A community advisory group has been named by Maribyrnong council to give greater input into decisions around the vexed issue of paid parking.
The seven-member group was elected from a pool of self nominated candidates via an online vote – but even that had its hiccups when one candidate was initially left out of polling.
Acting chief executive Celia Haddock said an online election gave community members easy access to information about the candidates and the draft Parking Management Policy.
“Unfortunately, one candidate’s profile was not uploaded at the beginning of voting,” she said.
“We have made numerous efforts to contact this candidate and offered to re-run the election for the relevant precinct. However, after looking at the voting pattern, we do not believe that the outcome … was compromised.”
Star Weekly reported in April that Maribyrnong council had foregone more than $3.5 million in revenue since putting a freeze on paid parking in central Footscray and Yarraville in 2015.
The advisory group will this month work on refining the council’s draft Parking Management Policy which is scheduled to go back before the council in August.
The successful advisory group candidates were Megan Bridger-Darling (Footscray CBD), David Bird (Footscray Hospital), Linda Wood (Whitten Oval), Marilyn King (West Footscray), Jessica Elston (Braybrook), Joanne Canny (Seddon) and Trevor Junge (Yarraville).
