February and March Council Meetings Update
Hello again.
Yes, sorry I am rather late again with updates to Council meeting information but I am confident I am up to date now and will be able to report on the April meeting in advance.
Anyway, back to the February and March meetings.
These are the items of direct relevance to Northfield Ward or otherwise of most interest to local residents in my opinion:
FEBRUARY – [Key – > item continuing, X – item concluded]
12.2.2 Council has agreed to make some improvements to the parking arrangements around Hampstead Primary School to improve safety. X
12.2.6 Council has agreed to install a yellow line outside number 20 Lakeside Circuit, Northgate to improve traffic movement in the street. X
12.2.8 Previously Council had received a petition of several hundred residents in regard to needing more parking around Duncan Fraser Reserve (home of the Gepps Cross Football Club – part of the Northgate Sports and Social Club), especially when football games are on. Council staff rejected the need for more car parking but my co-Councillor Anne-Marie Hubycz successfully moved that Council undertake community consultation on upgrading the reserve (including looking at car parking) to improve the situation. Well done AMH! >
12.2.13 Council has spent considerable time looking at matters to do with improving verges including last year rejecting a proposal put together from a resident of Greenacres and led by myself in Council to improve verges throughout the Council known as the “One Street at a Time Program”. I was happy to support a less intensive program promoted by Cr Claire Boan called “Community Minded Verges” which will mean some of the aims and ideas of the “One Street at a Time Program” will be implemented, but not by street, but by residences who want to opt in. Included in this is for fruit trees on verges. It’s an improvement on no improvement at all! >
14.1 Cr Boan has asked for staff to provide an automated response system for people who report matters via online apps or email. Good idea. >
14.3 Cr Boan (again!) asked staff to investigate installing more playground for people with disabilities across the Council area. Supported unanimously. >
14.4 I asked staff to increase expenditure on staff in the Traffic Services Division of Council so they can actually process some of their vast workload – some of which is outstanding for more than six months and so we can speed up the number of Local Area Traffic Management Schemes in the Council area. Council staff had originally suggested not running an LATM in Greenacres or Northfield until 2019/20 due to lack of resources and too much workload. I believe, subject to hiring staff, this matter should be able to resolved now but there will be more discussion in the budget process. >
14.6 I moved that Council develop a report for this year’s budget to develop an Economic Development Strategy for the Council area including employing an officer with relevant skills and experience in this area, and hosting an Economic Development Forum to focus on creating local employment. I have been trying for this strategy for some years, but it was opposed by our late City Manager and I was not successful in getting it up until now. Having worked for many years in the recruitment industry and having spent some time ‘under employed’ myself I am only too well aware of the impacts of lack of work.>
14.7 Cr Tony Barca moved that Council write to the Government opposing its proposal to close the Modbury Hospital Emergency Department. Northfield Ward co-Councillor Matt Osborn successfully moved to adjourn the debate to hold a workshop of Council and invite the Health Minister to speak at it. I opposed this adjournment as it meant delaying Council further considering this matter before the deadline on the Transforming Health consultation period. But wait, there’s more. >
14.8 Cr Boan moved that Council write to the Government opposing its proposal to “scale back the current services of the emergency department at the QEH” and also referring the matter to the aforementioned workshop. Cr Osborn again moved to adjourn the matter just to be discussed at the workshop. The adjournment was defeated on the Mayor’s casting vote. >
14.9 I moved that Council write to the Government opposing the closure of the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre* and retaining rehab services in our area, and the closure also be discussed at the aforementioned workshop. This was passed UNANIMOUSLY.
Two months on, and we have not heard from the Minister for Health if/when he is turning up for the Council workshop and it hasn’t been booked yet. >
16.1 Cr Osborn moved that the Council write to the Federal Government saying that it is “critical to design, build and maintain this fleet of submarines in South Australia.” amongst other sensible requests to keep this industry local. This of course was carried unanimously. >
* I declared I had a conflict on this item, but not a conflict of interest, as I am the Convenor of the Facebook Group “We do not accept the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre will close”.
MARCH – [Key – > item continuing, X – item concluded]
12.1.1 Council staff reported back on the motion I moved last year in regard to Council becoming involved in a proposed regional community and recreation facility based in Oakden. A matter is before Cabinet for discussion on this and Council staff will report back. I feel there is some very exciting news around the corner for our community. >
12.2.4 Council has agreed to change parking around Northfield Primary School to improve safety for all involved. X
12.2.5 Council has agreed to pop a yellow line in Down Drive, Valley View after a resident contacted me to ask for this near a blind corner. X
12.2.6 Council will write to residents of Northgate Parade, Northgate, after resolving that due to resident objection further study into placing traffic controls in parts of that street will not occur. X
12.2.14 At my behest, Council had written to the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure asking for 28 conditions to be met before we would agree to hand over Blacks Road South to DPTI for the North East Road/Sudholz Road intersection. DPTI had agreed to all but about 6 of these, but unfortunately due to time pressures further negotiations could not take place to ‘seal he deal’ and DPTI commenced proceedings to compulsory acquire the road from Council. X
For what it is worth, in the end the outcome for local residents and businesses was far better than could have ever been hoped for. A combination of pressure from residents, businesses and Council and the timely intervention from Dana Wortley MP saw a belligerent DPTI bureaucracy create changes to the design from publicly mooted suggestions which, in the end, was an excellent result. Dana’s work was critical as prior to her involvement, it was obvious DPTI was not listening – when they did we all found much more common ground and most issues were resolved pretty amicably.
12.2.16 I moved that Council put money in the 2015/16 budget to put a shade sail over the playground at Vickers Vimy Reserve at Northgate. >
12.2.18 Council has agreed to my proposal to create a Memorial Tree Plantings Policy for Council land. This follows on from a few years ago when I successfully devised a Memorial Furniture Policy for Council (park benches, water fountains etc). I was approached by a family who wished to buy a park bench for Council to place in the local park where their recently deceased father had spent many happy days in his final years, with a small plaque on the bench to commemorate their father. Council staff had refused initially as we had no such policy on the matter at the time. I want to ensure people are able to do that in the future for trees as well in our parks. >
12.3.1 I moved that Council write to the State Government refusing to give an opinion on the proposal to change South Australia’s Time Zone as they did not allow enough time for Council to consult with residents before closing off consultation. How can we answer for you, when we don’t know what you want? Ridiculous. X
14.3 I successfully moved that Council write to DPTI asking for a koala or pedestrian crossing to be built on Fosters Road in the vicinity of Cedar College at Northgate to allow the safe crossing of children. This follows on from work already done on the issue by parents of the school and Dana Wortley MP. >
14.5 My motion to seek a Council investigation into cat control over the next financial year was successful (only one vote against). I will create a special page on my website for that alone in coming months once the investigation starts but it has already caused some interesting feedback to Council (the professional cat lobby people writing identical letters to us etc) and some media. >
14.9 Mayor Johanson wanted Council to adopt “2015 – Year of the Port” as the Council slogan for the year. Crs Osborn and Paul Russell (Klemzig Ward) opposed this as they said it didn’t take into account the Enfield side of Council. I supported it as the cost is negligible (some words on our website and in Council emails and an extra line added to some banners) but, like it or not, we are one Council and as soon as Port Adelaide as a region takes off we are all better off. That doesn’t mean we ignore our side of town at all – Council spends tens of millions of dollars every year on our side of town but as in Northfield or Klemzig Wards we do not have a ‘main street’, a Port, an AFL Football team or a significant cultural and arts precinct, we just don’t get the same publicity. X
What do you think of these matters? Agree or disagree?
Have your say below!
And on Friday April 11th, Council’s April Meeting Agenda examined!
Finally – here are the links to Council’s agendas and minutes for its February and March meetings:
As the size of the February and March Council agendas are too large for my website, the link for all of this year’s agendas and minutes is here:
http://www.portenf.sa.gov.au/page.aspx?u=2172
But you can access the following minutes on my website: