Residents fail to amend budget

By Sarah Schwager
RESIDENTS of Devon Meadows and Five Ways’ unsealed roads led a last ditch attempt to amend the Casey budget to make the council pay to fix their roads.
At the special council meeting on Tuesday night, Casey Council adopted its 2007-08 Budget despite protests from local residents.
Residents of Manks, Devon and Browns roads stood up at the meeting and tried to persuade the council to amend the budget over what they said were hefty and unnecessary fees amounting to thousands of dollars placed on already struggling locals through the special charge scheme.
Manks Road resident Alan Rowe said the property owners on the road felt “totally disenfranchised” by the City of Casey.
Wife Jennifer Rowe said mayor Colin Butler had done a backflip on the issue since becoming mayor.
In the residents’ submission to council they said their Balla Balla representative refused to act on their behalf.
While the budget was adopted without changes, councillors led a fiery debate on Tuesday about the end result.
Deputy mayor Kevin Bradford said while it was great that they had come out with a low rate rise of 5.84 per cent for residents, the projects cut from the budget were appalling.
“In particular I was very disappointed about the rejection of the vehicle for the CFA. It’s probably one of the worst acts I have ever seen council do,” Cr Bradford said.
Cr Butler said despite some councillors’ comments and the objection from residents at the meeting, he believed it was a pretty well accepted budget throughout the city.
“This is probably the lowest budget ever,” he said.
“We’ve seen all the figures that have been coming out lately with problems new homebuyers are having and so we have tried to reflect that with low rates.”
The budget includes $57 million in infrastructure projects and $135 million for service delivery, with major projects including the Cranbourne Aquatic and Leisure Centre, funding for children’s services, youth and family services, community care and health promotion, and almost $11 million for local roads. Cr Butler said now that the budget has been approved, the council could get on with the job of implementing the numerous initiatives outlined in the budget.