My policies

Instead of a lot of empty words, I’ve created a list of about 60 actions that I would like to have implemented during the next 4 years at Council.

These have come out of the many conversations I have had over the past few weeks engaging with our community, door knocking and meeting people in the streets, shopping strips and at tram stops…

The following aren’t in any particular order, but are the key issues you tell me are important to our community:

• Our Foreshore: a real focus on our wonderful foreshore including in particular protecting and caring for our beautiful beaches.
• St Kilda Triangle: find the right cultural institution and get this project going, guided by the Cultural Charter that we have now developed. We need to immediately establish a high level exploration group to find the right institutional partner. And in the meantime, make the car park into a vibrant art space, painted by local artists.
• Work with Yarra Trams and Public Transport Victoria to define a better strategy for tram stops around the whole of City of Port Phillip. Develop a strategy for tram stops in Carlisle Street, Clarendon Street as well as other stops across the city. I am well placed to do this work, having worked very constructively with Yarra Trams and Public Transport Vic in relation to Acland Street.
• This includes changing the Council resolution for the Fitzroy Street tram stop outside St Kilda Park Primary School and moving it to the more appropriate place between Princes Street and St Kilda Road. The suggested tram stop is likely to create permanent congestion in peak hours. Not good.
• Do all that is possible to get the Pride Centre to St Kilda – it will make a big difference to St Kilda and demonstrate our values of diversity and inclusiveness. St Kilda is where the Pride Centre belongs. I will of course continue to support the Pride March in Fitzroy Street.
• Come up with a design for a new Brookes’ Jetty that satisfies all safety requirement but also looks wonderful.
• Provide an all access ramp on St Kilda Beach.

• Cut the red tape and improve responsiveness for the processing of smaller projects’ planning applications.

• Continue my strong advocacy when it comes to restricting truck movement on Beach Road, including implementing the initial strategy to remove trucks from 6pm on Friday nights (apart from local trucks for local deliveries) and hopefully to push this further.
• Improve hard rubbish collection by having all Council officers work together –

  including street and beach cleaning crews being very proactive in providing intel to hasten the removal of hard rubbish. Hard rubbish removal from our residential streets is just not working effectively enough.

• Street and beach cleaning have improved in the past 2 years since the City Of Port Phillip brought in house but there are further improvements to be made.
• Sustainability improvements, starting with a retrofit of all Council buildings, reducing waste, and working with Melbourne Water and other agencies to address climate change and rising sea levels.
• Education: support and work with our schools, both primary and secondary, to instigate new and original improvements – including, for instance, sharing Council buildings, lifesaving clubs, etc

• 

  Support organisations like Elwood’s very successful “Love our streets” program to encourage residents to have a higher degree of ownership and create other similar organisations across other parts of the city.

• Graffiti removal has to be improved and needs more money allocated. Street art can help remedy or stop some of the graffiti in the right place. Agreement to be made with other agencies to fastback removal of graffiti or organise street art.
• Support local arts organisations and establish a recurring funding mechanism.
• Build more outdoor fitness places aimed at all our residents, including seniors.
• Upgrade kids’ playgrounds, fully support Skinners and St Kilda Adventure Playground as unique places of fun and learning.
• Strengthen St Kilda Tourism and Events to become a leading organisation in Victoria to promote tourism across Port Phillip, especially through the good use of the Kombi.
• Establish a Port Phillip Cultural Fund, independent from Council with a separate board but administered with the help of Council staff to allow anyone to donate money towards arts projects, organisations and artists within the City of Port Phillip. I think this could be a very worthwhile initiative for Port Phillip.
• Review the balance between amenities for residents’

  

  Showing Jean Nouvel, one of the world’s foremost architects, around the Palais and the St Kilda Triangle…

  compared to visitors. Keep improving the very successful summer management plan.

• Make sure that the Acland Street upgrade is a success, budget for the upgrade of the other half of Acland Street (including new footpath) and provide more al fresco dining opportunities.
• Review the footpath trading guidelines that have been in place for 5 years.
• Consider all options to make good use of the Council’s 2 carparks in Bedford and Irwell Streets with retail controlled by Council on the ground floor, parking and affordable housing on the upper floors within the current DDO for the area.
• Improve Fitzroy Street, making it a safer destination by increasing police presence, using the CCTV cameras and advocating with landlords to make Fitzroy Street more a day street than a night street. Work in collaboration with our fantastic and resilient traders.
• Minimise motor bike noise – advocate for a change in legislation.
• Vigorously fight over development, including at VCAT, especially in relation to heritage areas like Albert Park and Middle Park.
• Constantly improve parking availability. Support care share options (the City of Port Phillip is the leader in this field.)
• Support live music and our rich arts culture, a particular passion of mine. Promote concerts for all ages in the appropriate venues, and get Live Nation to have local support bands at the Palais. Encourage locals to go and see local bands, and help venues to host live music taking into account all legal requirements and impacts on residences in the vicinity, strengthening the agent of change principals. Strengthen Live and Local in winter.
• The Palais Theatre: hold Live Nation to the requirements of their lease and terminate it if they are non compliant; and return the Palais to a community theatre
• Provide help for all arts and cultural organisations across our city to work more collaboratively with each other.
• Support artists and business hubs to increase vibrancy of our villages. Look at more artist studios.
• St Kilda Marina: make sure that the future development is not an over development (remember the St Kilda Triangle in 2007/08?)

  at the end of the lease, and is appropriate for our foreshore.

• 

  Marina Reserve and skate park: improve the skate park by providing shade for the skaters, their parents, spectators and visitors without affecting the outlook for local residents. Make sure the skate park is maintained as one of the best parks in the world, attracting numerous locals, visitors and champions, especially as skating is becoming an olympic sport in 2020!add a pedestrian crossing close to the Marina Reserve. Add a pedestrian crossing close to the Marina Reserve.

• Establish a “Congress of Neighbourhoods” similar to the Los Angeles model. “Take classes on skills & subjects key to Neighbourhood Council success, network with elected officials & staff from every City department, share success stories.”
• “By 2020 over 50% of people aged 60 years or older will live in an urban environment.” “By 2050 the population over-60 will be 2.02 Billion, compared to 2.03 billion children with less than 15 years.” CoPP should officially make it its priority to adopt the UN Guidelines on age friendly cities.
• Advocate for better solutions to combat the ice epidemic and work with various organisations to make a difference in relation to this complex issue.
• Look at all possible options to improve or even replace the EcoCentre building to make it a lot more user friendly. The EcoCentre has a huge part to play towards finding a solution to the environmental challenges we face and needs support.
• Make Fishermans Bend a great place to live, at the best urban renewal there is, by first providing public transport certainty. Look at the Microsoft “Smart Cities” model “to harness the power of technology to create more sustainable, prosperous and competitive communities. This will enable communities to leverage technology for public safety, transportation and other services that improve citizens’ lives.”
• 8% of the current dwellings at the CoPP are considered “affordable.” Increase this ration by 1 or 2% over the next 10 years
• Childcare is a priority for Council and we need to work on reducing the waiting list.
• Advocate and encourage improved age care opportunities in the CoPP.
• Keep working towards reducing our emissions towards zero in 2020, including by placing solar panels on the roof of all suitable Council buildings such as the South Melbourne Market. Encourage renewal energy proposals. And advocate for better sustainablity opportunities across our city.
• Keep improving the vibrancy of the South Melbourne Market and the Esplanade Market.
• Council should develop a bigger database of residents and ratepayers, to be able to engage with many residents at little cost.
• Celebrate diversity and inclusiveness. Increase the role of the Port Phillip Multi-Faith network to build bridges between all faith and religious groups and conduct another successful bus tour around the CoPP to give better knowledge of the places of worship and develop friendships. Have an Iftar dinner every year hosted by the City of Port Phillip.
• Keep helping our friends in Suai, especially as they are about to establish local governments.
• I love the St Kilda Festival as it promotes arts and music in our city but we need to reduce the burden on ratepayers by more “aggressively” finding sponsors and obtaining State Government funding as our festival is a major event in Victoria
• The St Kilda Film Festival is an amazing event but we should look at options to give a more international appeal by linking with other suitable film festivals around the world.
• St Kilda foreshore: finish the promenade upgrade between Donovan’s and Marina Reserve as a priority.
• Gasworks Arts: keep improving activities at this great Council owned and community run theatre. I really think that the potential of Gasworks is huge, especially now that Fishermans Bend is expanding and more people living close by.
• Retain the level of transparency our Council has achieved (fewer than 2% of items coming to Council are confidential vs 9% in Stonnington, and over 10% at Melbourne). Continuous improvement in genuinely engaging with our community, in particular when developing the Council Plan for the next 4 years and the budget, in a rate capping environment.
• Continue to reduce costs and reduce waste ($5M saved in the past 2 years).
• Improve bikes and walking routes through the city, including better lighting.
• St Kilda Road bike road: keep advocating for the bike lanes to be built taking into consideration the work on St Kilda Road to build the new metro station at the Domain Station.
• Support Beach Patrol and Earthcare in improving our beaches and our penguins’ safety.  Advocate for better protection for our lovely little penguins and provide a penguin viewing platform with Parks Victoria.
• Advocate for a new St Kilda Pier.
• Improve our urban forest by planting more trees (I am very proud that in my 8 years at Council, we have planted about 11,000 trees! I want to keep this number growing).
• St Kilda Junction redevelopment as a Cricket Centre of Excellence: make sure that the community is able to use the new facility and make sure that the St Kilda Cricket Club is welcome in the new development.
• Deliver a good new Peanut Farm Sports Pavilion and new facilities for the netball club, promote female participation.
• Review dogs off leash areas and times: our 4 legged friends have a very important place in many people’s lives and we need to carefully balance competing needs in this area.
• Make sure that the St Kilda Lifesaving Club is working well, with strong engagement by the club with local residents and schools, with opportunities for the club to be shared with other community groups at affordable prices.
• Protect our interests if amalgamations of Councils happens in the near future, as has been suggested recently by the Minister of Local Government.
• Youth Council: look at various options in other cities around Australia or the world to make sure that our young people have a strong voice.