Agenda bender
WHEN I bumped into one of our newly-elected councillors just before Christmas, she asked me when I was going to start writing about the council in my usual way.
The implication, though accompanied by a smile, being that I’m often highly critical and dismissive of the council’s modus operandi.
Too much gobbledygook “bureau” speak, a lack of commitment and a risk aversion strategy bordering on paranoia.
However I’m declaring a selfimposed moratorium on council and councillors’ actions for six months.
We have a newish council and they deserve to be given some breathing space and allowed time to settle in before we judge them.
Interestingly, this week has given us a hint of some of the agenda items that will be part of their workload over the coming months.
The Addy has featured the following as items of interest and concern this week: Barwon Heads and the push for a new bridge.
Moving the bus interchange to allow Moorabool St to “breathe” again and banning trucks from the new Laneways precinct.
No one would disagree that these are all worthy items to address.
The disappointing feature of this list of “things to do” our councillors face, is that each and every one of these items has been on the agenda for at least a decade.
Just imagine that, and also just imagine the 20-odd reports that have been written over that time and that almost inevitably even more reports will be called for.
We might even have to chip in for a couple of outside consultants to input their two bob’s worth.
Something we should bear in mind is that only one of these hugely historic but pressing matters of concern, is actually solely a council decision.
The new councillors will have to get used to the fact that most ratepayers blame them for everything.
Electricity costs too much? Schools fees escalating beyond control? Threat of nuclear holocaust from North Korea?
Yep, to some, all the council’s fault. So let’s be clear with regard to our agenda items of just what is and what isn’t under CoGG’s sole remit.
Barwon Heads and the push for a new bridge would fall under VicRoads and presumably the Department for Infrastructure.
The bus interchange I assume is under Public Transport Victoria, with some input from VicRoads.
Given that both these items are state government responsibilities then many more branches of the state bureaucracy would also get involved.
The best the council and our new councillors can achieve with the Barwon Heads bridge and bus interchange issues is to effectively lobby, cajole and plead with the state authorities and local MPs for what they want to happen in the best interests of the community.
I can only assume Mayor Bruce Harwood and Cr Eddy Kontelj know who to talk to as they would have been dealing with them for the last decade already and, as they say, practice makes perfect.
So what we have left that the council can make a decision on is to ban trucks, and I would hope all traffic, from the Lt Malop St and Laneways precinct.
In October 2005 the council took the Lt Malop St traders to Hardware Lane in Melbourne.
As part of the makeover, the traders were told the council “Want to make Lt Malop St the alfresco area in Geelong and build on the arts and cafe precinct heritage”.
Part of that vision was street closure to traffic.
Didn’t happen, of course, which is why it’s being discussed some 13 years later.
At the time I wrote “Quite simply what we would like is for someone to adopt a ‘how do we make this happen’ as opposed to the officers view of ‘this can’t happen because …’ If the council doesn’t seize this opportunity the Lt Malop St redevelopment will become yet another of those ‘Why didn’t they take the opportunity to make it an alfresco dining area’ or even worse ‘that’s the council for you’.” Can the ‘new’ councillors make it happen?
We’ll see, won’t we.