Perth Voice Interactive

VINCENT mayor Emma Cole has announced she’ll stand down come the end of her term in October.

Ms Cole was first elected as a councillor in 2013, then as mayor in 2017. 

At the July 25 council meeting Ms Cole announced that after 10 years in local government she was looking forward to more evenings at home with her family.

“Ten years for me is a long time in local government, long enough to see a great deal of positive change but also long enough to crave quieter evenings and weekends, more time to help with the homework (although the boys won’t really like that), to be with family and neglected friends, and to walk the dog, probably at Britannia Reserve.

Took the plunge

“My youngest was just three years old when I took the plunge to run for Vincent Council and now we’re organizing the 13th birthday party, so it’s time for me to be a resident again in my community.”

Ms Cole’s time on council has continued a trend set by previous Vincent mayors of going outside the usual three Rs (rates, roads, and rubbish) of local government, and those endeavours been a large target for critics in public question time and on social media.

But Ms Cole said they’d been able to keep the finances in good order and the “progressive decision making” reflected what most of the Vincent community wanted. 

“We’ve shown that it’s possible for local government to be more than the three R’s,” Ms Cole said, “that we can aim high on our sustainability actions in the face of climate change, that we can represent our diverse community on issues that matter to them like the marriage equality plebiscite and the Uluru Statement from the Heart,” the call for constitutional recognition by Aboriginal people which Vincent endorsed in 2020.

Former mayor John Carey, now WA Labor’s MP for Perth, told the Voice: “I don’t know who’ll be standing for mayor, but there are big shoes to fill.

“The thing about Emma Cole is, whether or not you agreed with all her positions, she was always diligent, she had the highest levels of integrity, and she was always engaged and was responsive to constituents.

“It could be the toughest of issues, but she would meet residents on the street, in workshops, in forums.

“I say this for any prospective mayor: The expectations set by our community are very clear. This is not a part-time role, this is not a job for your retirement, our community expects a highly engaged, responsive mayor, and it’s bloody hard work.”

by DAVID BELL

WITH a surfeit of inner suburban land devoted to golf, a shortage of public parks, and newly built houses being hit by errant golf balls, Bayswater council is considering “alternative uses” for its 10.1 hectares of land at Embleton Golf Course.

In the past decade cities across Australia have increasingly debated whether they need so many metropolitan golf courses, with public space at a premium following denser housing developments and many people not having a public park nearby.

Embleton’s nine hole public course runs at 50 per cent capacity with an average of 85 players teeing off per day, and Bayswater council’s other nearby course at Maylands attracts higher numbers with its 18 holes. 

With so many other golf courses nearby like Mt Lawley and Yokine clubs, councillor Michelle Sutherland penned a notice of motion to “investigate alternative use options” for Embleton land.

Aside from being underutilised, the surrounding suburbs have had denser and taller housing built in recent years, putting them in the line of fire for power drivers.

A council report says “as such the City has received increased complaints over the last 10 years from residents experiencing reported property damage from alleged errant balls being hit out of the course”, mitigated partly by a safety review in 2018 to put up more fences and realign tees away from windows.

Review

The review is still open ended but may involve some “golf related” options like a more compact driving range, or transforming the courses into public parks. The land is zoned as ‘local public open space’, reserved for parks or other recreation.

Two councillors voted against the motion, Cr Sally Palmer who’s firmly in favour of it staying a golf course, and Elli Petersen-Pik, on the grounds that they’d only recently appointed a new manager in mid-2022 and usage appeared to be rising.

The course is currently run under contract by TenGolf, which has a 10-year lease. They’ve done a better-than-expected job bringing in players since taking over management there in mid-2022, and Bayswater council is on track to make a slim profit this year after budgeting for a small loss.

Cr Sutherland said: “The whole point of this motion is just to have a look-see at what we can do and talk to people” and a majority endorsed the plan, and Bayswater staff will now come up with some alternative uses to present to council in December.

by DAVID BELL

MASSIVE changes to the face of Leederville are on the horizon with a proposal to transform two sprawling carparks into major mixed-use developments between 10 and 18 storeys tall. 

Amid Leederville’s small bars and niche retailers, some 14,600sqm of the town centre is taken up by 464 ground-level parking bays split across carparks at Frame Court and The Avenue.

The council considers this a pretty severe underutilisation of so much inner-city land, and is proposing to transfer parts of the carpark land to a private developer to build upwards and include parking bays in their building.

Once it’s done there’ll be a slight surplus of parking, with 484 daytime bays and more available after hours when the office workers go home. But there’ll be some parking pain in the meantime for about three years of development with a deficit of 262 bays in a suburb which some business owners already complain is short on parking.

The plan has been more than a decade in the making and after searching for a developer among eight interested parties, Vincent has settled on Hesperia as the best one for the job. Hesperia’s previously delivered the nearby ABN Group office building in Leederville.

Hesperia has proposed their buildings will include a mix of residential, retail, medical, community spaces, plus multi-storey carparks. Vincent will sell some of the land as part of the deal and retain ownership of the public open spaces and the carparks, and receives the revenue stream from parking tickets.

Councillors voted unanimously at the July 25 meeting to put the idea out for public comment. 

Mayor Emma Cole said “It’s very exciting, it’s very high quality.

“We could maintain at-grade street level car bays, but by going multistorey we release that high value land to really be developed in a number of different ways.”

She said it’d bring a “significant amount of public realm [and] new facilities space to the benefit of the local community. We’ll be increasing the population; we know that with population we can guarantee the success of the town centre.”

Ms Cole said “it’s very high value, very precious public land,” and so they were “opening this up for comment from both the community but also for others to have a look and say whether they think this is the right deal, or whether they would like to propose something different. 

“So no decision has been made to sell the land, no decision has been made to proceed until we can go through this process. But it’s the first opportunity our community has had to actually view this and see this and make comment on it.”

It’s open for comment in person or online at imagine.vincent.wa.gov.au until September 11. 

by DAVID BELL

IT’S always cold, often wet, and costs $40 a head, but the mid-winter Kings Park’s Lightscape light show has booked out.

It’s been so popular scalpers have been flogging tickets online, prompting the Botanic Gardens & Parks Authority to warn people to beware of ticket reselling websites “to avoid being scammed”.

After lighting up canopies and tree trunks along a 1.8km trail for six weeks, the Lightscape run ends this Sunday July 30, and even with an extra night added this week every timeslot is sold out.

The Lightscape concept is owned by Sony, and the record giant will split profits with Kings Park. Lightscape’s previously run light trails through Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens in London, a handful of American cities, and here in Melbourne and Brisbane. 

Perth council contributed $100,000 in cash and $100,000 worth of marketing time and extra public transport to bring Lightscape here. 

At this week’s council meeting lord mayor Basil Zempilas said “I’m delighted to be able to report, having spoken to the organisers today, that they have officially classed it as a sellout.

“That is, all tickets that they were making available to the general public of Perth and WA, have now been sold… 182,218 people will have gone through the gates at King’s Park to see Lightscape”.

“182,000 people through Kings Park, in winter, at night, absolutely outstanding.”

The final tally surpassed the estimated attendance of 150,000. 

The sold out run comes despite some complaints left online that the tickets were unaffordable for families, with the cheapest off-peak family pass going for $120.

by DAVID BELL

BAYSWATER councillors will have to declare any community social media pages run by themselves or their spouses, in an effort to deter “inappropriate usage of community social media platforms for political purposes”.

The motion by Cr Elli Petersen-Pik narrowly won majority support at the July 25 meeting with support from mayor Filomena Piffaretti and Crs Dan Bull, Catherine Ehrhardt, Giorgia Johnson and Sally Palmer.

Facebook community pages have become increasingly influential in local politics in the past few years, prompting concerns that shadowy administrators have the power to censor political opponents or critics.

“I raised this motion following many complaints that I have been receiving from residents about their concerns regarding the inappropriate involvement of some councillors around this table when it comes to the management of community Facebook groups or pages, directly or via their partners,” Cr Petersen-Pik said at the July 25 meeting 

“Some of those community pages have been used for political and personal purposes, including self-promotion or promotion of specific councillors or candidates, blocking residents from accessing those community pages, and removing any ‘unwanted’ public scrutiny of specific councillors or our local government.”

The motion requires councillors to declare involvement in “any social media account” that is “specifically relevant to the City of Bayswater” and it’d be recorded in a publicly available online register.

He said there was keen community interest in the idea as many had been banned from popular local pages.

“Almost 90 residents, from all suburbs around the City, signed a community petition to support this motion,” Cr Petersen-Pik said.

Among yes-voters was Cr Ehrhardt, whose husband runs a hugely popular local page “Maylands Community Notices and Chat Group 6051”. 

That page has peeved some locals who got banned under its strict ‘no politics’ rule introduced in the past couple of years, which sees members booted if they talk about a political issue or refer to elected members (Voice, July 22, 2023).

Peeved

Cr Ehrhardt says she hasn’t been involved in running that page for “years” now. Cr Ehrhardt said that while she supported the register, she suggested other family members running pages could also be included. But she stopped short of pushing a formal amendment so it’s just councillors and spouses who have to declare their pages for now.

Cr Petersen-Pik said to his knowledge, this was the first such register in WA.

They beat the Town of Cambridge by a couple of hours: Later on Tuesday night Cambridge councillors voted in a similar register based on the same wording as Cr Petersen-Pik’s motion.

Cr Petersen-Pik said he now hoped the state government would introduce legislation around elected members managing community social media pages.

by DAVID BELL

IT’S like talking to a post, but this one talks back: A new artificially intelligent chat-bot named Ainsley wants to talk to Stirling locals about what they need in their neighbourhoods.

Stirling council’s introduced a WA-first trial installing signs at 42 locations, bearing a visual code that’s detected by smartphone cameras and opens up a text dialogue with Ainsley.

There they can ask questions and talk about what community infrastructure they need across the next 10 years like pools, libraries, skate facilities or sports courts. 

Mayor Mark Irwin says it’s a new prong in their community consultation attempts alongside the usual letters and online comments.

“Ainsley will enable automated two-way conversations at 42 locations across the City via QR codes and text messages,” Mr Irwin said in a media statement. 

“We hope this innovative approach to engagement will invite everyone to talk about their neighbourhood and have their stories heard, so the City can better understand what matters to the unique communities across our 30 suburbs.”

Ainsley comes with a pre-built knowledge base about the area it’s in and the council’s ongoing projects, and its answers are trained on previous conversations. 

The AI chat is tailored by a company called Hello Lamp Post, who’ve previously installed chat prompts to let tourists chat with a bot and ask questions about landmarks.

Hello Lamp Post co-founder Tiernan Mines said “robust” moderation mechanisms were in place to ensure Ainsley wouldn’t say anything inappropriate.

“The City of Stirling can draw comfort from the extensive experience and data Hello Lamp Post has collected in operating across more than a dozen different countries,” Mr Mines said. “Using the infrastructure that already exists in cities and towns to make them more interactive, we can bring more voices to the table.”

Public feedback on the community infrastructure plan is open til August 7, and if you don’t want to talk to the robot you can still submit the old fashioned way (online at Stirling’s website) or by calling their “leisure planning” department).