The Shire of Kent has received a letter from the Local Government Minister thanking us for our consideration of reform options.
The letter states that after considering our decision not to 'embrace the opportunity for voluntary reform', he has determined the 'best way forward is through the creation of Regional Transition or Regional Collaborative Groups.'
The idea is that these groups will then provide the basis for becoming amalgamated by 2013. The Minister states that there will be no 'opt out' clause, so if you decide that the group you have joined is not in your best interests as a shire, there's no opportunity to look at other options!
The Shire of Kent have formed a Voluntary Regional Group of Councils with the Shires of Dumbleyung and Lake Grace. The Minister does not appear to be recognising a VROC as a regional collaborative group. If it isn't a regional collaborative group, then what is?
Many Shires in the Wheatbelt have received the same letter. Shires are planning to band together to protest against the Minister's actions. The Minister has claimed that 54 local governments had advised in their submissions that they were amenable to amalgamations. Yet, local governments, such as ours, that did not indicate any such thing have been advised that they should form these regional groupings.
Of the 139 local governments in WA, only 9 have agreed to voluntary amalgamation. This appears to indicate a distrust of amalgamation as a reform, and a slap in the face for the Minister and his wonderful ideas.
The Minister is not answering his calls or emails, not even from our local government body, WALGA apparently! Everyone has questions, such as 'who's going to pay?', but the Minister has no answers.
The Shire of Kent moved a recommendation that we write to the Minister and indicate that we are not interested in forming his 'Regional Transition or Collaborative Group'. We will continue with the VROC we have formed.
In speaking with some ratepayers, it appears that a couple of people from the eastern end of our Shire are interested in breaking away and joining Newdegate to become part of the Lake Grace Shire. If there are more than a couple of ratepayers thinking this way, please contact me as I believe we would need to have a Public Meeting to determine whether the original stance of 'no amalgamation' still stands in our Shire.
Council needs to do what it's people want, so if our people have changed their minds, then we must look at our options once more.
Minister's Request
Letter to politicians
Cr Cathy Crosby and I have written a letter to a number of key figures in Parliament and the Opposition outlining our views on the issue of amalgamation.
We haven't used our position as councillors in sending this letter, but as ordinary citizens of the Shire of Kent.
Here is the letter below. This particular one is to the Minister for Local Government, John Castrilli:
This letter was sent to 10 different politicians - Brendon Grylls, Colin Barnett, Troy Buswell, Terry Redman, Terry Waldron, Graham Jacobs, Eric Ripper, Roger Cook and Paul Papalia.
Hopefully, out of one of those, we'll get a response!
We urge you to write your own letters to our politicians and media outlets. The more noise we make, the more chance we have of being heard.
We must be adamant about our position.
We do not wish to amalgamate!
Thank you for your support
Thank you to all those electors who voted for me in the Local Government Elections recently.
I will continue to work with my electorate to develop our Shire to its full potential.
Urgent Action needed for Katanning Saleyards
It's an absolute disgrace that the State Government have prevaricated with the decision to build new saleyards in Katanning.
The Great Southern region must band together and pressure the State Government to utilise the $20million held in reserve since the 2007 sale of the Midland saleyards.
It appears the preference of the government is for privately owned or privately subsidised facility. If this is the case, one wonders what plans they have for the $20 million?
Is it a possibility that the Great Southern Shires can form a group in order to access Royalties for Regions grant money to build the yards? Not talking amalgamation here, but some form of partnership amongst local governments in order to get this project underway.
It is vital that we have a saleyard facility in this region. Katanning is the most sensible since it is central and already has the large and viable WAMMCO meat processing facility.
Max Trenorden disputes benefits of amalgamation
Taken from the ABC website:
Report casts doubt on council amalgamations
Updated October 9, 2009 14:53:00
The MPs travelled to South Australia and Queensland to investigate council amalgamations there.
Mr Trenorden says they found some councils should have remained unaltered.
"There is no clear short term or medium term benefits in any amalgamations that we saw in Queensland or South Australia," he said.
"There are some benefits in the long term but there is a fair bit of pain to get there.
"Each amalgamation is going to cost about two million dollars. The state is not likely to pay that so taxpayers or rate payers are likely to pay that. Queenslands rates went up seven and a half per cent last year and they are projected to go up to that this year."
Waste Management
There's been a lot happening in the Shire of Kent lately to do with waste management.
Council are planning to use Royalties for Regions money to upgrade both the Nyabing and Pingrup rubbish tips.
Pingrup will be first on the agenda, as the tip is unfortunately situated near salt lakes, so needs to be closed down and a transfer station built. Nyabing will follow in a year or two.
The sewerage pits in Nyabing have had to be upgraded following an Environmental Protection Authority order. Since the sewerage pit could overflow into the Nyabing Creek, new pits are needed that will take the town into the future. The total cost of this exercise has been enormous, so council are indeed fortunate that Royalties for Regions money has been accessible for this project. Below is a photo of the works currently underway:
Council have encouraged residents to recycle with the introduction of a kerbside recycling programme in 2007. We are probably the only Shire with a population this size that has undertaken this initiative. Town residents help cover the cost for the facility in their rates, while council picks up the balance in the interest of keeping our rubbish levels down.
Residents of the Shire who are out of town can bring their recycling in and deposit in the bins provided in each townsite. There is no charge for this facility.
If you are uncertain about what can be recycled, ask at the Shire Office. A brochure will be available soon explaining what can and can't be placed in kerbside recycling bins.
I'd like your vote!
I'm standing for election as a councillor for the Shire of Kent once again.
I've been a councillor since 2003 and have seen a number of changes and important decisions made in that time.
Council have been proactive in working with community groups to develop facilities in each town, including the partnership with the Pingrup Progress Association to build accommodation units in Pingrup and with the Nyabing Sports Club to upgrade the Pavilion kitchen and bar in Nyabing.
Council have recently approved an upgrade of the Pingrup netball courts and agreed to in-kind support in partnership with the Pingrup Ground Improvement Committee. The P.G.I.C have worked extremely hard in attaining community support and putting forward a proposal for grant funding for the upgrade of the courts to be multi-purpose playing surfaces.
Council are very supportive of groups that help themselves and will consider any reasonable request for assistance, be it in-kind or financial. I'm always in favour of such partnerships where council work with volunteer community groups to improve the lives of people in our communities.
I've been on council's Building and Land Committee since I first became a councillor and have seen some great projects undertaken in each of our towns.
We've built superb modern three bedroom units and have partnered with the Government Housing Authority to build a comfortable modern home for the school principal in each town.
Another partnership with State Government helped to build neat one bedroom units in each town. Council also undertook the building of a new home for our CEO.
Council have recently acquired residential blocks in Pingrup and are continually working to try to gain residential land in Nyabing. More people are wanting to retire to small safe towns like ours and Council are proactive in encouraging residential as well as commercial development in our towns.
In the time I've been on Council, I've lobbied for our members as well as our community.
I put forward a motion to change the meeting times to later in the afternoon, starting our Forum at 4pm, rather than 2pm. My reasoning was due to my own work commitments as well as to encourage more men and younger people to join council in the future.
The motion was passed and has proved popular with our male councillors, in particular, since they are able to get more work done before the meeting. Unfortunately, it has moved back one hour as we were finding that we weren't finishing our meetings prior to tea time. It proved difficult to come back to a meeting with full concentration, so we now have Forum at 3pm and our regular meeting at 4pm.
I have recently pushed for a higher remuneration for councillors. Since the minister announced his stance on local government reform to encourage voluntary amalgamation processes, I have attended countless meetings and seminars. Councillors have had a great deal of extra reading and community consultation to undertake.
I believe if we are to encourage young people to come on board, we need to be paying a better rate for people to give up their working day to attend various meetings and seminars, not to mention all the work done outside of this time.
We are all taking on more voluntary work in our communities and our time is becoming more constrained.
We have three young people who have nominated for council in the upcoming local government elections, so I'm hoping that these reforms helped to encourage their interest.
I have personally put in many hours assisting our staff with the preparation of Council's reform submission to the Minister for Local Government. This has been a huge undertaking and it is extremely important that we are able to get our message across to the Minister that our Shire does not need to amalgamate in order to achieve many of the outcomes he is looking to accomplish.
I am a passionate and active community member. I'm on a number of committees and have helped to organise many social events, including the recent successful Variety Night held in Nyabing this year. I support our local sporting teams and always help out where needed, be it scoring for netball, yelling for the Hockey girls or producing the Football Budget for each home game.
I also take a great interest in my local school community and have kept abreast of the changes occurring in the way schools are run. I recently lobbied for our school to become a pilot school for the Independent Schools Programme.
This was an enormous opportunity, but, as with a lot of changes, a difficult decision to make, not helped by Teacher's Union scare-mongering at the last minute.
I believe our schools are a vital part of our community and would love to see more partnerships between our Shire and our little primary schools.
The decision to start a blog came about after talking with people in both communities who felt they didn't have access to information about our local government and the decisions that were being made. I hope that my blog has been informative and has kept people abreast of the current happenings in local government and their affect on the Shire of Kent.
I'm hoping that my past performance has proved to my constituents that I have both of our communities' interests at heart and that you will show your approval with a tick next to my name on your voting slip.
Remember, you can vote at the Shire Office any time up until October 16th, or you may vote on Election Day, October 17th.
Authorised by: Cr Megan Tuffley
Written by: Cr Megan Tuffley
4 Richmond St
Nyabing WA 6341
(08) 98291076
