RED Hill ward voters will have a shire record 17 candidates to choose from when they cast their ballots for a new councillor on 23 August. The long list of names on the ballot paper is seen as a major win for the democratic process which in 2008 saw candidates in six of the then 11 single-councillor shire wards returned uncontested. Former Red Hill councillor Frank Martin entered council unopposed that year. He faced two opponents in 2012, one of whom is standing again this time. He resigned recently because of ill health. This election’s huge field is a disparate…
Author: David Harrison
AS GAMBLES go, building the Southern Peninsula Aquatic Centre ranks with the punt of the Iowa farmer who, hearing a voice whisper “If you build it he will come”, ploughed in his corn crop and built a baseball field. Shazam! Up popped baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson (deceased) to flesh out the plot of ‘Field of Dreams’, an American fantasy film of 1989 starring the forgettable Kevin Costner. The “build” quote has transmogrified into “Build it and they will come”, a nice entrepreneurial spin line used to reel in the gullible. The question: “Who will come to the SPA?” demands…
A BY-ELECTION will be held Saturday 23 August to fill the vacancy on Mornington Peninsula Shire Council created by the resignation of Cr Frank Martin. The outcome of a postal ballot will decide the new councillor for the Red Hill ward position held by Cr Martin for the past six years. Cr Martin resigned in May due to recent poor health. He was first elected in 2008 and served as mayor in 2011/12. The Red Hill ward – established in 2004 as part of the shire’s amalgamation – and includes Red Hill, Red Hill South, Main Ridge, Balnarring Beach, Somers,…
AN EXTRAORDINARY thing happened at last Monday’s Development Assessments Committee meeting. Apart from approving the proposed Arthurs Seat Skylift proposal, councillors voted unanimously to approve another matter, which the previous week they had unceremoniously thrown out. Or did they approve something significantly, or even slightly, different? It seems not. Here is the 26 May Notice of Motion from Cr Tim Rodgers (Nepean ward), which got the thumbs-down: “That the matter of Planning Application number P13/1830, in respect to Lot 5, 3080 Point Nepean Road, Sorrento be heard and determined by Council and not under delegation by Council officers and on…
Venue: Hastings Hub. Briefings as the entrée, followed by a meal, then the council meeting. A good crowd, that dwindled noticeably after dinner time. Apologies: councillors Graham Pittock and Bev Colomb. Cr Martin had resigned the previous Tuesday so only eight councillors present. IT WAS a meeting of two distinct parts, but with an air of tension over Part One, possibly emanating from councillors, who knew Part Two could well be lively. And so it was. Allow Council Watch to set the scene. The prologue: shire meetings are recorded via wi-fi microphones. These have been troublesome for months. They failed…
A COUNCILLOR walkout forced the abandonment of the Special Purposes Committee meeting held on 19 May when two confidential items came up for debate. Veteran council watchers could not recall any previous councillor walkout at Mornington Peninsula Shire. It was a dramatic and pivotal moment in shire events. The meeting had reached agenda item 3, “Confidential Items”. The minutes record that “Cr Fraser and Cr Rodgers left the meeting before consideration of this item and did not return”. Hugh Fraser and Tim Rodgers represent Nepean ward. The meeting was then adjourned at 5.50pm. The minutes state that “Cr. Colomb left…
COMMENT CR Frank Martin has quit his Red Hill ward at a most interesting moment in Mornington Peninsula Shire history. He has been a crucial vote at a time when important matters have been, and are being, decided. Mr Martin, an affable and personable man who had skill and experience to offer his ratepayers, has resigned because of illness. It opens up possibilities, after the byelection the vacancy triggers, for substantial changes in the way the shire goes about its business. First, continuance of the long dominance of the David Gibb-Anne Shaw councillor group of six is teetering. Mr Martin…
IT was a night to remember, this startling, shocking glimpse of councillors in a state of loosened fiscal décolletage, a heady, sensual recline into monetary abandonment. And that was just the men. It was shire councillors having their version of a Boxing Day-sale, cash gone in a flash and, like the recent federal budget, only capable of being fully comprehended days later. It was your rate money – $113,934 of it – whooshing out into the community at the dizzying rate of a rotunda here ($19,900), a war memorial there ($20,000), $1000 of wrist bands over yonder. All in one…