Weekly Mayor's Message - Clr Andrew Jefferies - 24 August 2015
Published on 24 August 2015
It’s been a rewarding year as your Mayor
It’s hard to believe a year has passed since I became Mayor. It’s been a tremendous honour to serve our great community and to play a part in building infrastructure, community facilities and events for future generations while maintaining our strong, debt-free financial record - delivering a record $24M surplus.
I’m proud to lead a Shire that's fit for the future as we await the State Government’s announcement on local government reform.
When I was first elected, I established six key focus areas - ensuring light rail connects to our southern suburbs, building the visitor economy, rejuvenating local infrastructure, creating better commuter car parking, promoting knock-down rebuild and advocating for Local Government reform.
Now, 12 months on, I’m pleased to report that we have made significant progress.
Support for light rail for Carlingford has clearly attracted the attention of key decision makers. While the future route of light rail will be decided by the Baird Government, our state representatives are aware of Council’s position and those of our neighbours at Parramatta and Ryde.
It’s been exciting to watch the growth of our visitor economy events that have played a significant role in attracting visitors from across our city, state and Australia to our Shire.
We’ve delivered record infrastructure investment in roads, parks, footpaths, playgrounds and waterways, and this will continue in the years ahead with more than $28 million spent on new playing fields.
We opened the Torrs Street Car Park with Minister Elliott and negotiations are continuing for a site near Oakes Road, Carlingford. And our knock-down rebuild scheme continues to gather momentum.
It’s been an incredibly busy 12 months and there are too many highlights to list. Soon it will be time to hand over the Mayoral chains and I look forward to continuing to work hard for the East Ward community in the year ahead.