By Kath Gannaway
A MOTION of no confidence in Yarra Ranges Council and a proposal to challenge every seat at the 2012 council elections received overwhelming support at a meeting at Yarra Glen on 4 July.
There was wild applause from the 60 or so business and community members from Yarra Glen, Healesville and other parts of the shire when the meeting shifted from its main focus – the council’s signing of the Ethical Paper Pledge – to a call for a return to what several speakers espoused as the real job of council – roads, rates and rubbish.
The meeting was called by five Yarra Ranges chambers of commerce to pressure the council into reversing its 27 May decision to sign on to the Wilderness Society’s EPP and get talks aimed at relocating VicForests’ head office to Yarra Glen.
Two motions – the first demanding Yarra Ranges Council remove its signature from the EPP, and the second calling on Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh to publicly state that once that was done, VicForests will relocate to Yarra Ranges, were carried with just one dissenter for the first motion.
The meeting was chaired by Lilydale Chamber of Commerce president Alistair Osborne supported by chamber presidents Bob Curtis (Yarra Glen), Steve Deakins (Mount Evelyn) and Andrew Miles (Healesville).
Warburton Chamber previously indicated support for the meeting, but was not represented.
Apologies were received from Yarra Ranges Mayor Terry Avery and Yarra Glen councillor Jeanette McRae.
Mr Osborne said the meeting was called to reinforce the democratic process and challenge a council which had acted without consultation, putting a local community’s economic survival at risk.
“This is not about individuals,” he said.
“It is about how something can get up as a late item, not on the agenda, and get through,” he said. But the focus quickly changed when the proposal for a Yarra Ranges Party was put forward by Mr Curtis.
Several speakers attacked the council’s “green agenda” and the perceived political motivations of some councillors.
Alan Coutinho-Hogan from Belgrave said the current council had lost its way.
“What we need is good, strong people to take council back to what it should be, rates, roads and rubbish.
It’s not their job to change the world,” he said.
Former Yarra Glen chamber president Chris Lamacraft supported the call for a shire-wide challenge. “The best thing to come away from this meeting with is an action plan to get up some viable candidates for the next election … and more than one so the preferences can be utilised,” he said.
Mr Curtis said feelings of discontent had been welling for some time and spoke of a hidden left-wing agenda he said would be revealed in the lead up to the council elections.
“There is a growing sense of need for something like a Yarra Ranges Party where like-minded people are prepared to stand for election.
We want to restore freedom to the people of Yarra Ranges,” he said.
Jim Childs, a former Upper Yarra councillor and council-watchdog said the voting block of six to three needed to be changed. “While you have that (green) block in council, you will have that type of decision-making process there all the time,” he said.
Returning to the EPP, Mr Osborne said the council was claiming it had hundreds of letters supporting its decision.
“We need to show them that there are many more who are not,” he said in response to a call for a shame campaign of phone calls, emails and letters to the council and to the media.
Mayor Terry Avery was brief in his response to the no confidence motion, and the call for a campaign to roll the council.
“We have 150,000 residents in Yarra Ranges and we act on behalf of all residents. You can’t please everybody,” he said. He said it was a democratic right to run for council.
“That’s democracy at its best,” he said, but questioned the concept of “like-minded” candidates.
On the EPP, he said council had responded and there was nothing to add.
“It’s been done to death … nothing more to say,” he said.
