Dear councillors, last night I attended a meeting of Hobsons Bay City Council
with my husband Michael Sergi and approximately 50 land owners of property on
the Burns Rd Industrial Estate.
Our objective was to ask questions during the
‘questions from the public gallery’ section of the agenda concerning the lack of
any initiative regarding this land which dates back to 2004.
I will not go into
details about the questions we have raised as these are a matter of public
record and should be addressed by council officials.
My husband has been a vocal advocate for the
development of this estate for seven years and remains in contact with many land
owners.
He informed them of his plans for the meeting and was inundated with
over 100 questions. We narrowed this down to a total of 14 to be asked.
It was a very frustrating experience to wait for so long for our
questions to be raised only for the mayor to indicate that they were ‘complex’
and would require a written reply from council.
Will council write to all the
land owners who were present? This is a very unsatisfactory outcome and appears
to be a ploy on behalf of council to buy time on this issue. We believed that we
followed procedure on the night having sought information prior to the meeting.
It is unfortunate that the meeting broke up in uproar and we apologise to the
new councillors Cr. Colleen Gates, Cr. Paul Morgan and Cr. Sandra Wilson as they
will not have had any prior information on this issue.
However, it must be
understood that there were 50 land owners present at the meeting whose only
communication with council on their land is the annual notice of the amount of
rates due. We eagerly await council’s reply to these questions.
Lana Popovic Sergi, Laverton North
