Perth Voice Interactive

With 16 commissioned artworks and more than 150 events, the City of Perth Winter Arts Season is a sure-fire way to beat the blues and get your imagination fired up during the cooler months.

Enjoying a fourth birthday treat in the city with snapper dad Steve this week, Charlotte Ashton-Grant ugged up to catch the city’s new eye-catching installation of umbrellas in the Hay Street Mall.

The city of Perth Winter Arts season is on until August 31. For more information visit visitperthcity.com/winter-arts.

VINCENT council adopted its new budget on Tuesday with a modest 2.7 per cent rate increase — unless you’re on the minimum.

For the third year running the council gave the bottom rung an almost double-digit hike which mayor Emma Cole says just about brings it into line with surrounding councils.

Ms Cole says the 9.2 per cent increase is likely to be the last big one, and councillors checked to make sure it wasn’t hitting the city’s most vulnerable citizens.

Minimum

“We…looked at where the seniors and pensioner rebates were coming from, and mostly it wasn’t in the minimum rates,” Ms Cole told the Voice, adding it appeared the majority of long-termers were sitting on properties that had appreciated xover the years and wouldn’t be affected.

The minimum rate hike elicited the sole submission when the budget was put out for comment, with an irate ratepayer saying the council was raising it to make up for the  revenue it lost when alfresco dining fees were ditched.

The submission got stuck into the council for letting the low rate sit for years before addressing it with big hikes and called for the council to be more “up front” about the increase.

That’s likely to refer to the fact documents the council has released publicly don’t list the percentage increase, only the minimum payment of $1100—leaving residents to do the math themselves. The staff report says percentages could be included in future years (when, the Voice noted, the big increases will have finished).

Ms Cole says she doesn’t think the council’s trying to conceal the increase, saying they’d been upfront in their discussions about why it needed to be increased, but said she’d look into the wording of an information sheet before it was printed and mailed out.

The mayor says she thinks Vincent’s struck the right balance between financial responsibility and laying the groundwork for some exciting initiatives that will see the city ready for the future.

“I’m really excited about the greening plan, which will see the development of projects such as the North Perth common, which is really the town square,” Ms Cole said.

“It’s still in the planning stage but we are setting up a working group so that next year it will be ready to hit the ground.”

The greening streetscapes program, which got $300,000 in the budget, will also go towards an upgrade at Axford Park, doubling Hyde Park reserve and converting an unsightly sump on Lawler Street into a passive recreation area with native plantings.

“A public open space strategy is also to be developed, which will look at what open space is available and what the future needs of the city are.”

The city’s revenue was hit fairly hard by WA’s economic downturn last year, with development application and building licence fees sliding by about $500,000 and parking revenue dipping. The bean counters in the council reckon that’s worth about 2 per cent of the rates.

Ms Cole says it was a tricky budget to balance, given stuff-ups in previous years that left the council with deficits it wasn’t even aware of, plus demands from the state government to be more rigorous in ensuring enough money was set aside to replace assets.

She says they’re looking to find additional revenue streams, including paying off a loan on the Department of Sport and Recreation building so that instead of having to pay interest it becomes an income stream.

Ms Cole says the increase was slightly above CPI, but she’s sure Vincent’s will come out as one of the lowest-rating councils in Voiceland again.

by STEVE GRANT

AFTER eight years as a Vincent councillor, the zany and idiosyncratic Matt Buckels has announced he won’t be re-contesting his seat at the October elections.

First elected in 2009, he added a cheeky turn of phrase and an independent streak to a historically Labor-heavy council.

“I honestly think that I’ve played a real part of dragging the City of Vincent out of the dark ages, and am super-excited that we’ve made it an organisation that residents are super-excited about,” says Mr Buckels, who at one point had a bowl cut reminiscent of a squire from the Middle Ages.

“There are so many people in Vincent land doing amazing things and with so much passion, and I’m happy to see one of them in my place.

Memorable

“It’s just the right time to move on.”

Here’s some of Buckels’ most memorable quotes :

• “If you got a bunch of average first year planning students and got them drunk and asked them to rearrange the Perth/Vincent border I doubt they would do as bad a job.”

• On the Barnett-government’s plan to split up town centres during the council amalgamation debate: “Whichever genius decided Beaufort Street would benefit from having not one, not two, but three local governments in charge, well, they deserve an ‘idiot of the year’ medal and to be put on paper clip-sorting duty for a month, if that’s not beyond them.”

• When initial amalgamation plas revealed Vincent would be split up: “Perth city council has the electoral clout of centre management at the Dog Swamp shopping centre,”

• On the legitimacy of our capital city council being elected by a tiny voter base of just a few thousand voters: “This is certifiably the most pointless cause ever.”

• When a heritage lobby group “Save the Horseshoe Bridge” was set up to oppose plans to slightly change the Horseshoe Bridge in Northbridge: “You could tell them you’ll put angular parking on their grandmother’s grave and people will support it.”

• When other councillors wanted to ban backpackers sleeping out overnight in their cars: “My wife and I, the first night that we met properly, after having a few drinks we slept in my Datsun Sunny outside the tavern. I don’t know what would have happened to my relationship if I got a $150 fine.”

by DAVID BELL

BUSINESS is going to the dogs in Vincent thanks to an updated local law approved by the council this week.

The council has cut a long-standing section of its Dog Act banning pooches from going into shops—providing they aren’t an indoor cafe—and may use the initiative to promote the city as a mutt-friendly shopping destination, says mayor Emma Cole.

Ms Cole says the council already turns a blind eye to a few businesses that have been technically flouting the rules, and it’s good the updated law will mean they won’t end up in the doghouse.

“We were looking at putting together online maps or a doggy trail, but for now we need to get the information out to businesses to gauge their reaction,” she says.

Vincent has one of the highest per-capita rate of dog ownership in Perth.

The updated law, which is to be sent out for consultation before it can become official, will see the demise of the historic position of pound keeper. That role, which has origins dating back to the 18th century, will go to a less colourful-sounding “authorised person”.

by STEVE GRANT

NORTHBRIDGE resident Leo Treasure is on a mission to ban tonal reversing alarms on forklifts and trucks.

There’s a push overseas to switch to broadband alarms (otherwise known as “white noise”) that can only be heard by those directly in line of a reversing vehicle, and Mr Treasure’s just created an online petition and website calling for their introduction in Australia.

The World Health Organisation says noise is a growing problem which can lead to raised blood pressure, headaches, minor accidents, and people taking sleeping pills and even seeking psychiatric treatment.

Mr Treasure, a musician and musical producer, lived in Taiwan for three years and says the constant noise was unbearable, especially the rubbish trucks, as their reversing alarm was a screechy rendition of Fur Elise.

On moving back to Perth, where he works from his Northbridge apartment, Mr Treasure still couldn’t find any peace and quiet, with beeping from the junk yard next door starting at 7am.

Even the usually peaceful Hyde Park failed to offer respite, with a forklift beeping as workman carried out maintenance.

“I realised it’s a global problem,” Mr Treasure sighs.

Overseas studies show the shrill beeping of the tonal alarms doesn’t make them safer.

“Tonal alarms travel further, but the single frequency bounces off surfaces and reflects from many directions causing confusion and disorientation,” Mr Treasure says.

Gloria Elliott, head of the UK Noise Abatement Society, claims vehicles fitted with white noise alarms are safer. “White sound frequencies allow people to tell exactly where it’s coming from, it’s audible even to people with hearing aids,” she says

A Perth council spokesperson said they began introducing reverse broadband beepers in city vehicles in 2013/14.

To join Mr Treasure’s ban the beep, go to nomorebeepingforklifts.co or call him on 0477 572 085.

by JENNY D’ANGER

THE president of the Maylands Ratepayers and Residents Association Elli Petersen-Pik will run for Bayswater council at the local government elections in October.

Mr Petersen-Pik is targeting the south ward seat held by John Rifici, who after one four-year term has had enough and is not recontesting his position on October 21.

In 2014 the MRRA passed a motion of no confidence in Cr Rifici as they felt, “a definite lack of representation”.

Mr Petersen-Pik is an independent candidate with no political-party backing.

“I’m not the typical candidate who turns up three months before the election and claims to care about the local community,” he says.

“I’ve been working hard to progress things in Maylands for two years now.

“As the president of the MRRA, I’ve had the opportunity to learn about many different local issues and get familiar with the relevant stakeholders.”

Mr Petersen-Pik also runs the Facebook community page “Improving Maylands,” where’s he organised successful community campaigns, including the upgrade of Maylands Waterlands, getting Coles to clean up and re-fence its derelict vacant lot, and pushing for trees to be planted along Guilford Road and Peninsula Road, making it safer for pedestrians.

Guildford Road

“One of my main aims is to upgrade the Guildford Road streetscape,” he says.

“Despite it being the face of Maylands and a key route for pedestrians, buses and cars, it is the daggiest part of our town centre and has been neglected by our city for a long time.

“I’m glad that council recently agreed to support my proposal to plant trees along the road verges to shade pedestrians, but only four trees have been proposed for planting so far, and that’s not an acceptable outcome.”

by DAVID BELL

HAVING been chosen to toll the bells announcing the deaths of Winston Churchill and Harold Holt as a youngster in Adelaide, Ian McLeod can certainly claim a long history of ringing.

Now the chair of the Bell Tower, he’s still passionate about campanology and says there was quite a protocol to ringing the bell to announce someone’s death.

Half of the clapper, which strikes the bell, would be covered with leather so the second half of its ring would be muffled; the two sounds would signify life and death.

Then the bell would be tolled once for each year of the dead person’s life: “In the old days when everyone in town could hear the bells, that’s how they’d know who’d died,” says Dr McLeod.

“They’d count the number of times the bell rang and work out who it was.”

This week the bell tower’s seventh annual photographic competition was launched, with the them “Up Close and Personal” to encourage photographers to get in close to the bells, which are the second-largest collection in the world.

There’s apparently a heap of miniscule historical details about the bells and the history of bells hidden within the walls of the tower, which photographers have been urged to hunt down.

The winner of the peoples’ choice, judges’ selection and youth category will all win a flash Canon camera.

The tower is also eagerly awaiting the casting of its latest addition – the Anzac commemorative bell, which at 6 tonnes will be three times larger than any others in the collection and just half the size of Big Ben.

It was supposed to have been delivered during the last two Anzac days, but has been delayed.

by STEVE GRANT