geraldinebrooks.blogspot.com is launched!
Yes, after four solid months of blogging I've opened up this blog to the wonderful world wide web.

I've found it to be a very simple and immediate way to communicate to the community my motivations and interpretations of what Council is, and could be, achieving. And I'm serious about finding new ways to engage our residents with Council activities and decision-making. I sincerely hope this blog contributes to rescuing the political process in Brimbank.

I'm feeling absolutely inspired after last week's community meeting regarding the Ombudsman Victoria report. And I'll endeavour to keep up this alternative public record for anyone looking for an alternative perspective on what's important to Brimbank.

Cheers,
Geraldine


Please note my motions put to the Chamber can be found here: http://brimbankgreensmotions.blogspot.com/
and media releases here: http://brimbankgreensmedia.blogspot.com/

Sunvale PS - a small victory
Council voted last night to support part of my motion for the immediate consultation with the Sunshine Community!

Council has recently decided it will work with the Sunshine community via a new online petition and the post card campaign and I am very concerned that this campaign is not genuine.

While the petition and postcards are calling for Sunvale to be kept for community use, Council's position has not altered. Council's position remains that it supports affordable/social housing and 0.8 hectare for open space. While genuine affordable housing (ie public housing) might be important for our commuity, 'affordable housing' usually means a sell off to developers for cheap and nasty housing.

I think my definition of 'community use' is probably like most people's . When I think of community use I think of parks, playgrounds and community facilities.... I don't think of a sell off to developers.

The Sunshine community deserves to have a say on what it wants for this site. When the issue first arose, the community was promised discussion and consultation and yet Council have yet to ask our community what they want for Sunvale.

In light of this Council campaign, I again put forward a motion that Council resolves to:
1. advocate for the Sunvale PS site to remain 100% in public hands
2. begin immediate consultation with the Sunshine community about the its wishes for the development for the site

And Council voted last night to support the immediate consultation with the Sunshine Community
While they would not support the call to keep the site 100% in public hands, I have no doubt that this is what the Sunshine community will call for during the consultation.

At last, Council is prepared to listen to the views of the community! Lets hope they keep listening...

Click on picture to enlarge view

Sunvale Primary School Site - future development
All of a sudden postcards have appeared on the Council internet home page (http://www.brimbank.vic.gov.au/) and now an online petition! (see screen shot above)

If Council wishes to support the community on this issue, that is great, however it needs to learn to how to consult its community properly. Council launches into such a campaign and has yet to notify councillors of the design, rationale or evaluative processes. Where did this overnight campaign come from? What should the signatories of the online petition expect from signing on?

Council, the organisation, is clearly unable to see the need to build community trust, nor invite open consultation with the community. I want to see every community consultation from Council be an active-listening and trust-building exercise. It's the least we need to build good governance and good community outcomes, and attract the most active and community-minded people to contribute (to join and balance out the valuable contributions of the loud, angry ones).

I will again put forward a motion I have put forward previously calling for immediate consultation with the Sunshine community on this issue so that Council can form a genuine partnership in its approach to this campaign.

We will not be successful in this campaign if we cannot work together and genuinely listen to the needs of our community.

Council passes budget that will destroy Errington Reserve
Council moved tonight to pass a budget that commits our community to a $30M edifice to Councillors and officers. I proposed a forward thinking alternative to scrap the civic centre proposal and scrap the $1M proposed for the duplication of Hume Drive. Unfortunately the chambers fell silent for the motion to be left without a seconder.

Please see find my budget speech at http://www.brimbank.greens.org.au/

Ardeer Community Playground Bonanza
In another great effort by our community, we have had a donation of 1000 locally indigenous tubestock which were planted on Sunday 14th July 2009 by a mass of local volunteers.

The plants are a welcome contribution that have allowed the Ardeer Community Playground Committee to increase the density of planting around the creek, playground and paths. And once grown, these will make the whole area a very beautiful place to be.

Join a vigil to mourn the passing of Reconciliation Victoria
The Brumby Government has defunded Reconciliation Victoria forcing it to close its doors by June 30, 2009. I just wanted to pass on a message from this important organisation:

"Reconciliation Victoria are calling on all supporters to be part of a silent vigil outside the State ALP Conference on Saturday, 13 June at the Melbourne Town Hall, Cnr Swanston and Collins Streets, from 7.30am - 10am.

Please come wearing black and feel free to bring a poster as a measure of your concern. We want to do a dignified protest, particularly as ALP delegates arrive. "

It's important that the State Labor Party gets the message that Reconciliation Victoria should be allowed to continue its good work.

National Climate Emergency Rally - 1PM June 13th (tomorrow)
A rally to keep the heat on PM Rudd and Climate Change Minister Wong to withdraw their reckless CPRS legislation, green jobs and embrace 100% renewable energy.

Where: State Library. cnr La Trobe and Swanston Streets March to Treasury Gardens. Speakers include Peter Marshal, United Firefighters Union and David Spratt, co-author of "Climate Code Red : case for Climate Emergency".
Entertainment includes: Melbourne comedian Rod Quantock.

Transition Towns Forum
The MAV is convening a meeting on Thursday 4 June from 10.30am – 3pm at the Spring Street Conference Centre, Melbourne to discuss the role of councils in facilitating an accelerated take-up of the Transition Town (or city or neighbourhood) initiative across Victorian communities.

Here's a recent article by Leo Hickman of UK paper the Guardian on the latest developments of the Transition Towns model for local action for community resilience and tackling climate change and peak oil head on.

Draft Budget and Draft Council Plan adopted
Each councillor got three minutes to discuss a year's worth of budget commitments. For me, the most striking thing about this budget is that we are effectively creating and compounding more problems than we can fix in our lifetimes, let alone within our tenure as local councillors.
I spoke on
a) enhancing the municipality's climate-readiness with well-thought out programs for sustainable living rather than $1.5m on new roads
b) rejecting the Civic Centre ($2m in this budget commits us to the whole project) and instead implement the Creating Better Parks Strategy in its entirety
c) an urgent review of Council's rates system to properly account for hardship and better reflect the social and environmental cost of the multimillion dollar industries in our municipality.
The Council Plan was also approved in its draft form on Tuesday night.

Residents, please have a read of it and have your say.

Support sacked Westgate Bridge workers

Sacked Westgate Bridge workers braved very wet and blustery conditions on Sunday to hold a picnic at Yarraville Gardens to raise awareness of their fight. Colleen Hartland and I attended in support. Their situation holds significance for all hard working Australians.

Container Deposit Meeting

We had a successful local meeting in Sunshine attended by members of local sports clubs, girl guides groups and interested community members. 10cent deposit on all drink bottles, cans & cartons would save councils $15.2 million, by shifting the cost away from councils towards those who create the litter.

A remarkable 94% of Victorians are in favour of container deposit legislation. The scheme proposed by Greens upper house MP Colleen Hartland would be self funding with potential for tremendous economic benefit to taxpayers and local community groups, as well as the obvious environmental benefit.

Brimbank Council would reap countless benefits
• We will end up saving on tip fees because of a lower volume
• We get a guaranteed 10c for every can, bottle or container
• We will got more for our paper that is collected through kerbside because it will not be contaminated by broken glass
• Less litter in our parks and waterways
• There will be an increased value of the recyclate
• Community groups will make money on bottles, cans and cartons and keep our streets clean
• We wont have to pay for expensive public place recycling
• There will be water and greenhouse gas emissions savings
• And we could even make money out of operating Reverse Vending Machines, hubs and depots

Ms Hartland released her report "Turning Rubbish into Community Money: The benefits of a 10c deposit on drink containers in Victoria" on 31 March 2009.