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I want to sincerely thank all of you who attended our public meeting on Monday night. A head count indicated that nearly 500 people were in attendance and those that attended were able to see that the crowd was predominantly made up of Dalkeith residents voicing serious opposition to the Dalkeith Redevelopment Plan.

After the meeting, our signed support base is 55% of the total Dalkeith households.

We need you to keep focusing on the issue and to keep supporting us in our endeavours. We are not going to succeed overnight. It is going to be a long haul effort. We will not be able to succeed without your full and continuing support.

The City of Nedlands’ Council met last night for their first Council meeting for 2008. The Dalkeith Redevelopment proposal was one item on the agenda and PADD was successful in achieving two significant changes to the Council’s thinking.

What we were not able to achieve at last night’s meeting (but what we pushed for) was:

increased PADD representation on the steering committee given the extent of PADD’s support base amongst Dalkeith residents as compared to the other groups
a change in the priority order of the redevelopment areas so that Dalkeith does not go first ahead of Stirling Hwy, Broadway, Hampden Rd etc.

I discussed the issue of motioning Council to vote on the outright scrapping of the Redevelopment Plan given the clear mandate which you all gave to us at the Public Meeting with a few councillors before last night’s Council meeting. I was not able to persuade any of them to move for that motion. In the absence of the support of the councillors for a scrapping of the Redevelopment Plan it is not an achievable goal. We the public cannot move for that motion – the councillors need to do so.

For those of you who are not aware of the other groups involved in the issue, it appears that –

Acceptable Density Dalkeith (ADD) represents 29 or so owners of residential lots along both sides of Waratah Avenue between Alexander Road and Robert Street who have been petitioning Council to rezone their lots to R20/25 to allow for subdivision,
The Landowners group represents some of the commercial and residential owners of lots on Waratah Ave between Adelma Rd and Alexander Rd,
People Dalkeith are unknown to PADD and PADD does not know anything about their agenda.

On Tuesday, PADD wrote to Cr Negus asking him to resign and make his seat available to someone who has no financial or other interest in the area which could conflict with his/her duty to properly represent the interests of the residents of Dalkeith. Cr Negus replied to PADD last night stating that he is not prepared to resign.

What the PADD representatives who attended at the Council meeting last night witnessed was an obvious under representation of the interests of the Dalkeith residents. Whilst each other ward within the City of Nedlands has 3 councillors actively representing them, Dalkeith has one (Cr Argyle). Cr Argyle is well meaning and has our interests at heart but it is very difficult for him to do the job that is meant for three councillors. He has only one vote and that is the crucial point of the under representation of Dalkeith.

Cr Negus knew about the Dalkeith Redevelopment Plan when he was elected to Council in October 2007. We the community did not. He knew he had a financial and proximity interest by reason of his family owning the Dalkeith Service Station on Waratah Ave which they have long wanted to develop and by reason of he himself owning 10 Philip Rd. He knew that the Local Government Act would prevent him from voting on any issue to do with the Dalkeith Development Plan because of this and he knew that he could not represent the interests of the residents of Dalkeith in what is and will be the single most important local government issue in the history of Dalkeith. At the same time, Cr Negus attended the information sessions and workshops provided by Council to the landowners between October and December 2007 and proposed that the redevelopment precinct be extended to include his own property at 10 Philip Rd (the Plan does not currently extend to his property).

Take a pause. Are you shocked? Is this any way for a councillor to behave? Should the residents of Dalkeith call for him to resign en masse?

At any time since October 2007, has Cr Negus notified you of the proposed Redevelopment Plan and has he done anything to stop it?

* We urge you to write to Cr Negus and to phone him calling for him to resign until he does resign.

We the community cannot make Cr Negus resign unless and until we are able to prove misconduct on his part within the definition of misconduct under the Local Government Act and CCC Act. If he volunteers to resign however, that is another matter. His seat can then be freed up for someone who is able to properly represent the interests of Dalkeith.

At the very least, isn’t Cr Negus being utterly selfish in his decision to remain on Council? If he wants to pursue a career in local government why can’t he wait until the issue of the redevelopment of Dalkeith is dead and buried? He could run for council at the next elections in a few years’ time.

Please tell us what you think and copy us in on all your letters sent to Council.

( I have asterisked the points above that we need your urgent help with for your ease of reference).