The Glen Eira Residents’ Association has organised its second community forum for the year. This time on something we know is dear to all residents’ hearts – traffic and parking. It looks like they’ve got a handy group of speakers as well. An academic and two councillors from different municipalities. Should be interesting to hear how other councils approach these issues in contrast to our lot. See their website (http://geresidents.wordpress.com), or the details are:
WHERE: St Mary’s Anglican Church, 281 Glen Eira Rd.
DATE: Wednesday, 11th July
TIME: 7pm for 7.30pm start
SPEAKERS: Dr Bruce Corben (Monash University)
Cr. Narelle Sharpe (Moonee Valley)
Cr. Serge Thomann (Port Phillip)
ENTRY: Free for members; others, coin donation at door.
Glen Eira Debates 
July 7, 2012 at 12:34 PM
Gonna be interesting to hear what the Moonee Valley Cr. has to say – they are battling a monstrous development around their racecourse and are really taking a serious look at traffic management in the surrounding area.
Unlike the pathetic performance of our lot (Piling, Esakoff, Lipshutz and Hyams) did with the infamous C60.
July 7, 2012 at 5:52 PM
Yes Councillors Pilling, Hyams, Lipshutz and Esakoff did sell the residents down the river when they approved C60 but as Councillor Pilling pointed out on his website, these four Councillors along with David Southwick did reach a milestone agreement on the centre of the racecourse with massive improvements to be made by April 2012. Just go to the racecourse and see for yourselves. What, nothing has happened? What no announcements on the lack of progress? What, Pilling and Lipshutz going missing curled up in a foetal position under his desk avoiding any discussion on the subject? Yeah, what a bunch of heroes.
July 7, 2012 at 9:14 PM
Neil Pilling has forgotten about the residents who elected him. Hasn’t posted on his blog for three months. Mind you, compared to Lipshutz he is a chatterbox. Lipshutz hasn’t posted on his blog for three years!
July 7, 2012 at 7:01 PM
Let’s hope for Moonee Valley residents sake that they have a strong CEO who does not have an unhealthy relationship with the MVRC. Obviously Lipshutz follows Newton, Hyams is Lipshutz’s (MODERATORS: word deleted), Esakoff does what the majority want and Pilling wanted the deputy Mayors role. Hence C60 amazingly got approved. Even the MRC was surprised. 3 months to payback.
July 7, 2012 at 9:02 PM
Brian Discombe from the MRC set up C60 for approval by working with Newton on excluding Councillors not supporting the development from the decision making. Full credit to them both. Even caught poor Southwick unaware and made him look a goose. The community rate low in Glen Eira, surprised they still have the right to vote.
July 7, 2012 at 9:49 PM
Off the topic, but this needs to be brought to the attention of readers. The agenda for the CEO Special Committee is on council’s website. Penhalluriack is not named as a councillor and hence we conclude that he is STILL EXCLUDED from this committee. Of further interest is that the item listed is again according to section blah blah blah ‘contractual’. – ie saying nothing. For all residents know this could be the prelude to extend the contract, sack him, or who knows what else. Not a satisfactory state of affairs on either count. Further secrecy, further abuse of power, and further failure to communicate adequately with residents.
July 8, 2012 at 9:43 AM
Any one out their got any tips on dealing with this Council’s traffic dept?
Along with several others in my street, I’m currently trying to get them to do something about the speeding traffic in my street. Yet they are totally unresponsive and just not interested. They just continually talk traffic volumes and ignore the speeding issue – it’s absurd.
July 8, 2012 at 1:38 PM
Am not surprised you’re having problems with the traffic dept., Anon, because they do not work for Council and therefore the residents – ergo residents interests are way down on their list of priorities.
Over the past years, O’Brien Traffic have been handed sole responsibility to manage traffic and parking in Glen Eira (OBrien’s website even uses the ability to provide municipal experience in Glen Eira on their recruitment page). So the GE traffic dept.’s first loyalty is to O’Brien’s and O’Brien’s interest is to maintain the contracts with Glen Eira which means focussing on what the administration wants rather than the residents concerns. Most other Council’s recognise the huge cultural difference sub-contracting vs. directly employing has and prefer to directly employ traffic management personnel.
This is also explains why no matter what the development is (the infamous C60 or 10 stories in Glen Huntly Road, Elsternwick or 4 stories next door) Council’s traffic and parking assessment, included in all Planning Permit Applications, is always that either the development will have no adverse impact or that the development will result in increased traffic and parking demands but the road network can handle it.
Keep up the fight – just recognise what you are up against
July 8, 2012 at 7:01 PM
Thank you for pointing this out Lee. I’ve located the O’Brien website and found this paragraph:
“We want talented and dedicated professionals to join our experienced team
Our client base is broad and encompasses private developers, all levels of government and residents. We also provide all traffic engineering services to the City of Glen Eira under several contracts that have been awarded over the past 12 years. This provides the potential for staff to gain first hand local government experience working in the offices of one of Melbourne’s leading councils”.
Similar to the “independent” members of the audit committe, there are long term ongoing contracts that cement relationships and agendas. What worries me most about such arrangements is the concern that O’Brien may potentially also work for developers in their Traffic Reports. We would then have the untenable situation of both the developer and the authority relying on the same commercial group. Maybe this is legal, but I do not think it should be allowed if it occurs.
July 8, 2012 at 8:28 PM
Moderators, if indeed O’Brien also represent developers in submissions to Council and VCAT then while it may be legal (the applicable law has frequently be criticized for failing close loop holes) it surely fails any ethical standards. Do you have instances of O’Brien representing developments in Glen Eira at VCAT?
July 8, 2012 at 1:53 PM
Welcome to the club!- Ive been trying to get council (trying to negotiate one little speedhump in Rowan Street for the past 12 mths) to address the rat run they have created (ie a close to 50% increase in through traffic & speeding cars) in Rowan Street Elsternwick. This increase in volumes is directly attribuited to Council agreeing with VicRds to introduce 40lkph in Glenhuntly Rd Elsternwick in 2011.
Interestingly councils get extra funding as incentive if they do what VicRds wants them to do! So local streets miss out
We need our council to spend our $s on back to the basics (traffic, sensible planning & development, drains, waste & recycing & footpaths) nad particularly traffic management that gives pedestrians & cysclists & our pets at least equal status on the roads & certainly higher status in residential streets!
I agree with you, council is simply dismissive with an immediate response ‘council has determined NO PROBLEM’ & refers to traffic volumes as being within ‘State Guidelines”.When asked to define how these Guidelines are operationalised to meet the unique nature of the local neighbourhood needs- council had No Answer & yet that is exactly what the Dept of Planning intended councils to do with the ‘State Guidelines’.
Residents/ratepayers will have a chance at the Oct 12 council elections! Lets choose well!
July 8, 2012 at 8:06 PM
Call me an optimist but I believe in 12 months time we will have a wind of change blow through Glen Eira and it will be for the better. A new Council, new administration, new audit Committee and new Traffic managers. Like glasnost it will take some time for the residents to understand their new freedom, but Burke will be gone and the daze of spin over.
July 8, 2012 at 9:15 PM
Books like “The Peter Principle” and “Further Up The Organization” help to explain why we are governed the way we are. I have difficulty making suggestions about how to improve Management, given that over the years Management (in various institutions) and I so frequently disagree. As a general principle, the desired outcomes have to be linked to a person’s remuneration. If you want increased density, measure density and reward people for incrementing it. If you want to protect amenity, establish your metric and reward accordingly.
Council’s policies encourage all of the problems routinely reported here. It is after all Council policy to herd people into urban ghettos without convenient public transport to their place of employment or at the times that they require. Council will not take any positive steps to reduce the phenomenon of car-dooring, or to ensure that developments provide adequate parking to meets the needs of those developments. Council cannot even manage the current traffic management problems, let alone resolve the mess that VCAT unilaterally is imposing upon us.
What Council could do, if it was serious about tackling the major causes of loss of amenity, is make them the Key Performance Indicators for the CEO, and require the regular reporting of how the municipality is tracking on them. To be fair, the Council officers should also be empowered to maximise the effectiveness of the budget they’re given to deliver on those KPIs. Really though, that should be up to the CEO, and if for them amenity is a non-goal then the public should be fully informed as to the reasons why each time a contract is curiously extended.
Not that I believe the Government or Council on any major policy announcement. You can’t act incongruously and expect to be believed. Want people to drive less? Tax them. Want less congestion? Introduce congestion taxes. Or encourage more employment near where people live. Every multi-unit development proposal in the municipality adds way more people than it does employment. There’s nothing sustainable about that.
All the talk I’ve seen about “inappropriate development” reinforces for me that our problems are because people would rather somebody else suffered than see the discomfort be evenly distributed. In this sense, Council is a reflection of the wider society.