Frankston
Frank ston
3 August 2015
All that jazz > Pag Pa e 3
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Stories build literacy skills FRANKSTON mayor Cr Sandra Mayer, seated, launched The Mayor’s Reading Challenge at Carrum Downs Library last week. Children up to the age of 5 will be encouraged to read with their families and enter competitions at Frankston libraries throughout the month of August to win major prizes as part of an annual campaign to foster a love of language. See story Page 9. Picture: Gary Sissons
Frankston stands alone Neil Walker neil@baysidenews.com.au
CONCERNS around governance and transparency have caused Frankston Council to leave the Municipal Association of Victoria. Council decided not to renew its membership of the peak body representing councils across the state in the wake of an audit of the MAV by the
Victorian Auditor-General’s Office. The VAGO report, released in February, found the MAV’s board “has failed to fulfil its obligations to provide appropriate oversight of the operations, governance and performance of MAV, to the detriment of Victoria’s 79 councils, Parliament and the community”. Frankston mayor Cr Sandra Mayer said the decision to suspend its financial membership of the MAV, cost-
ing $58,000 per year, “was not taken lightly”. Frankston is the only one of Victoria’s 79 councils to suspend its MAV membership. “Our council strongly believes in a peak body advocating for councils, however we need to be fully assured the MAV operates in an effective and transparent manner,” Cr Mayer said. Cr Mayer said council could justify spending $58,000 worth of rate-
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payer money on MAV membership when the VAGO report noted the peak body had been unable to demonstrate whether its support activities contributed to the effective and efficient operations of councils. “We want to see that we are getting value for money, and at the moment there is no way to accurately assess that,” she said. “The MAV has the potential to be of great benefit to local councils, and
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hence local communities through their advocacy work, and we look forward to changes taking place that allow the MAV to fulfil this promise.” Frankston’s unilateral decision to effectively quit the MAV comes at a time when councils, under the umbrella of the MAV, are trying to convince the Labor state government not to proceed with its planned rate capping policy with effect from 2016-17. Continued Page 8
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