28-6-06
Letter to the Editor
Southern Courier
Dear Editor
Last Tuesday night I moved that the concept plan for Heffron Park be adopted minus the high rise option. All 14 councillors present unanimously supported me.
Last year there was another other unanimous decision on a different matter.
Many may be surprised, but Council minutes (26th April 2005) show that it was actually ALP Councillor Michael Daley who moved that the final motion to roll out parking meters in Maroubra, Coogee and Clovelly. The very decision that he now describes as "whacky" (Southern Courier, 27th June 2006).
These minutes can be viewed at www.randwickbotanygreens.org.au.
I was not the mover because by then it was no longer my proposal but Daley's who was as keen on the idea as I was and wanted to be in charge.
The Liberal and ALP councillors met together without the Greens and then told me that Daley was in charge.
Daley erroneously thought that by making all Randwick residents exempt from the meters he could win community support for it.
Then came the unexpected Maurobra by-election and Daley realised that he needed to find favour with local ALP preselectors by signaling that he would do a back flip on the parking meter decision.
But by then I had read some of the many public submissions against parking meters and I (16th July 2005) moved a motion that the whole idea be scrapped.
Daley now calls me a coward. But who actually is the greater coward?
Is it me who listened to the people and shifted position?
Or is it Daley, who took control of the parking meter proposal and then ran away from it to gain himself a safe seat in parliament?
Council will debate the contentious funding option for Heffron Park at its July meeting. In the run up to that meeting Daley, Bastic and fellow Maroubra ALP branch member Michael Bracken will call me every name under the sun to divert attention away from their private sector plans for Heffron Park.
The vultures on the Maroubra ALP branch are now squawking.
Randwick Greens Councillor Murray Matson
MOTION: (Daley/Notley-Smith) CARRIED - SEE RESOLUTION.
RESOLUTION: (Daley/Notley-Smith)) that the motion adopted by Council at its Ordinary meeting of 22nd March, 2005 to call for community consultation on a draft proposal for parking management in the City of Randwick having been rescinded, that:
1. pursuant to the recommendations of Randwick City Council parking management contained in the Director, City Services Report 29/2005, Council resolves to implement the parking strategy (“Proposal”) subject to the following:
2. the proposal must be communicated to residents by the General Manager as he sees fit, provided that such communication is included in the next Council newsletter, and advertisements are to be placed in the Southern Courier inviting public comment for a period of not less than 28 days;
3. after the close of the submission period, the General Manager shall, following his communication of public submissions to all Councillors, be and is hereby delegated authority to call for public tender and to implement the proposal;
4. as part of the proposal, all residents of Randwick be exempt from parking meter payments regardless of the location of the parking meters (“the Exemption Scheme”);
5. the Exemption Scheme must be revenue neutral;
6. as part of the consultation process, the General Manager is to undertake an economic impact study of commercial areas potentially affected by the Proposal; and
7. there should be no parking meters installed in the main streets in the commercial centres of Matraville, Maroubra Junction, The Spot (East of the Eastern side of Avoca Street in the currently proposed location), Kingsford or Kensington.
MOTION: (Daley/Notley-Smith) CARRIED - SEE RESOLUTION.
(Note: This resolution was unanimously carried by Council.)