By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
ATTACKS on Geelong’s ward funding system could be part of a campaign to destabilise council, according to a former mayor who helped establish the fund.
“I’m frustrated as to where it comes from and the reasons it’s being pursued,” Shane Dowling said.
“I hope it’s not a political vendetta by a small group of people or a political stunt in view of the upcoming mayoral election.”
Mr Dowling, who was mayor in 2004-2005, said council novices usually had “no understanding” of how local government worked.
“You can come from one organisation into local government but at the end of day you have no idea how things operate. You want to change the world but an organisation operates the way it does for good reasons.”
Mr Dowling said “outside organisations” climbed “all over local government” to change the mayoral election system to a direct vote.
“When they got what they wanted it was a complete and utter failure,” he said.
“Too many organisations want to run the city but you get unelected people who feel they know better and run their own agendas.
“If you want to change things then put your hand up and run for council, do the hard yards.”
Mr Dowling said his council introduced the Community Priority Projects system to address “serious neglect” of public facilities.
“At the time most asset spending was city-centric and the wards were disadvantaged, especially in the lower-socio-economic areas.
“It was brought home to me by one of our then-new councillors, John Mitchell, who pointed out the facilities at East Geelong footy ground had nothing done since 1963 when it was built.
“We decided that allocating a budget to each ward was the best way to resolve the issue and put in place assets for community use.”
Mr Dowling said the ward funding system had made Geelong a municipal “benchmark” for community assets.
The grants were based on extensive consultation on ward policies and were widely advertised, he said.
“The councillors don’t have the final decision on the allocations – we took away any opportunity for people to feather their own nest.”
Mr Dowling said millions of dollars of work had been completed under the system, creating a “huge economic benefit” to the region.
The funding also eliminated a potentially large liability on council as maintenance costs for rundown facilities escalated, he said.
