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Council publication ‘spin’ claim Police target road use abuse Stephen Taylor steve@baysidenews.com.au
Neil Walker neil@baysidenews.com.au ACCUSATIONS of “spin” have been levelled at Kingston Council’s Kingston Your City publication over council’s plans for Kingston’s Green Wedge. Cr Rosemary West said the past three editions of council’s newsletter, distributed bimonthly, had falsely claimed “council is committed to protecting Kingston’s Green Wedge”. “It is wrong for ratepayers’ money to be spent on spinning the plans of five majority councillors to be something they’re not,” Cr West said. “If the majority councillors genuinely wanted to ‘protect the Green Wedge’ or to promote a ‘semi-rural feel’ to encourage residents and businesses to improve its appearance, as stated in KYC, they would implement the Kingston Green Wedge plan adopted by the previous council in 2012.” Kingston Council paid planning consultants Planisphere about $340,000 to produce the 2012 Green Wedge plan. Councillors narrowly voted late last year to hire consultants Meinhardts to produce another report at a cost to ratepayers of an additional $164,000 (‘Wedge report ‘a waste of money’’, The News 17/12/14). Crs Tamsin Bearsley, Ron Brownlees, Geoff Gledhill, Paul Peulich and John Ronke voted at December’s council meeting to pay $164,000 for a Green Wedge report from Meinhardt’s. Crs Tamara Barth, David Eden, Steve Staikos and West opposed the decision.
Spin is in: Cr Rosemary West has criticised Kingston Council’s Kingston Your City publication over its coverage of Green Wedge council decisions.
Cr West said it is “unrealistic” to expect the state government to “allow virtually all of the privatelyowned land south of Heatherton Road to be carved up for suburban sprawl”. The area earmarked for subdivision by council includes 53 hectares of land bounded by Braeside Park, Southern Golf Club and Springvale and Governor roads. Last year, The News revealed Mentone Grammar made a submission to Planisphere in 2012, kept confidential by council at the time, asking for its Keysborough playing fields in the area to be removed from Kingston’s Green Wedge and included in the urban growth boundary.
This would potentially make the land marketable for residential development. Cr West said “some landholders think they just might persuade council and state government to make fortunes for them by rezoning their land along the current majority councillors’ lines … [councillors] have resolved to spend another $164,000 of ratepayers’ money employing consultants to provide ‘strategic justification’ for their plans.” Kingston Council did not respond to questions about Cr West’s comments about the Kingston Your City publication’s coverage of council’s Green Wedge plans before deadline.
KINGSTON police will be tough on motorists breaking road rules over the coming Labour Day weekend. They will be out in force in Operation Arid starting early on Friday 6 March and ending at midnight 9 March. To beef up the police presence, highway patrol shifts have been rostered on top of normal police patrols over the four days. “The City of Kingston has already seen one fatal collision this year which is well up on last year’s statistics. Injury collisions are also of concern,” Local Area Commander, Inspector Bruce Wemyss, said. A visible police presence will ensure that key causes of road trauma are targeted, such as excessive speed, alcohol and drug-affected driving, distraction offences and non-compliance, such as not wearing seatbelts. “Holiday periods always present challenges for local police around road safety,” the inspector said. “We will have police out in force, ensuring that motorists are being responsible on our local roads. “If you are out and about during the long weekend there is every likelihood you will be breath and/or drug tested.” Inspector Wemyss said key danger times for drivers were the long hours spent driving long distances on unfamiliar roads, and those spent returning. “We want to make sure that we set a high standard when people leave and return home.” He said police had strategies to identify drivers using mobile phones and
Inspector Bruce Wemyss
laptops while driving. “We know that distraction and inattention is one of the main contributors to road trauma and this will be very much a focus for us moving forward.” Over the same weekend last year, police in Kingston were “very active” charging seven drink-drivers, nine disqualified drivers and 22 unlicensed drivers. Fines were issued over 42 unregistered vehicles, 94 speeding offences, 28 mobile phone offences, 12 seat belt offences and 30 for disobeying a traffic control signs and signals. One of the cars intercepted during the campaign was impounded. “I implore motorists to be vigilant and not to be one those penalised for breaching road rules,” he said.
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Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News 25 February 2015
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