Council briefs

Cape Woolamai coast destruction

Cape Woolamai Coast Action has highlighted residents’ concerns about the destruction of the foreshore for a BMX track made by local kids.

Group member Marg Dumergue asked shire CEO Ali Wastie how often monitoring at the site was occurring “as the destruction continues to increase daily?”.

And she also asked what action council had taken to inform the community of “the illegal nature of the activities parents are encouraging their children to commit?”.

Ms Wastie responded shire officers were continuing to patrol the site daily, at random times.

“Officers engage with anyone in the area to deter further activity and where necessary, reinforce the protected status that this native vegetation has under state and Federal legislation,” Ms Wastie said.

Question time question

A concerned ratepayer has underscored council transparency issues in public question time.

“The current administration has begun censoring and vanishing reasonable and legitimate public questions by preventing the questions from being presented to ordinary council meetings and by not recording the questions in the meeting minutes,” Michael Guz said.

“In the past 12 months how many public questions have been censored in this way?" Shire CEO Ali Wastie responded the shire delivered public question time in accordance with the Governance Rules.

“Submitters are advised when their question has been disallowed,” Ms Wastie said.

PICAL move

Councillors will vote on the Phillip Island Community and Learning Centre’s move into its long-awaited new headquarters at the next council meeting in May.

Island Voice’s Linda Marston asked for confirmation of the timeline for PICAL’s move from their current home on Church Street, to their new Warley Avenue headquarters in Cowes, as well as the new community garden move to Blue Gum Reserve at the soon-to-be-former CFA building (once the new CFA station is built).

Shire CEO Ali Wastie responded they were working to a November timeframe for relocation of PICAL to Warley Avenue.

“Council is progressing discussions with a range of community groups including PICAL with regards to opportunities at the CFA building,” Ms Wastie said, adding a report would be presented at the May council meeting.

Parking fine pay day

A resident in question time asked the value of parking infringement notices issued by officers from July 1 2021 to March 31 2022.

Shire CEO Ali Wastie responded there were 2136 parking fines issued in that period with a value of $287,766.

Cemetery loss

San Remo Cemetery returned a net loss of more than $14,000 in 2020/21.

“The most significant impact was a reduction in interment of bodily remains with the already low average dropping from four to one”, shire officers explained.

Officers said the shire’s ongoing subsidy of maintenance and administration helped prevent a greater loss.

“Overall, the financial performance of the San Remo Cemetery was slightly poorer than expected and significant future investment is required to deliver supply of burial sites.”

Officers said an upcoming master plan would examine solutions to cemetery budget issues.

Save the trees

A Cowes resident seeking to remove eight trees to build a new home has been given approval to remove four.

Three objections were received for the planning permit at Raywood Avenue in Cowes.

While shire planners approved the removal of five trees, a fourth one was saved after Cr David Rooks moved a motion to also save a manna gum, with the retention not posing a problem to the single storey dwelling, he said.