Leichhardt’s new full time mayor

BY PAM WALKER
Leichhardt’s longest serving councillor has made it to the top and is now mayor.

Greens councillor Jamie Parker, first elected to Leichhardt Council as the lone Green in 1999, romped home on September 13 with six Greens councillors getting up.

‘There’s been a strong and steady growth. I was the only Green until 2004 when four of us were elected. The community has been telling the council what they want and has strongly supported the Greens agenda,’ the mayor said.

Cr Parker said this council will not be an apolitical service organisation but would implement a sustainable agenda.

‘We will be the voice for the community ‘ on light rail, on the takeover of Callan Park and on guaranteeing genuine consultation on the future of our bays,’ he said.

‘We will oppose inappropriate development and we have just instigated a full review of parking and the budget. That review has as its goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2012.’

Businesses and residents will be pleased to hear there is intent to decrease parking meters in the area and a plan to improve parks, streetscapes and public toilets.

But the vision for the next four years is grander than that.
‘Our goal is to improve services and to create an open council. We have already moved to abolish Freedom of Information (FOI) fees. We want people to have full and open access to council information ‘ they should not have to apply under FOI but in cases where they need to, FOI should be free,’ Mayor Parker said.

In his acceptance speech, the mayor outlined four guiding principles: to be the voice of the community, to improve services, to create an open council and to be inclusive.

And they quickly demonstrated they would walk the talk by not adopting a ”winner take all” approach in sharing out the chair allocations for the various committees.

‘Under this council there’ll be no lockouts of parties, even on voting for delegates to the Local Government Conference. We could have taken all four places but we gave one to Labor, one to the Liberals and two to the Greens. We thought it fair all parties should be represented,” he said.

‘We have the numbers to just take everything but we’re trying to develop a culture of inclusiveness where people work together with mutual respect. We will also fight the influence of big donors.’

Cr Parker will face another vote a year from now for the full time job that pays a mere $38,000.

‘I’ll stand or fall on my own merits. It’s a big call to give up your job to be full time mayor, but the upside of annual mayoral elections is that they are genuinely open.’

And to the surprise of many staff, Cr Parker has already shown he is full time serious about this full time job, showing up for work every day just like regular workers.