2012 Council Elections
Submit your Question Here!
We want our TRRA Membership and the Public to help TRRA compile a short list of questions to put to the candidates for the coming Mayoral and Council Elections to be conducted on September 08 2012.
We will be discussing and refining these questions at our special TRRA Election Briefing Meeting on Monday July 16 to which you are invited.
When the TRRA Committee have sorted out the best questions, they will be put to the candidates in writing before another meeting on Monday August 13 that all candidates will be invited to address.
This Is your chance to contribute to this process, get your thinking caps on and submit that killer question in the box below.
We wish we could offer a prize for the best question but the best we can do will be a round of applause and the satisfaction that you “Had Your Say with TRRA”
6 Responses to 2012 Council Elections
Salamander Land Sale Question
The history of the Salamander Shopping Centre land disposal process is also a good example of the Council’s flawed approach to property management. Council has failed to follow best practice in tendering as recommended by the State Government guidelines and has incurred significant costs in the failed sale process over the last two years. No proper process, no proper plan, no progress.
If elected to Council would you:
1. Support the development of a Master Plan for the Salamander Shopping Centre?
2. Engage a professional organization by public tender to assess Council’s “land bank” and unused operational assets?
3. Launch a responsible disposal programme that optimises the financial return with proceeds from the disposal of the applied to the reduction/removal of Council’s debt burden?
question to candidates:- 1) what is going to be done to eradicate the ugly visual polution that is on the roads as the entrance to Nelson Bay? 2) when is a creative and useful design for the Salamnader way shopping precinct going to be decided and built? 3) will you support Culture and creative initiatives and continue with Grant funding for the Arts?
PLEASE NOTE: We DON’T need motherhood questions and subjects for our Mayor and Councillor candidates!!!!! Q 1: Will you ensure that Council works within its allocated budgets, only increasing rates with CPI increases and NOT levies? (NOTE: We are already paying around 13% in hidden levies.) Q 2: Will you ensure that our roads are greatly improved rendering them much safer? Q 3: Will you work with Council managers and staff, thus making sure that we as ratepayers receive good value for money and also respect? Q 4: Will you make yourself available 24/7 as an elected official, due to the fact that we have effectively lost one councillor from two wards?
I would fully support the questions suggested by Dorothy Dixon and Diane Souter and Q1 to 3 from Brian Watson Will. I don’t believe Q4 relating to availability 24/7 to be a fair question as it’s not the fault of the candidates that we only now have 3 Councillors. The voters decided that one in the referendum last time, even if it was a “trick” question linked to the “popularly elected” Mayor question. Councillors are not paid a huge amount for the time they need to spend on their duties.
My further question: Will you do all you can to return a much larger percentage of the rates we pay on Tomaree Peninsula to be used for maintenance and improvements here.
I would like to one day understand the councils methods of madness. I refer to the total waste of money that has been spent on the footpath to nowhere on the corner Port Stephens Drive and Salamander Way.
Q1 Why has the council spent so much of ratepayers money on this project?
Q2 Why is it taking more than 7 years since the first processes and emails sent to council regarding no footpath outside Pacific Blue Resort on which we have motorised scooters travelling head on into traffic along Bagnalls Beach road from Sandy Point Road to Helm Close Corlette?
Q3 Why is the council planning spending $1.3 million dollars on a bicycle path to no where around Corlette headland when there is much more urgent matter need to be fixed before this is allowed to go ahead?
Q4 Why is council allowing an extension of Salamander Shopping centre into the carpark. Surely the ratepayers who use this shopping centre should have been consulted on this matter which now removes serveral car spaces.
Critical issues facing Port Stephens include jobs and investment in facilities and infrastructure. Unless PSC actively encourages a wide range of sensible job creation opprtunities, and creates the conditions required for both private AND public sector investment, Port Stephens will continue to export dollars to Maitland and Newcstle LGAs, lose young people to other locations, and the area will become a ‘dormitory suburb’ for neighbouring LGAs.
Candidates : what are YOU doing (or what do you plan to do) to actively support job creation and stimulate invesment in Port Stephens?