestrian refuge or where their preferred location would be. Given Council desire to improve east-west connectivity there should definitely be easier and safer ways to cross this street. An amendment from Cr Koumi will enable the crossing north of Union St to proceed and the crossing south of Union St will be on hold until further investigations into truck use of Arthur St are completed.
Local Heritage Places Development Plan Amendment; this has now been to consultation and debated at the committee level. However, I believe, some important items were deleted at the last minute and that they should be included. These include 137-141 Unley Rd and 143-153 Unley Rd.These properties were relisted following an amendment from me.
Lease of Goodwood Oval to the Goodwood Cricket Club; This has come back from consultation without change. Passed
Mercury Emissions from Crematoria; an important issue to enable Centennial Park Crematoria to remain competitive and it would be good for the environment as well. Passed
Nominations for various positions on LGA committees.
Cost of Additional Parking Permits; Cr Schnell as put a Motion on Notice asking Council to reduce the cost of additional permits to $26, currently they are $150.These permits will now be issued at the cost of $52.
Unley Rd; This motion by Cr Salaman asks Council to resurrect the 2002 plan to upgrade Unley Rd and to proceed to gain funding and support from DPTI to proceed.Passed
Access to Residential Parking Permits; This motion from Cr Salaman would bring us in line with both the City of Adelaide and other major Australian cities in that additional  parking permits would not be available to residential properties if they are completed after Oct 2013. This will prevent the purchasers of new dwellings being able to purchase additional parking permits.
Land Encroachment-52 Ferguson Ave (Confidential)
Appointment of Independent Members to the Audit Committee (Confidential)
Despite the article in the Advertiser today saying that Council discussed additional parking requirements for the show due to the trains not running unto late in September this was not the case. Cr Hudson attempted to put a Motion without Notice that might have been debated but the Mayor refused to accept the motion!