Perth Voice Interactive

CRISIS talks are underway on how to deal with Bayswater and Vincent’s recycling.

The two council were among 20 affected when fire ripped through Cleanaway’s recycling plant in South Guildford in November.

Contractor Cleanaway has been trucking some recycling to the South Metropolitan Regional Council’s processing centre, but the deal expired on January 24 and a new one is still being thrashed out.

The Voice has heard the SMRC has to expand its operations to handle all Cleanaway’s recycling and wants some certainty on duration and price. It’s more expensive to process recycling at SMRC and Cleanaway was wearing the gap, as the company’s contracts with councils locked them into a low price-per-tonne.

Recycling hit

On Wednesday February 5 the WA Local Government Association held an urgent meeting with affected councils and the state government environment department to try to figure out a solution.

Vincent mayor Emma Cole is urging people to keep recycling in the meantime as it might be solved any day now.

“It’s really fast moving… please continue recycling, we’re hoping this is a really short-term problem and there’s a lot of work going on to resolve this as quickly as possible.

“We’re even hoping in the meantime that SMRC could resolve to keep their interim solution going.”

She said Vincent only got one day’s notice from Cleanaway that the SMRC deal had faltered.

Vincent would have a tough time detangling itself from Cleanaway’s contract because it’s a “bundled” deal for both collection and processing. Even if the council switched to processing at the SMRC (which carries a stiffer price per tonne than Cleanaway) it’d take time to go through the motions to cancel Cleanaway’s trucking contract and bring in new garbos.

Vincent has asked Cleanaway to stockpile the recyclables until a deal’s worked out, but the piles of junk at the company’s South Guildford plant keep catching fire.

Fires at waste processing plants are a common problem worldwide but Cleanaway’s sites have seemed particularly flammable lately.

Before the South Guildford plant was destroyed on November 25, it also had a smaller fire in late October. Stockpiled recycling there caught fire late December and in early January.

Rebuild

Its Kwinana oil waste plant operated by subsidiary Tox Free Solutions had a fire on January 7, and its Dardanup facility had its disposal dumps alight on January 12 and January 27.

Cleanaway’s long-term plan is to rebuild the high-tech South Guildford plant, and in the meantime is looking at other sites to do manual processing.

by DAVID BELL

FOUR suspended Perth councillors will have their positions immediately “vacated” and fresh elections have been set for a new council and lord mayor on October 17 this year.

Councillors Steve Hasluck, James Limnios, Lexi Barton and Reece Harley had terms that expired on October 16, 2021, but following another extension to the long-delayed inquiry, their suspensions would have dragged on past the two-year limit allowed under the local government act.

That has forced local government minister David Templeman to declare their offices vacant, using a provision in the act that gives him that power if half the council positions are vacant. Former lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi and the remaining four councillors’ terms had already expired.

The inquiry was originally scheduled to wind up in May 2019, and the latest delay was very quietly announced in an obscure corner of the inquiry’s website in December.

Redacting

It was purportedly due to the “volume and depth of the issues under consideration”, however a letter leaked to 6PR revealed that poor redacting meant people receiving copies of the report could see adverse findings against others.

“It is not appropriate for you to be made aware of adverse findings which may be made against other persons and in which your client has no interest, when those affected persons have not yet had the opportunity to make submissions on those redacted parts and in doing so be afforded procedural fairness,” the leaked letter said.

A couple of candidates have announced early interest.

Di Bain missed a council seat by just 279 votes in 2017 and she says she’s mulling over a run for either lord mayor or councillor – or maybe both.

The former journalist and PR agent’s profile has been building since then. She was appointed a commissioner of Tourism WA last year and now chairs Activate Perth.

Activate Perth is a city advocacy group set up after Labor MP John Carey’s community consultation summit. It’s been bestowed with $200,000 funding from the McGowan government this year to help fill empty CBD tenancies.

“October’s still a long way away in terms of life planning, but I’m very interested in making a civic contribution,” Ms Bain told the Voice.

“Being the chair of Activate Perth and a commissioner of Tourism WA, I’m very familiar with the issues at the the core of the city and I will be interested in putting my hand up.”

While Ms Bain called us directly, Steve Hasluck has spread the news that he’ll run for council again.

“Cr Hasluck was elected in October 2018 just four months before the Perth city council was suspended”, his release noted. That’s pretty close (the election was October 2017).

In evidence to the inquiry the property manager described the council’s culture as toxic and dysfunctional, and unlike any workplace he’d been at.

The minister’s clean sweep “means a fresh start for the City of Perth and is the circuit breaker that was needed to put the interests of ratepayers first”, he said late last week.

“I will work hard to ensure that the new council acts in the professional and united manner expected of us by ratepayers, residents and stakeholders.”

Reece Harley, who often butted heads with the former lord mayor, said he hadn’t made any decisions about October yet but he does have great confidence in the new CEO and senior management.

Presenter and columnist Basil Zempilas has expressed an interest in running for mayor, as has architect Sandy Anghie.

Because 2020 isn’t a standard election year, the terms for new councillors will be split between one and three years depending on how many votes they poll, so they can be brought back in line with other councils next year.

by DAVID BELL

WELLINGTON SQUARE will get a new Noongar dual name as part of a fast-tracked upgrade.

When Perth council’s commissioners first endorsed a design in September 2018 the $18.7million works were to be staged over six years and include extensive consultation.

But in December commissioners approved a slimmed-down plan that made savings by deferring upgrades to Wittenoom Street.  At the same time they approved a tender from Densford Civil which said it could do the major portion of the works (landscaping, civil works and electrical) within a year.

On Tuesday this week Noongar elder Nick Abraham held a smoking ceremony at the park, joining Perth Labor MP John Carey and council commissioner Andrew Hammond to turn the first sod and announce the McGowan government was tipping in $4.37m.

The new square will feature an intergenerational playground, a Stolen Generation place of reflection, basketball courts and new automated ablution facilities, along with more paths and native trees. The park will get new furniture, wifi, lighting and CCTV.

“Both the park and playground will receive dual names in recognition of Wellington Square’s significance to many members of the Aboriginal community, and out of respect for the traditional owners and custodians of the land,”  Commr Hammond said.

Names will be finalised in the coming months.

The city’s been consulting with Noongar man Jim Morrison’s group Yokai (which was formed by the Bringing Them Home Committee and the WA Stolen Generations Alliance) on the Stolen Generation tribute, with the tender due to be awarded in March.

Mr Carey says he’s “over the moon” seeing the job get done quicker than originally scheduled.

“Wellington Square has been either a dead space or a trouble spot, we can’t be shy of that, and what we know is if we make a place more people-friendly and attract more people it becomes safer, a more vibrant place and better for the community.

“Residents have been exasperated: I’ve had a lot contact me asking where the project’s at. The commissioners and the new administration should be congratulated because it was [originally] going to be done over a long period off time. This is the missing picture, we don’t need more Yagan Squares and Elizabeth Quays.

“What we need is recreational facilities, playgrounds, dog parks, seniors facilities, so we cater for people of all ages and make it an attractive place to live.”

by DAVID BELL

STIRLING council officers have recommended a two-year trial of a 40kmh speed limit on Beaufort Street in Inglewood, despite a majority of residents opposing it.

A total of 560 people responded during the city’s public consultation period, with 53 per cent of residents opposing the trial, 46 per cent supporting it and one per cent undecided.

“While a minimum 50 per cent support rate is normally sought as a mandate to proceed with significant projects such as this, the relative closeness of the survey results and the potential benefits to road safety that would be gained are considered sufficient to proceed in this case,” officers wrote in Tuesday’s council agenda.

The trial would reduce the speed limit from 60kmh between Central Avenue and Crawford Road from 7.30am to 10pm (1am on Fridays and Saturdays).

Opponents said it would increase congestion on the arterial road and rat-running in local streets, and wouldn’t make the street safer.

Supporters said the lower speed limit would improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists, help activate Inglewood town centre and encourage more people to use local businesses.

Council officers wrote they would monitor traffic delays on Beaufort Street, and traffic volumes in local streets, as part of the trial.

“For a number of years, the city has been contacted by motorists, residents, businesses,

commercial property owners, community groups and state and federal members of

parliament to raise concerns about road safety on Beaufort Street,” officers wrote in the agenda.

“These concerns have occasionally been accompanied by requests to lower the speed limit on Beaufort Street in Inglewood (and Mount Lawley).”

The proposal will go to full council for the vote this week.

AN iconic Aleppo pine outside Beatty Park has been cut down on arboriculturalist’s advice.

Vincent staff noticed the 20-metre tree had been declining for a few years and brought in an arboriculturalist to assess it in November. A tap with a nylon hammer revealed it was hollow on the north side where termites had previously feasted on it.

“The specimen has likely to have reached the age where natural decline has started,” the inspection report says.

Resurfacing the centre’s carpark about 10 years ago is also likely to have sped up the decline.

Being sited on a busy road and with “sudden limb failure” or even the whole stem giving out becoming more likely, the recommendation was to pull it down.

“It will never regain its former natural vigour… it should be removed before the dying and dead branches fail, but more importantly before whole stem failure occurs,” the prognosis reads.

The council sent a crew in to cut it down this week and the cross-section of the tree confirmed the hammer’s prediction that it had been hollowed out in parts.

Aleppo pines have a lifespan of 80 to 90 years but are known to rapidly decline towards the end, and this one was classed “over-mature”.

Vincent mayor Emma Cole says the council’s hopeful a new tree can be planted at the same spot and they’re checking to see what would be suitable, and the whole leisure centre car park will be considered for additional new trees this upcoming planting season around April or May.

Aleppo pines (Pinus halepensis) were planted here all through the late 1800s to mid 1900s, and archival photos show this was one of the mature trees retained when the site was cleared in 1961.

The famous “Lone Pine” at Gallipoli was often called an Aleppo pine but was actually a slightly different species called Pinus brutia.

by DAVID BELL

NEW Bayswater councillor Steven Ostaszewskyj has convinced the city to recycle a huge pile of its retired furniture.

In 2018 before joining Bayswater, Cr Ostaszewskyj found out about an enormous trove of office furniture sitting in the city’s warehouse on the corner of King and Raymond Streets.

He raised it at the city’s AGM saying there was mountains of stuff in pretty good nick but “each year the city spends money on new furniture”. He called for an audit into what was stored, eventually finding out a third of the gear was destined for disposal.

Elected to council in October 2019, Cr Ostaszewskyj announced this week the city would take expressions of interest from community groups, service organisations, not for profits and charities for items valued under $5000 which were no longer of use to the city.

“I’m personally thrilled,” Cr Ostaszewskyj said.

“We’ve got this stuff sitting there, we might as well use it again. It’s getting no productive use sitting there and if we can help our community groups, charities, not for profits and service organisations to get use out of it again, that’s awesome. It’s a win for the City of Bayswater, ratepayers and those organisations.“

The groups will be able to get an inventory, with images showing dormant chairs, filing cabinets, shelves and desks.

by DAVID BELL