HERE’S a wee happy update: more than two years ago we told you about Maylands pensioners wilting in the heat because the Eighth Avenue bus stop didn’t have a shelter. Leslie Wojcik, then 72, said it sometimes got so hot she had to hide in the nearby phone booth rather than sit at the stop,…

THIS adorable white-faced heron nearly died after getting tangled in fishing line. Bayswater city council workers were down at Baigup Wetlands on May 5, working on a remediation trial when they came across the tangled bird with sinkers around its wing. The workers carefully untangled the bird and took it to a vet for care…

ESKIMO JOE guitarist Stuart MacLeod says the $1.4 million cut to digital community radio in the federal budget will put non-commercial stations in Perth under severe pressure. Mr MacLeod, who in December was appointed general manager of RTR in Mt Lawley, says it means the station will lose at least $10,000 in government subsidies. “It…

STIRLING city council has joined 20 other Australian councils, snubbing companies that deal in coal, oil, or gas. The council voted to amend its investment policy last week, to give preference to financial institutions that do not deal with the fossil fuel industry. The unanimous decision follows a year of campaigning by 350 Australia, a…

THE newly formed Sixth Avenue Residents Action Group has had an early win, convincing WA government departments to change plans for their street that would’ve seen “the needless removal of more beautiful trees”. The WA education department and Constable Care wanted to install a “Safety School” at the corner of Sixth Ave and Guildford Road,…

NEDLANDS and Subiaco residents transitioning to the expanded Perth city council are being wooed with whispers of lower rates and better services. The transition is part of the Barnett government’s City of Perth Act, the only bit of the premier’s wide-ranging council amalgamation vision that survived. In an FAQ, Perth city council says “service levels…

STORIES from stolen generation survivors are recreated word for word in the one-man performance Hart. Noongar man Ian Michael is the sole presence on stage, but brings with him verbatim stories of others affected by government policies that saw kids taken from parents through force or trickery, sometimes to never see each other again. “When…

DEVELOPERS who “accidentally” kill verge trees may soon be “accidentally” slugged with a $5000 fine. Councillors Sally Palmer and Chris Cornish are spearheading the push, saying too many trees are getting bowled over. It’s amazing how often trees’ “accidental” removal makes it easier for developers to access sites and construct driveways. “It’s not all developers,…

THE Voice has featured a fair bit about Mount Hawthorn’s ANZAC cottage in its pages over the years, but in June the cottage caretakers unearth the history behind the folk who built the house for a returning WWI soldier back in 1916. The Mt Hawthorn Progress Association formed the idea amid a patriotic fervour as…

THE bungled geothermal project at Vincent’s Beatty Park looks likely to cost ratepayers nearly $600,000. A detailed report, commissioned in 2015 by new CEO Len Kosova, says the system, installed in 2012, was meant to warm the pools and complex powerfully and cheaply by tapping into the raw molten power of the earth. Instead, poor…