Ward dinners taken away

By Alison Noonan
RATE payers will no longer fund frequent and extravagant Casey Council functions after councillors agreed to slash the number of annual ward dinners.
Mayor Kevin Bradford proposed the cost-cutting initiative during the final council meeting for 2005 on Tuesday night, following a failed attempt to pass a similar motion earlier in the year.
Cr Bradford said he wanted to reduce the current amount of civic dinners from four to two, with each councillor permitted to invite eight guests from community groups in their respective wards.
He said the new policy would save council thousands while still allowing councillors to acknowledge key community figures.
“I think one function at the beginning of the year and another at the end is sufficient,” Cr Bradford said.
“It currently costs $90,000 to hold four ward dinners so this would dramatically reduce council expenditure.
“We are all striving for as low rate rises as possible and this is the best way to cost save.”
Edrington Ward councillor Mick Morland said he was happy to support a further reduction of council spending.
“I would also suggest that the mayor should be the only speaker at the dinners because last term we had over an hour and a half of speeches,” he said.
Strathard Ward councillor Lorraine Wreford said that while she was all for a council dinner cutback, she was concerned that eight guests per councillor was not enough to highlight the achievements of everyone in her ward.
“Given our ward sizes it seems I’m not going to have many people from my community at the functions.
“It will be very hard to choose who to bring along to the dinners.”
In addition to the eight public invitees, councillors can also invite members of parliament and the editors of each local newspaper to the functions.