August Council report

August 2008 Yarra Council report from Cllr Stephen Jolly (Socialist Party)



Residents,

The Council meeting last night was dominated by one issue and finished before 10pm, its earliest finish for some time.



Parking Meters in Yarra Boulevard, Richmond

Last night teachers from Melbourne Girls College (on the site of the former Richmond Secondary College) and workers and management from multinational company GE attended the Council meeting to lobby against a proposal to introduce parking meters along Yarra Boulevard. When GE was built a few years ago they told the Council they did not need to provide much parking onsite as their future workers would walk, cycle or use public transport. The Planning Department and the Council majority believed this spin.

Now, the huge number of cars on Yarra Boulevard on any working day shows this was not true.

The Council hopes to raise about $150,000 a year gross from these meters – and a lot less in net terms after the costs of installation, depreciation and maintenance are factored in.

The attendees last night, especially those on wages and salaries, explained that the Boulevard was used for parking by local workers not so much by shoppers and the change would mean a huge financial slug for them.

At the July Council meeting, I encouraged the multi-billion dollar GE company to increase the pay of their staff to cover the cost of meters. They came back with an offer to contribute about $30,000 a year to Council if they held off installing parking meters. This is less than the Council’s net profit on the meters, but GE management made clear to me last week that this was an initial ‘ambit’ offer.

The ALP and Green and Independent Councillors all supported the parking meters and were not convinced by the arguments of the local workers. I argued that both before and after meters, the street would stay the same during business hours – a long stretch of parked cars. The difference was that Council would raise money from the meters. Now GE was offering us that money without the need for meters. Their money would also protect Melbourne Girls College staff from meters too. I suggested officers try to negotiate an amount higher than the $30,000 initial offer and report back to Council next month.

The other Councillors ignored this suggestion and steamed ahead with meters in an 8-1 vote. Some even suggested that I was proposing the privatisation of public land. That would only be true if GE was suggesting that only their workers could park on the Boulevard – in fact no such suggestion was made.

I found it strange that the mover of the parking meter proposal was Green Councillor Gurm Sekron. I pointed out last night that one of the first times I saw Gurm was when he was standing on the back of truck with a megaphone in hand addressing a protest rally outside Piedemonte’s supermarket in North Fitzroy – arguing strongly against parking meters! That was 2002 and the Greens were not elected – now it’s 2008 and they are in office.



Questions without notice

I asked why residents had to sign a ‘stat dec’ every time they wanted a rubbish or recycle bin replaced. This was bureaucracy gone mad and I have asked officers to change this policy.

I also asked why we are the only Council in Melbourne allowing business parking permits, which are sometimes misused by businesses. I foreshadowed a motion for the September meeting restricting the use of business parking permits to business hours.



Hard Rubbish Collection

I tabled a petition of 185 names, plus one letter, calling on Council to reinstate the six-monthly hard rubbish collection when the new policy is reviewed later this year. There are more to come…