Perth Voice Interactive

MAYLANDS PENINSULA primary P&C has raised $17,000 to buy electronic equipment for its school.

Parents raised the funds via sausage sizzles, lap-a-thons and home-made baking sales.

The money will be used to buy 28 iPads, a portable synching/charging unit and junior primary apps for the pre-primary and year one rooms.

P&C president Teresa Borwick says parent fundraising is vital given the cutbacks to school budgets.

“In a time of reduced funding it’s important that the school community do what they can to assist the school,” she says.

“With events such as the lap-a-thon it’s the children themselves who do the hard work and this is a tangible reminder of the difference they can make.

“Whilst we are not able to completely bridge the funding gap, we are doing our best to ensure that the children at Maylands Peninsula primary have access to the best possible equipment.” The school’s Edudance concerts are due to be held September 17 and 19 at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre from 6pm.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

THE only purpose-built pawnbroker’s building known to exist in WA is set to be added to the state heritage register.

The Barrack Street shop was built between 1890-1900 for pawnbroker Phineas Seeligson, a philanthropist and prominent leader in WA’s Jewish community. Henry Stirling Trigg, the first architect born and trained in WA, designed the narrow three-storey building.

Richard Offen from Heritage Perth says the building’s federation romanesque architecture is unusual for Perth.

“Trigg designed quite a few buildings during that period, including what is now the Belgian Beer Cafe in the city,” he says. “The building is not only of value because of its unusual use, but because of its distinctive architecture. It’s got rounded arches and a parapet, which is representative of the flamboyant architectural style of the gold rush era.”

The pawnbrokers is already classified by the National Trust and is part of the Barrack Street Conservation Area. In 2011 the owner received a $40,000 Perth heritage grant to restore the front facade and in 2014 a Perth city council heritage award for conservation and restoration.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

THERE’S an edge of darkness to Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor, despite the laugh-a-minute jokes that sent chuckles and guffaws around the State Theatre this week.

Set in 1953, on a fictitious 23rd floor of the Rockerfeller Plaza in New York the play is based on the life of legendary American comic Sid Caesar.

Caesar’s TV show went live every Saturday night and he was “best known as one of the most intelligent and provocative innovators of television comedy”, historian Susan Murray wrote.

Simon was one of the show’s scriptwriters and the play is based on his time with Caesar and co-writers including Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Carl Reiner.

This “team of crazies” assembled at the beginning of the week to dream up ideas for the 90-minute sketch-comedy to be telecast live the next Saturday, director Kate Cherry says.

The result is a rapid-paced play that captures 1950s America, along with the hype and pressure-cooker atmosphere as the crew banter and bicker as they come up with witty dialogue.

But with audiences turning off and ratings slipping, Max Prince is under pressure from network bosses who think his show is too “sophisticated” for middle America. Budget cuts are cutting a little too deeply in the office and jobs are under threat.

It’s also a time when fear of communism is ramped up to bring a nation to heel, with Senator Joe McCarthy raising hell about reds under the bed and writers and actors facing employment oblivion if blacklisted by McCarthy’s now-infamous Committee for unAmerican Activities.

Rubber-faced Peter Rowsthorn is brilliant as Max Prince, funny, but at the same time clearly a man on the edge of a battle he knows he’s losing, and in the grip of addictions to tranquilisers and alcohol.

His fight scene with Ira Stone (Damon Lockwood) is hilarious.

James Sweeny as Lucas Brickman, aka Neil Simon, is at first hesitant, but soon gets into his role, although his brash, eager, young-gun American accent and enthusiasm takes me a while to get used to.

The only female of the crew, Carol, played by Jo Morris, gives a rousing speech about being a comedy writer, not a woman writer (and learning to “speak fuck” in this male domain) despite being heavily pregnant.

Lauren Ross’ set is a stand out winner, evoking a ‘50s office, backdropped by a New York skyline. She even manages to hide a massive Christmas tree until December when it springs to colourful life, and snow falling gently beyond the huge windows is a nice touch.

Laughter on the 23rd Floor is on at the State Theatre until September 21.

by JENNY D’ANGER

ELDERLY Homeswest tenants in Mount Hawthorn have endured their second week without plumbing as they wait for the WA housing department to fix sewers. They’re worried because they haven’t spotted any plumbers on-site in seven days.

The department’s placed portable toilets and showers in the complex’s courtyards, but the plastic facilities, designed for building sites, have no lights and there’s no hot water for the showers.

Tenant Joan Groves says she “stood there in the nick pushing and pulling” taps but the water stayed cold (the Voice couldn’t get it to work either).

“No plumbers have been seen at work for days and I would ask Colin Barnett, who is so good at digging up ground for waterworks, how would you like your elderly rellies using a portaloo or mobile shower outside at night?” Ms Groves asks.

Housing’s general manager of service delivery Steve Parry says “works have not ceased at the project” but red tape is delaying things.

“The department needed to obtain a structural engineer’s report and engaged with specialised drainage, excavation and dewatering contractors.”

He says the problem occurred when a broken sewer pipe several metres underground caused a sinkhole, requiring “major works”.

“In colloquial language the whole system’s stuffed,” Ms Groves says.

The resident closest to the sinkhole must be rehoused until works are complete.

The Voice lodged a query with the department on Monday. When we were there on Tuesday three contractors showed up to look quizzically at the problem.

Mr Parry says works were scheduled to start Thursday and plumbing is expected to be restored early next week.

He says the lack of hot water was due to circuits tripping during heavy rainfall: lighting will be installed in the loos.

As for Ms Groves, who completed a master in history to stay busy after retirement, she says she’s seen worse: “I’ve lived in the country so it’s not completely alien to me.”

by DAVID BELL

STIRLING ratepayers are being slugged a full recycling and waste fee in rates, even though the council has recycled virtually nothing for more than a year.

Sending 84,000 tonnes of waste straight to landfill has saved the council a whopping $1.6 million, but none of it has gone back to ratepayers. Every month since last August the council has been trucking 7000 tonnes of waste to the tip, after the Atlas recycling facility shut down.

The change saves the council $20 per tonne.

In 2013 ratepayers were still being slugged a $278 waste and recycling fee, the same they paid the year before when 65 per cent of waste was recycled.

Mayor Giovanni Italiano says if the council hadn’t pocketed the “surplus”, it would have to impose a levy for an $11.5 million three-bin recycling system that’s set to start in July.

“Ratepayers were informed of the introduction of the three-bin kerbside collection system via a direct mail out,” he says.

Earlier this year council staff forecast that ratepayers will have to pay an extra $37 in their 2015 rates to subsidise the three-bin system.

This year, ratepayers are being slugged $300.93 in recycling and waste fees, again with hardly any going towards recycling. The council blamed the $23 hike on the WA government’s higher landfill levy.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

POLICE were called after a 75-year-old tenant from the complex climbed a tree to stop workers hacking branches.

Workers had marked trees for a severe lopping to get the portable loos to the courtyards.

Ray Boyle says trees help cut down noise pollution from the busy highway.

Workers called police when Mr Boyle refused to get down to let them pass. He says he continued to negotiate with them and a compromise was reached, with them snipping off less than originally intended.

The Californian-born Mr Boyle says he’s been an activist all his life. He left the US “as a political refugee”.

“They were going to throw me in gaol as a conscientious objector,” he says, for refusing to sign up to the Vietnam war draft.

THE group Inglewood on Beaufort wants to establish a local community garden.

The budding community group has been impressed by the success of the North Perth community garden opened last year and is investigating potential sites.

IOB deputy chair Matt Seabrook says the group is canvassing people on its Facebook page to gauge public support for the idea and recruit volunteers.

The Voice understands it is looking at one site next to St Luke Anglican Church.

The IOB has consulted with Colin Scott, who was instrumental in establishing the North Perth garden.

That garden has gone from strength to strength since opening in October and has a waiting list for people wanting to lease a plot.

“It’s all part of the push for kids to be more active and eat healthier fresh food.”

“We have 55 families as members, 15 volunteers and around eight committee members,” Mr Scott says.

“The place has really taken off and we have members of all different ages and backgrounds, including a few butch guys in their 20s who go to the footy.

“With all the infill going on people are craving a bit of green space, so I guess that’s one of the reasons it has been so popular.”

North Perth’s 750sqm garden includes a worm farm, frog pond, water-harvesting tank, reticulation and fruit and vegetables.

All the reticulation and water used is non-scheme, including gutter water salvaged from the adjacent Men’s Shed.

Members can lease their own 3.5sqm plot or share a bigger plot with others.

The garden is perched on a hill in Farmer Street, next to the local tennis and bowling club.

Mr Scott says the group wants to plant nut and fruit trees on 1000sqm of adjacent public land and is seeking Vincent council approval.

“We want to get teenagers in after school to pick fruit from the trees,” he says.

“It’s all part of the push for kids to be more active and eat healthier fresh food. The gardens have been a great success.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK