FIRST, it’s important to note we’re not suggesting the lord mayor or the council have broken any laws with their handling of the Grand Central Hotel issue. We’ve asked questions, but we’ve not made allegations. That said, we do think the handling of the matter has been sub-par, and we are concerned that the council’s…

SO, it turns out lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi wasn’t getting a hairdo when her official limo was spied outside a Queen Street hairdresser just hours before she announced her re-election campaign (Voice, September 12, 2015). Instead, we’ve been told — via a complaint letter from council CEO Gary Stevenson — that she’d been on official…

SOLITUDE and sustainability merge in writer, producer and director Scott McArdle’s Between Solar Systems, at the Blue Room Theatre. If a bloke in a spaceship, alone but for a computer voice, sounds familiar, the sci-fi aficionado says although it’s been quite awhile since he saw 2001: A Space Odyssey there are elements of the classic…

“WHINGER”. That’s the word Perth lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi used to describe a tourist who’d complained about a budget hotel with filthy, semen-stained sheets, cockroaches crawling from under the bed cover, and stinking of urine and marijuana. Ms Scaffidi co-owns the building the notorious backpackers is housed in. The lord mayor’s description of the tourist…

COCKROACH infestations, semen-stained sheets, fire hazards and even urine leaking from light fittings: the building owned by lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi and husband Joe has been the subject of numerous complaints and still the Perth city council hasn’t shut down the backpackers business that runs there. While the business is run by a tenant the…

THE lord mayoral car was spotted outside this Queen Street Hair Salon on Tuesday just hours before Lisa Scaffidi announced she’s running for a third term. Bypassing the city’s parking squeeze, her bay had been reserved with orange cones and a bag over the meter warning “City of Perth: NO STOPPING. Authorised vehicles excepted.” The…

THE line between Lisa Scaffidi’s private affairs and her role as lord mayor have been blurred over the City of Perth’s handling of media enquiries about her co-ownership of a squalid Wellington Street building. In documents the Perth Voice has accessed under Freedom of Information laws (the application was lodged April 17), it is clear…

PERTH lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi has announced she’ll recontest her seat, hoping for a third term. For the launch, her campaign team uploaded to Youtube a rap poem video, The Scaffidi Factor, by local poet Stevie Belowsky. “It’s the Scaffidi Facta that attracts ya to a city running fasta,” the slam poetry champion recites, along…

BRENT FLEETON, 28, will contest Bayswater’s north ward at next month’s council elections, bucking the trend of young people shunning local government service. If elected the Maylands resident says he’ll seek to cut seniors’ rates another 25 per cent, cap rates rises at CPI and give eligible children $100 extra in the Kidsport program. “I…