Road, Speed Bumps & Port Jobs
ROE 8, Outer Harbour and Freo port jobs dominate social media threads in the lead up to elections across several south metropolitan local authorities including Melville, Fremantle and Cockburn.
The online frenzy has brought out politically aligned elected members, particularly in Cockburn, who openly support anti-Outer Harbour candidates while Federal Liberal for Tangney Ben Morton dangles a $1.2 billion federal road funding carrot promoted on pro-Roe 8 candidates’ web pages.
In Freo, sledgehammer-wielding South Ward candidate Marija Vujcic has hit the ground running, protesting against South Terrace speed bumps, rates rises and anti-social behaviour.
Ms Vujcic’s 2017 election run ended in controversy when StreetWise Media revealed one of the candidates was ineligible to contest South Ward, yet was allowed to run by City’s electoral officer. The WA court of disputed returns agreed and a new election was held in 2018.
This time she is up against sitting ward councillor Jon Strachan who she accused of sitting it out when concerns were raised over the council’s proposed solar farm project on the old South Fremantle tip site. You can read what Marija stands for at www.streetwisemedia.com.au. In City Ward, social media posts by candidates Julie Morgan and John Dowson criticise what they describe as Rachel Pemberton’s dismal performance in council.
The High Street businesswoman criticised Pemberton for having failed to question as a member of the finance committee why ratepayers were forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars defending Antonio Iraci’s court action over a strip of footpath.
She says she was missing in action when council spent hundreds of thousands of dollars installing then removing the yellow foil art from the West End’s historic buildings, still a work in progress.
And she also referred to Pemberton’s ‘sympathy’ for the J-Shed artists, “describing the Arthur Head Arts Precinct as a failed experiment”, and the debacle over Sunset Events in which she excused herself from playing any useful role in council because she had accepted concert tickets.
“The City Ward needs a Councillor who is not here part-time, but 24/7,” she said.
The Fremantle Society president and outspoken council critic says Freo is world famous and demands high quality developments, adding Roe 8 and the Outer Harbour were distractions from the debate over the future of the port. This would include the recent MUA protest in Freo.
He says council has the worst financial rating of any metropolitan local authority, having incurred an additional $20 million debt for the new $42 million administration building in King’s Square.
Concerned over “the parlous status of the City’s finances”, Dowson says assets built up over generations by Freo ratepayers are being sold off or run into the ground.
Advocating ‘Participatory Budgeting’ as a way to keep the council budget balanced, Pemberton and Strachan say councils must apply sound budget management each year, “anything less would be unprofessional and importantly, be letting our community down”.
Too late, according to Morgan and Dowson.
