In Part 1 of a Tale of Two Cities we looked at Moonah, and the developments there during the terms of Kristie Johnston as mayor of Glenorchy City Council.
But what of Glenorchy and its windfall, including the casual mil filched from down the road?
The project, called City Centre Revitalisation or somesuch, was now a Project Large Enough For Consultation. This, as we know in Tasmania, means asking around for opinions and proceeding to ignore most of them, apart from those that accord with the original concept.
Eventually a final plan appeared, and after years of brutal service this is still on display in Northgate. Meanwhile the actual work has taken place over a time frame akin to the life of Noah, except all he did was accumulate two of every single species and built a giant ark and survive the flood and guide humanity to a new future, not just widen the footpaths.
Rush hour, Glenorchy.
Yes folks with Main Road – surely as a first start in livening the place up you could change the name? Especially as you’ve made it clear you don’t want it to be the main road – still blocked to through traffic due to works, we have a few bike racks where cyclists don’t want them, wider footpaths with street furniture so people can sit and stare at blank walls, uninspiring plantings already trampled to bits, and something else so forgettable I’ve forgotten. It’s lucky Hodgman has retired or he might be asking for a refund. Cost mind you has gone out towards $6M so forgive me for higher expectations.
Curiously, it doesn’t appear as if any attempt was made to move the bus mall. Given that Kristie Johnston is always waxing wishful about northern suburbs light rail, you wonder why. Surely the project only comes together if there’s a park and ride and a bus interchange right next to wherever the Glenorchy station will be, presumably not far from the old one next to KGV sports precinct.
The other bonus would have been to extend the Civic Square so it becomes a large enough space to be versatile, like say Franklin Square in Big Cuz. And provide a more sympathetic environment to the most elegant building in the street, St Matthews Church, for the most part obscured by hulking Metro buses and their infrastructure.
The quaint St Matthews Church.
Furthermore, team KJ also swept to power promising cleaner streets, less graffiti and a whole lot of tally-ho around the joint. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but can GCC actually quantify these things and show that they have met targets? X% less graffiti? Y% cleaner streets? Are there less empty shops and less vandalism? Whatever became of the flirting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on his state visit to Tasmania and the beckoning to investment in Glenorchy? Are businesses thriving in the traditional industrial heart of Glenorchy, or moving to Kingston (more space) or Brighton (transport hub) or Cambridge (strategic location)? Because otherwise we’ve been sold vapourware.
There are countless other bugbears, here in the city ‘where ideas happen’ but in reality where ideas go to die of poverty as GCC jacks up the rates another insert-terrifying-figure %. Pre-Johnston, my rates were $1247 per year. In 2020 they were $1756; an increase of almost 41% over 6 years. I put it to you that if any other key commodity in your life had increased in cost by that proportion, you would be screaming from the rooftops. For all this, last year’s budget projected a $9.6 million loss for the 2020-21 financial year.
As for cleanliness, this council cannot even enforce litter regulations 50m from its front door. This is not some ‘special event’, this is how the area looks every single day.
Under KJ leadership this is a council who bought two houses during the long, slow burn of our housing crisis and demolished them to extend one of their own carparks (which generates no revenue); cue mayoral appearance on TV and radio fretting about how inappropriate it is people are living at the Showgrounds.
This is the council that killed GASP, not literally but actually stone, wound-up, parrot sketch, in-history-books dead. Forget art and sculpture and peaceful contemplation by the river when you can flog off the Commonwealth’s bicentenary gift to Glenorchy – the Derwent Arts Centre – to Karpetbagger Kestelman for a sporting team of freaks with growth abnormalities. And whatever hotels and corporate boxes and 25-flavours-of-lick-my-arsecream are going to arrive along with it. Disnorkyland here we come.
Streets of our town. Yep, she’ll be good for another decade.
This is the council that can’t tell me when my street is going to be repaired. No, I’m not obsessed with it happening this year, just tell me when. You might think that with patches upon tempfixes upon surfaces that possibly weren’t very flash to begin with (see above), it could be on the agenda for an upgrade this millennium.
You can call the council and ask, and be directed to some doddering budgie dribbling crumbs down his chin who’ll tell you it’s not in the allocation for this year, we’re not paving the streets with the gold you know, be patient old son. Two years ago they’d got to the state of doing a survey and spray painting important marks onto the road and footpath (and I use the term loosely). These marks, like our hopes of having a street that doesn’t resemble a bomb site, have all faded away.
This is the council that likes to talk active transport, in particular the holy grail, and joins other Hobart mayors in signing declarations to this effect. The reality is that in Johnston’s term as mayor just 50 metres of safe, separated cycling infrastructure has been constructed, the footpaths remain arguably the worst across the Hobart metropolitan area, and the council stubbornly refuses to consider the implementation of paid parking.
Hobart – a city not that far away, I hear – pockets over twenty million dubloons every year from parking. And people still go there! Even a third of that, say seven million dollars, would boost GCC revenue by over ten percent. Of course there are implementation costs as a one-off, but the revenue is then permanent. We also know that paid parking leads to greater ‘efficiency’ through turnover of spaces, but that’s another story.
At the GCC meeting on 29 March this year, at which Mayor Johnston sought leave until 1 May so she could run her election campaign, she stated: “This term of council, since 2018, has been all about rebuilding the foundations of council. We are now a council who has ticked off every one of our Ministerial
Directions and which now leads the sector in good governance.” ‘Leading the sector’ is arguable, although I accept that the council is doing somewhat better in terms of transparency and having a coherent strategy for its actions as a whole.
Just like in the Rolling Stones’ song, ‘I sit and watch as walls go by…’
This strategy is being implemented through the Glenorchy Economic Development Plan 2020-25. The parent of this is really the Glenorchy Community Plan 2015-2040 and in turn the Glenorchy Strategic Plan 2016-2025. It seems it has taken five years to get any movement, whether you look at the overall big picture or the small components from which it is made up.
Assessing that is hard. If you click on the link ‘Budget’ on the GCC website, do you think you might get to see the budget? Heck no. You get a summary of ‘Capital works’ including fudges like “funding is also allocated to ongoing improvements and design work to upgrade the Moonah CBD toilets.” Don’t tell us how much, we’ll just guess. Same goes for eight ‘Economic stimulus measures’ listed. To hell with detail, you can watch a video about the Annual Plan, which shows more of Kristie Johnston than it does of any council projects.
Maybe it was the Annual Financial Statements you were wanting? Well yes, but on that page of the website the latest available is 2018-19. These are usually certified and then audited by November each year, so the 2019-20 AFS is six months overdue to be on the GCC website. You can make up your own mind if this is leading the sector in good governance.
Surely Kristie Johnston will have her own take on what she achieved as mayor. She would perhaps point to various headwinds such as a weak financial position to start with, the turmoil among elected members that eventually resulted in the Board of Inquiry, and more lately the multi-pronged bludgeon of COVID-19. Her ‘achievements’ are more in the realm of laying groundwork for the next mayor rather than banked realities during her own term.
Kristie Johnston didn’t appear to make too many bold promises during the election campaign, other than to be a faithful and strong voice of the community. There’s a fair chance of that happening as she closes in on an independent seat in Clark. I would caution though that her record as an administrator is not as strong as she likes to make out, and that her steamtrain of spin has gathered, well, steam over the years.
Good luck Tasmania.
Alan Whykes is Chief Editor of Tasmanian Times. He stood as a candidate in the local government elections for Glenorchy in 2014 and 2018, and has no further plans to run.
Exciting things to do in Glenorchy include being stalked by Alfred Hitchcock.
