Perth Voice Interactive

BASSENDEAN mayor John Gangell says Bayswater council meetings are slow and inefficient, heightening tensions ahead of a merger between the municipalities.

Cr Gangell snuck into last week’s Bayswater meeting for some reconnaissance, sitting patiently through more than four hours of debate.

“On average our meetings at Bassendean take around one-and-a-half hours,” he says.

“At the Bayswater meeting there were ratepayers waiting in the gallery for three hours to hear an item being debated. It should have been brought forward. There’s lots of scope for streamlining the meetings.”

Cr Gangell also took umbrage at Bayswater’s decision to delay debate on several motions raised at the electors’ AGM until after July’s amalgamations.

“Some of the items are probably better left until after the mergers but issues like recording council meetings could have been debated. I understand the infrastructure is already in place and it’s just a case of switching it on.”

Cr Gangell concedes he’d like to be mayor of the new Bayswater-Bassendean super council, which will also include sections of Inglewood, Mt Lawley and Swan—but is concentrating on getting re-elected as a councillor first.

“I’ll run for council in October and then see what happens,” he says. “I’m not throwing my hat in the ring just yet.”

The Voice understands Bayswater is busy drafting a ward map for the new council, after the state government back-tracked on its decision for the new city to be ward-free.

“If Bayswater present a suitable ward map to us, we will back it,” says Cr Gangell.

“Bayswater and Bassendean went through a lot of argby-bargy over the merger boundaries and it didn’t really get us anywhere.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK