City plan? Ask the kids

Consulting ‘grannies’ on 30-year strategy all wrong, says Lyons

CHILDREN as young as 12 should create Geelong’s 30year plan, according to sacked former mayor Darryn Lyons in an on-air rant this week.

Mr Lyons was speaking on The Pulse when he took aim at the Geelong Future Vision project, among his many criticisms levelled at council ad- ministrators and the Government.

“It’s no good consulting grannies that aren’t going to be around in 30 years, we should have sat down and consulted children of the age of 12 to 15 about what is going to happen in 30 years’ time,” he told the community radio station’s mornings presenter, Mitchell Dye.

“Because they’ve got all the State answers. They’re the people that are going to be living in Geelong as a community that we all love and want to see prosper into the future.”

During the interview, Mr Lyons said he had not ruled out running for the 2017 council elections as he had a “tremendous amount of unfinished business”.

But he still feels bitter about being fired from City Hall last year, and said he expects he will for the rest of his life.

“I’m not sure whether I had some kind of physical or nervous breakdown at the time at the end of it,” Mr Lyons said.

“I mean I am still extremely tired from the emotion that went through the sacking and it has hurt me and cut me deeply.”

Mr Lyons also revealed a troubled relationship with deputy mayor Michelle Heagney, claiming they rarely saw eye-to-eye. He also accused her of “undermining” him.

“The mayor should have who the mayor wants. I had a very dysfunctional time when Michelle Heagney was my deputy, because we just didn’t agree on anything,” he said.

“Now you can’t have that, and it was always about undermining all the time, under- mine, undermine, undermine.

“That was an extremely difficult time for me where I was elected as leader of this city by the people and for the people and I had someone behind me just trying to walk over that all the time.”

When contacted by the Geelong Advertiser, Ms Heagney said she was not aware of the comments and had nothing to say.