Perth Voice Interactive

HIGHGATE local Susan Gontaszewski has put her hand up to run for Vincent’s south ward at October’s election.

With Leederville Carnival organiser Jimmy Murphy already declaring and incumbent John Pintabona telling us he’ll run again, that means a three-horse race at least for the ward’s two seats.

Mayor John Carey backs Ms Gontaszewski and Mr Murphy.

He says he wasn’t aware Cr Pintabona (a serving copper, health consumer advocate and the only councillor to vote to keep former CEO John Giorgi) was running for south ward but nevertheless says he’d like to see Ms Gontaszewski get up, saying she’ll “bring a great vigour to council with detail analysis, and also thinking outside the box”.

Ms Gontaszewski, who’s not a member of any political party, works in public health policy in medicine regulation and reckons her skills figuring the pros and cons of policies and the effect they have on people will come in handy on council.

She says she’s enjoyed being on the Highgate primary P&C and the school board and now wants to run for council as a way to step up her community involvement.

She lives in her childhood home and plans to stay in the area long-term, so a big focus for her is making sure the town is good for littlies and older folk alike rather than just catering for the trendy nightlife demographic. She wants to see open spaces better set up, citing the way north ward’s had a nature playground installed at Braithwaite Park.

Ms Gontaszewski’s next-door neighbour Alannah MacTiernan—the federal Labor MP for Perth and former Vincent mayor—describes her as “an intelligent, competent, committed person, it’s fantastic we can get people like that to put their hand up, she doesn’t do anything half-arsed”.

We asked Mr Carey if he’d encouraged either candidate to put their hand up: he said he’d suggested Mr Murphy toss his hat in after seeing his work on the carnival, but he’d heard about Ms Gontaszewski running before he got in touch.

by DAVID BELL