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With regards to your recent question in the Bungendore Mirror, “Who among the candidates have the enthusiasm, commitment and vision for our towns and villages in Palerang?”, let me raise my hand up high and say that I do!
I think that Councillors and Council Management should meet regularly with local business owners, managers and shop assistants in each of the town and village localities of the shire to determine priorities for making each of their centres more inviting to residents, tourists and goods and services providers.
While we all have a stake in our town centres, it is the business and social communities that have the on-the-ground insight and commitment that make them either ordinary or extraordinary. So we should value their assessment of priorities for practical development, whether that be for public toilets, sidewalk improvements, streetscape tree planting, signage, or whatever it is that will make our towns' commercial centres more appealing and successful.
We also need to imagine our cultural needs and town and village centres five and ten years into the future so that we are taking steps today to bring that about. Will we in 2013 and 2018, be exactly the same place we are today, or will we have higher aspirations for ourselves and our children both in terms of amenities and employment. I believe the majority of residents want to see an exciting and prosperous future for our locality centres, while keeping in tack their underlying identity and character.
At my website, I have proposed eight community-building initiatives which centre on local employment creation, and branching out from that, community prosperity and the reward of lifestyle amenities. Number One on the list is ‘Making Our Town Centres More Inviting’. In my younger days in Los Angeles, I was a stage and television scenic designer. While I’ve changed careers, I’ve never lost the ability to recognise how to transform the ordinary to the extraordinary, even if you’re on a tight budget.
Any town centre enlivenment program would start with a plan that divided actions into foundation tasks, and iconic tasks.
The Foundation Tasks are those that prepare the canvas, so to speak, and could include completing and repairing sidewalks, planting advanced trees, shrubs and flowerbeds, repairing and painting fences, establishing public toilet and parking facilities, and putting power lines underground to name a few. With the exception of the power lines, there is no reason that a properly insured and supervised volunteer committee of Council couldn’t undertake most of these tasks. Given a hand full of weekends, and the skillful communities that we do have, all of this work could be accomplished for the cost of materials. And in the process many new friendships and much community pride would be formed too.
Advanced Foundation Tasks, would include cleanups and makeovers of some of the building facades and yards whose owners, for whatever reason, are not able to fix them up themselves. Obviously this assistance would be with the permission of the property owners.
I think it is pretty clear that Council isn’t in a position to give us these beautiful town centres given their present tight budget. However, why couldn’t we start the town equivalent of Landcare; maybe call it Towncare. Like Landcare, the Towncare volunteers would contribute their time to make the town centres better, and also press for similar government funding to pay for materials. If there isn’t such a project already, then we could pilot it here in Palerang.
Lastly there would be Iconic tasks that would establish important community owned arts, education and sport infrastructure from our generation, as past generations have established the showgrounds and the Braidwood Museum for us.
In my platform I’ve proposed two such establishments initially. For Bungendore a multifunctional complex for Cinema and Performing Arts, for Braidwood a Fine Arts Museum and for both Fresh Food Farmers Markets. These would be community-building facilities and would contribute to our culture, tourism and prosperity.
I’d estimate that within 24 to 48 months, a vigorous Towncare program could make a huge step forward in making the town and village centres more interesting to residents and more inviting to visitors.
I believe with council’s leadership, rather then its treasury, all the initiatives can be done at no meaningful cost to ratepayers. If elected to council I would work diligently within Council to bring about such positive outcomes. |