100 days into his new Council, how has Mayor Tom Kennedy faired in getting the job done?
Mayor Kennedy had a convincing win at the recent Council elections, with over 50 per cent voting for his group and him.
Mr Kennedy took 43 points he believed needed changing to the people and the people voted for him and these changes.
When questioned about the Library changes at the first meeting, Mr Kennedy reminded the other Councillors and the people present of this.
“Over 50% of the voters voted for my group and myself and this gives us the mandate to make these changes,” Mayor Kennedy said at the Council meeting on January 12.
When asked what his greatest achievement was in his first 100 days, Mr Kennedy did not stop to think. He knew straight away what this was.
“Implementing the changes to the Library and archives project is the thing I am proudest of so far,” he said.
“We will have the best library and archive development completely funded by grants.”
He added that the Council has the federal funding confirmed and is sure they will receive the State funding guidelines as they were less specific.
Mr Kennedy beamed as he spoke of the new library archive development.
“The front of the old library will return to the look of the original fire station and will be renovated to become the archives.
“The newer building at the back of the library will be removed and the new library added extending toward the Town Hall Façade where there will be a garden between the Town Hall Façade and the library.
“We won’t be losing car parks as the transportables behind the police station will be removed eventually and this area will become part of the carpark,” he said.
Mr Kennedy said the most time-consuming part of bringing in changes was the slow pace of bureaucracy.
“We have to wait to have policies written for the new 355 Committees we are planning and there are a number of workshops to attend before the projects that we need to fund can be implemented,” he said.
This includes the 355 Committees for senior citizens’ concerns, children and youth needs and re-establishing the Tourism committee.
Other projects in the pipeline include helping business people who have seen their rates increase from $2-$3000 up to $20,000 or more, discussing water pricing with IPART and Essential Energy so people can afford gardens to decrease lead contamination and keep Broken Hill cooler and greener, removing charges from the Broken Hill Waste Centre (the dump) so the public doesn’t have to pay to to dump a trailer load of rubbish.
This will also help small business people such as gardeners and yardmen in town who take rubbish to the dump.
Mr Kennedy is relishing his role as Mayor and talking to him about these ventures, you can see the dedication to the town filling him with pride.
