Perth Voice Interactive

NETS over drain outlets are being considered as a way to keep garbage out of our waterways.

Bayswater councillor Elli Petersen-Pik has asked council staff to look into whether there are any outlets that’d benefit from the nets, which were first installed in Kwinana council in 2018. 

Cr Petersen-Pik says: 

“During one year, two of those nets collected a total of 1.69 tonnes of waste,” including food wrapping, bottles, cans, organic waste, and domestic waste. 

Along with keeping rubbish out of the river, Cr Petersen-Pik tells us it might also be useful for Maylands Lakes. The trio of lakes on Maylands peninsula have had many health issues for years, including rubbish coming in via discharged stormwater from eight inlets that then collects in corners.

The inlets have sediment traps – basins that let some heavy sediments settle to keep them out of the lake – but not nets specialised in keeping the rubbish out.

After trailing two drainage nets at Henley Nature Reserve, Kwinana council was impressed enough to buy three more. It cost about $10,000 to buy and install each trap and they filled up fast enough to need waste collection about 10 times a year.

I am inclined to agree

I AM inclined to agree with G Lorenzo of North Perth, who complains that the City of Vincent is carrying out “beauracratic madness” in its attempt to achieve ticks in boxes under some form of global action plan (“City hall is the common problem,” Voice, March 6, 2021).

If the purpose of “sustainable development goals” is to radicalise vehicular and car driving activity into a fringe naughty behaviour, then the council is not going to be very sustainable at all.

The purpose of our local government sector is to not try to engineer their version of social solutions but to use our rates in a way that benefits all citizens.

And that includes pedestrians, car drivers, skateboarders, electric scooter drivers … the list goes on.  

Upon saying this, I do believe that local governments can improve social conditions by taking a step in the right direction if advised correctly and with proper consultation.

The City of Vincent has been pretty good at some of that in the past, but in recent years they have embarked on some sort of ideological slant that hates people driving around in their cars.

I have been critical in the past about the excessive number of speed bumps on our streets as we try to navigate local roads to the shops, schools, businesses and homes.

At some point the City of Vincent must have absorbed a report that installing this ‘out of date’ type of road regulation was the best type of action to prevent speeding down local roads.

All I can say is they have turned our streets into a bump fest without any vehicle slowdown at all.

And just when does it become part of the action plan to remove them after they have had some of the supposed desired effect.

Some side streets have speed bumps that have been there for 20 years and now no traffic, so why are the speed bumps still there?

Possibly a stupid “set and forget” mentality. Not sustainable at all.

But let’s just take a look at what the city wants to do with the “new” North Perth common.

They say that a right turn into North Perth Common from Fitzgerald Street and a right turn out of North Perth common onto Fitzgerald Street will enhance North Perth common overall.

So what will drivers do? They will go via Angove Street and subsequently increase traffic on that street. And drivers will want to access Angove via Woodville Street which is already a cramped street.

And what will the City then do?

They will then say that more speed bumps and possibly chicanes, need to be installed on Angove Street because of increased vehicular traffic.

Woodville will come under increased scrutiny.

Let’s face it, the whole area is busy-busy-busy. There is no denying it. But the never ending penalising of drivers only inflames tensions.

If the City of Vincent really wants to make some good changes that protects pedestrians and car drivers alike, then they should take up action regarding the corner of Bourke and View at Charles Street, because it is excessively dangerous.

Far more so than the other end of View Street where the over-priced and somewhat dowdy North Perth common exists.

Then they would be doing something useful and not just ticking boxes.

Colin Scott
Deague Ct, North Perth

Fun pruners

WHAT a sad state of affairs when a backyard is no longer big enough for a playground for children, and they have to take over the front verge, close to the road (“Swing grinch left hanging as Bayswater changes policy,” Voice, March 6, 2021).

Our two street trees are pruned once a year, but what will happen to street trees that have swings, rope ladders, etc?

The street tree pruning contractors have large areas to prune daily and no time to mess around moving play equipment.

Maureen Green Belfast St,
Morley

Biloela boondoggle

It has been nearly three years since the refugee Tamil family living in Biloela were rounded up in a dawn raid and sent to a detention centre in Melbourne. 

There they languished for nearly 18 months, then were shipped to the Christmas Island detention centre. 

Like so many refugees in limbo, their cases have been habitually and consistently discounted by the government. 

But recently the full bench of the federal court upheld a 2020 ruling that the youngest daughter “was not given procedural fairness” in her application for a protection visa.

Home affairs minister Peter Dutton has accused the family of “costing the Australian taxpayer millions of dollars”.

 Yet it is the government detention, not the family, that is costing millions of dollars. 

If the family were allowed back into the community, back to Biloela where they are welcome, respected and self-supporting there would be no cost, no interminable court cases, no more needless suffering for the family. 

Tamils are being persecuted in Sri Lanka. 

The Australian government could easily release themselves and the family from this agonising impasse by merely recognising that fact, thereby clearing the way for the Tamil family to be granted permanent protection visas and returned to their free, productive, normal lives in Biloela.  

Or perhaps minister Dutton could demonstrate a flicker of human decency, compassion and sensible thinking, and merely exercise his ministerial discretion to allow them to return to Biloela.

Tom Vosmer
Helen Kirkbride
Fremantle

Thanks

THANKS for the wonderful story of Judyth and friends working to get refugee Zulaikha and her five daughters to resettlement in Canada, and out of their precarious and stateless situation in Indonesia.

What struck me was that the Aussies tried to bring them here under our humanitarian scheme, but were refused. 

Now Judyth must raise over $50,000 to send to sponsors in Canada.  Canada will accept this family on top of their government humanitarian quota.

If Judyth could sponsor them to Australia, the money raised would be spent in Australia and we would gain six good citizens with a strong support network. 

But that is how it is, so please help Zula and the girls to freedom – a perfect way to celebrate International Women’s Day!

Go to https://chuffed.org/project/help-zulaikha-and-her-five-daughters-reach-safety-in-canada

Betty McGeever
Cottesloe

BAYSWATER’S new skate and BMX park has been delayed again amidst allegations councillors and their families are being bullied by supporters.

The Wotton Reserve skate and BMX park is being demolished in about a year to make way for state government upgrades at Bayswater station. 

A new park could take a year or more to complete, so skaters and BMXers have been urging Bayswater council to get a replacement going swiftly so the new park’s sorted by the time the old one’s closed. 

Bayswater set up a committee, including many skaters, which looked over a dozen potential sites before settling on Broun Park in November 2020.

The council held off endorsing the decision immediately, kicking it down the road until February 2021 to give time for more consultation. 

People around Broun objected, so the decision’s been delayed again. 

A divided February council meeting voted to investigate whether the skate park can be rebuilt at another spot on Wotton Reserve.

Cr Catherine Ehrhardt fumed over her colleagues’ delay.

She asked councillors if they’d listen to the skate committee they appointed to find a spot, “or are you going to let them think that it was all just for show and let them think that you don’t put any worth in their recommendations or the time and commitment they have put in?”

Cr Michelle Sutherland agreed: “We set up a skate park committee to deal with this, and we had meetings at night, and we had officers giving up their time and this all costs money, so… I can’t see the point of having a skate committee if we’re not going to listen to them.”

Some councillors said they won’t be bullied into rushing a decision.

Cr Stephanie Gray said “the public narrative’s been spun to say that if we don’t immediately support this then we don’t care, we don’t like kids, we don’t like skaters… this narrative is far from the truth”.

Cr Gray said her sons “enjoyed the city’s two skate parks until recently. My son went to the skate park, and was identified as being my son, and threatened, and warned off skating at Wotton, so he and his mates are no longer safe there.

“I have been bullied, my son’s been bullied. Every time I didn’t immediately support what the [skate committee] and what the very loud community wanted, suddenly you’re a baddy.”

Cr Sally Green also opposed Broun Park as the spot, saying residents have written in that they fear “loss of quiet enjoyment due to the concrete click-clacking and grinding and social skatepark Boomshankas which will be held regularly in this skatepark”. Boomshankas were council-run skate days at Wotton. 

Unpleasant

Cr Green, who also has skaters in the family, agreed the public discourse has gotten unpleasant. “I’ve been very careful about going down to the park in the past three or four months, just like Cr Gray, for a very similar reason.”

In the end councillors Steven Ostaszewskyj, Filomena Piffaretti, Sutherland and Ehrhardt voted to just go with Broun Park, but they were outvoted and there’ll now be another two months of pondering whether Wotton Reserve is better.

The Wotton idea’s already had objectors come forward, including sportsclub Morley Windmills who fear it’ll endanger the future of the club if the skating eats up parking and stifles growth.

THE old Rod Evans Centre is in need of another $250,000 of unbudgeted repairs before it can become a ‘safe night space’ for women.

In December 2016 Perth council abruptly closed the Rod Evans centre, moving seniors services from the 160 Hay Street centre to Citiplace at the Perth train station with just a few days’ notice, and the vacant building has been deteriorating since.

Seniors were unhappy about being shifted to the smaller, cramped, less accessible space, and some told us they’d simply given up going. They held a peaceful protest outside the Rod Evans centre in April 2017, with council security guards called in to ensure it didn’t get rowdy. 

At last October’s election some seniors lobbied candidates about moving the services back to Rod Evans because the new location wasn’t working, but they had no luck and the new council voted 7-1 in November to turn the centre into a Safe Night Space, with facilities for homeless women to rest and wash.

Leaving the centre empty for so long has come back to bite the council.

An original budget of $575,000 to refit the Rod has blown out by $250,000.

“Function tests carried out indicate a high proportion of plant and equipment is non-functioning requiring rectification or decommissioning and replacement,” a report says. “This is primary due to the lack of utilisation of the building over the past several years.

Since the centre closed, the cool room and freezer room units stopped working, the plumbing is pretty blocked, air-conditioners died, the hot water system carked it, the electrical switchboard is “non-compliant”, amongst a host of other breakdowns. 

Along with the costly repairs it’ll cost the council $1 million a year to run it, with Ruah Community Services contracted as the main provider.

They council hoped for state government help but four months on have made no headway: “The City continues to advocate to state government to support operating funding,” a council report says. 

The safe night space, the first of four planned, was originally due to open by “late January to late February”.

Closing the Rod Evans centre also turfed out the Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts from the tabletop Gaming Guild Inc, who relocated to Bassendean. 

by DAVID BELL

A CRACKDOWN on shopping trolleys littering Bayswater is underway to force shops to clean them up.

Late last year Cr Steven Ostaszewskyj proposed they get tough after seeing trollies abandoned on footpaths, verges, in parks, and even dumped in water reserves.

Sometimes the trolleys end up hundreds of metres from their parent shop, or accumulate in inexplicable piles. 

The new policy’s now been voted in giving shops just 48 hours to retrieve abandoned trolleys after being notified, rather than the previous five business days. The fine’s also been increased from $100 to $450 if they don’t.

“I was really happy councillors helped me get the five business days down to 48 hours and helped me to get the fines increased for these abandoned trolleys,” Cr Ostaszewskyj said. 

“I’m hoping it’s a sign for our residents, ratepayers and visitors: Come to our city by all means, but please don’t trash the place, and most certainty don’t leave your trolleys lying around.

“And to Woolworths, Target, Coles, K-Mart, Aldi and Spudshed, can you guys lift your game a bit please and actually go around the streets maybe once a day and pick up those abandoned trolleys, please?”

Meanwhile the Morley Seals pictured, a victim of abandoned trolleys, beer bottles, and other jetsam, were removed three weeks ago.

Bayswater council decided the seals and their fountain, crafted by late artist Vittorio Ulunovich in 1997, were too badly damaged to repair, so they instead set aside $100,000 to remove them and landscape the site.

by DAVID BELL

TREE swings will soon be permitted on Bayswater verges, the change coming shortly after a stickler for the rules dobbed in several fun-lovers over the Christmas holidays.

Tree swings became more popular during Covid when playgrounds were closed, but are technically against the rules of what can go on a “thoroughfare” such as the verge.

Bayswater council started the lengthy process of loosening the rule last year, advertising the change in September. But in December, before the law could go through, someone went around the neighbourhood reporting a number illegal swings.

Reluctant

The Voice heard of at least seven households who had reluctant rangers turn up to their doorstep to point out they’d become law-breakers, though in at least some cases the swings were given a stay while the law changed. 

Under the new rules movable play equipment, small swings and rope ladders “that do not damage the street tree” are permitted on the verge directly outside your home, as long it’s not crowding out pedestrians and isn’t within six metres of an intersection. The final details of what’ll be allowed without a permit are now being hashed out.

But it looks like Bayswater won’t go as far as Vincent, which let just about anything on a verge since 2018 after its own spate of Christmas time verge complaints, and the draft says Baysie folk can’t put up a tree house or cubby house.

But it’s less strict than Subiaco. While that council eased up 

on enforcement during the playground lockdown era last year, rangers were soon back out enforcing the law. Subi mayor Penny Taylor’s asked for a review of the council’s anti-swing policy.

by DAVID BELL

MOUNT LAWLEY’S old Albany Bell Hatchery site on Guildford Road is to get eight storeys of 152 serviced apartments.

The state government’s Development Assessment Panel has overturned a Bayswater council recommendation that the development be rejected because of “an undue impact on the amenity of the area”. 

The council’s planning report notes eight stories is higher than the usual three-storey limit and the bulk is “inappropriate” for the neighbourhood. It also lists privacy concerns for neighbours and a scattering of other objections amounting to a “clear indication of overdevelopment of the site”.

Refusal

But the $15 million price tag means state government-controlled JDAPs get to make the call. It instead went to a vote at the JDAP with three state-appointed members and two councillors, Catherine Ehrhardt and mayor Dan Bull.

Robyn Bett lives at the Albany Bell Castle facing the hatchery site and agreed with the council’s reasons for refusal, along with concerns about short term accommodation.

“We want the vacant land to be developed, but with real neighbours – people we can get to know, people we can build community with,” she told the JDAP.  

“We would prefer a residential development whose rhythms and patterns match our own rather than a business that operates day and night, for a stream of visitors will not be interested in making this area a better place to live as they are just passing through. 

“Each day different strangers will be able to look into my apartment from their balconies. I will be like an animal in the zoo.”

But only Cr Bull voted against it.

David Read, director of the project’s applicant Element, argued the suburb was earmarked by council for future growth and the building “would be a positive outcome for the area”. 

He noted the nearby units The Gables were already 10 storeys and his building “steps down in height to reduce the impact … on the area and streetscape”. 

The hatchery’s facade will be kept. 

The Hatchery was Perth’s first dedicated chicken hatchery and part of Peter Albany Bell’s estate, which included the castle-shaped building next door. It’s now owned by Sunlong Holdings, self-described as “one of WA’s largest and most trusted Chinese apartment developer[s]”. 

BAYSWATER mayor Dan Bull has narrowly avoided getting the unpopular job of handling complaints about fellow councillors.

Council CEOs usually handle complaints about councillor or employee breaches of the Local Government Act, and potentially refer them to higher authorities. 

But freshly minted local government regulations released this month require a complaints officer to handle alleged breaches of in-house codes of conduct, which are considered more minor misdeeds.

It seems Bayswater CEO and current complaints officer Andrew Brien wasn’t keen on policing the code of conduct too.

An administrative report authorised by Mr Brien said it could be seen as inappropriate for CEO’s to investigate the very councillors who hire and fire them.

The handling of complaints by successive Perth council CEOs was one of the tensions explored in the Inquiry into the City of Perth.

Former Perth council CEO Gary Stevenson earned the ire of councillors for carrying out his duty and referring complaints onto higher authorities. He was sacked before his contract was up. 

Bayswater staff suggested an alternative could be to handball complaints to the mayor.

But it got complex: If the mayor was involved in a complaint, his deputy would step in as complaints officer; but if both were involved then a committee would have to be formed. 

Cr Elli Petersen-Pik was firmly against that plan and moved to amend it at the February 23 council meeting. 

“Our ratepayers, as well councillors who are the subject of a complaint, expect complaints to be dealt with by someone who is more neutral and unbiased,” he says.

“The mayor or the deputy mayor are political figures, so it would not be appropriate for them to deal with this type of matters. It could lead to unnecessary tensions between elected members, which will be detrimental to our ongoing aims to be an harmonious and effective Council.

Messy

If Bayswater continues with its system of having a mayor elected by councillors, it’d get even more messy: A mayor might be having to investigate council candidates who’d get to decide whether they keep the mayoral role once elected.

Councillors unanimously supported Cr Petersen-Pik’s motion not to give the mayor the job.

“I understand the concerns raised by the CEO, of him dealing with complaints against councillors, and there is probably merit in authorising a different officer in the city or someone external to deal with this sort of complaints,” he says. 

But they didn’t have a specific name ready to put on paper on the night, so for now the CEO will be complaints officer until they can anoint someone else. 

by DAVID BELL