By NOEL MURPHY
CITY Hall’s new budget has achieved what former mayor Keith Fagg could not, redirecting $7 million from ward funding into central Geelong.
The city cash splash centrepiece of new mayor Darryn Lyons’ first budget allocated $4 million from council coffers and will seek $3 million from Spring Street’s Geelong Advancement Fund as the Napthine Government, with critical marginal seats in the region, faces an election later this year.
The money for the city centre is almost the same amount as previously allocated annually to a councillor fund for ward projects until the Government axed the scheme earlier this year.
The budget also included a rates rise 50 per cent higher than the CPI inflation rate and a 25 per cent increase in city centre weekday parking fees.
Buckley ward’s Andy Richards was the only councillor to vote against the budget, saying it lacked balance “between funding the Geelong CBD and the outlying areas of the City of Greater Geelong”.
Prominent Geelong businessman Frank Costa, who backed a city-centric charge at last year’s mayoral election, welcomed the budget’s CBD focus, describing the city centre as “critical to Geelong’s future”.
Mr Fagg agreed, saying “things are going in direction they should have been going in”.
Cr Lyons said the 2014/2015 budget would deliver “tangible projects to help foster more retail, more business, more events and more residential living in central Geelong”.
The budget responded to community demand, he said.
Deputy mayor Bruce Harwood, who strongly defended the ward funding system, said the challenge now was to ensure outer suburbs were “not forgotten” and continued to be “recognised for the importance of their community and sporting involvement”.
Lara’s outspoken Cr Tony Ansett, a harsh critic of changes to the ward funding system, said the budget was “put together under a lot of external pressure” plus a change of mayor six months ago.
Cr Richards, Labor’s candidate for the state seat of South Barwon, said residents submitted many community funding applications but “very few” succeeded “even though they were great projects”.
“At a time when Liberal state and federal governments are cutting funding to everything … council has a responsibility to be fair to all residents, whether they live close to the CBD or out in the suburbs and coastal towns.”
