This week’s Yarra Council meeting descended into farce when ALP and Socialist councillor proposals contradicted themselves and smacked of electioneering.
First the Socialists proposed removing public seating and bicycle hoops outside the Grace Darling Hotel in Peel St, Collingwood. These were recently installed by Council in response to repeated public requests for some seating and public spaces in Smith Street. (There are currently 20 private seats for a every public seat on footpaths in the precinct.)
The Grace Darling’s management legitimately asked for a footpath trading licence in this area, but this request did not meet our recently approved guidelines for this very situation. This didn’t stop the ALP, Socialist and independent Councillors succumbing to intense lobbying from the hotel’s representatives and arguing that the corner needed tidying up and that the hotel should be given 24 seats in addition to their existing 16 seats on Smith St. At an earlier meeting, Cr Smedley even described as “disgraceful” the “amount of space council has taken over” …. for public space.
Secondly, the Socialists proposed removing seating and tables from a similar location outside hamburger place “Grill’d” in Brunswick Street, in order to “return some space to the public.” While our jaws were on the floor trying to make sense of this, Cr Main argued that there was a need for public spaces along Brunswick Street for people to gather without having to pay for a seat. We agreed. A pity this argument seems to be selectively applied by the Socialists.
To cap this all off, ALP Cr Geoff Barbour moved to provide funding again, outside of the Community Grants process and contrary to a previous Council decision, for the Peel Street Pride Fair.
The organisers of the Fair were told last year that their out-of-time funding of $35,000 was a one-off and they would have to apply through the same channels as every other community group in 2011. They did apply this year but were unsuccessful.
Independent Councillor Dale Smedley has been one of the key proponents of the Fair, along with his friend and former Liberal candidate Tom McFeely, who owns the Peel Hotel in Peel St. Cr Smedley excused himself from discussions about the Fair last year because of his obvious conflict of interest, but this year he did not.
After successful lobbying of ALP and Socialist councillors, the Fair will now be funded again this year, bypassing the competitive process that every other group in Yarra has to go through, even for amounts as small as $500.
Socialist Cr Jolly tried to deflect criticism of his blatant disrespect for all those other groups by saying that in not voting for the Fair, the Greens were failing to support the GLBTIQ community. In fact we were refusing to give preferential treatment to one Councillor’s pet project. We would be surprised if the GLBTIQ community was not appalled at this lack of proper process, and the message it sends to the broader community.
The Greens support the application of fair, proper processes for the allocation of scarce public resources.
When we asked the community what they wanted in Smith Street, they said public space and seating, which we provided. We don’t blame the Grace Darling owners for trying to expand their business into this public area but there is a greater good to be considered here.
When we followed a public process to develop guidelines for trading on kerb extensions, we expected that those guidelines would be applied fairly and equally to all businesses.
When we agreed to provide extraordinary funding for the Peel Street Pride Fair in 2010 it was clear that future requests should follow the same route as everyone else.
The Socialist and ALP Councillors sent a clear message this week that for them it doesn’t matter what the guidelines are, or what rules apply, it doesn’t matter whether there is a public consultation process or not, it’s who you know and who you can lobby that counts.
We Greens will continue to take a principled, fair, democratic approach to the allocation of public resources.
