Mill Park Happenings: From Council Chaos to Community Connections

[00:00:01] Speaker 0:

Good morning, Mill Park, and welcome to this, episode four of the Mill Park podcast. My name is Cameron, Mill Park resident and host of this podcast. Thought I’d kick this episode off with I I know I did say in the last episode that I was gonna make this a political podcast, but I think that, this is is something that, we need to talk about, and that is the let me dig it up. It’s gone. I can’t find it now. There was that’s why I’ve gone to the wrong bit of God to engage. Come in, put her by a get better prepared one day. This is a statement from, Whittlesea Council happened last week.

The city of Whittlesea has today been advised by the minister of local government, the honorable Nick Mistake Stacos, that following the receipt of a report by municipal monitors and other information, councillor Aidan McLendon has been suspended as a councillor at the city of Whittlesey for a period of six months under section two two nine eight one. Look. Government act effective immediately. What this means is that our lord mayor has been suspended from council for six months. It’s it’s being talked about as a dark day for democracy.

Where is it? The link’s somewhere, and I can’t find it. Anyway, but, yeah, it’s I it it it’s one of those things. I mean, as I’ve said before, and and I’ll make it clear again, I am a, devout anarchist, and that I don’t think that there is, any reason for government to exist, especially local council. I mean, as a commentary, we are extremely over governed for such a small population. So we shouldn’t really have the levels of government that we do. Can’t find it. Anyway, doesn’t matter. So, you know, it it’s it’s something that I don’t know, it it just one of those things is, you know, why is it that a counselor can be removed because of a report rather than a, you know, any findings of guilt or anything like that, And yet our elected politicians at the state level, can remain in office under, you know, so many inquiries and all that sort of stuff. Anyway, but yeah. So so this is the thing.

According to the Whittlesea statement, McLendon, mister McLendon was elected as a representative for Curep Award in October 2024 and appointed as the mayor for the city of Woodhouse in November. As a result of this suspension, the position of mayor becomes vacant. According with section 26, the local government act, council is required to fill the vacancy within one month. I don’t know. I, if you have a look at, other councils in the area, there’s a lot of, independents that are in were elected into different wars, and they are facing scrutiny and being booted out and, all that sort of stuff.

So I think that this is, let’s say, the the establishment trying to flow mud out at people, to to convince people that only party politicians can be elected. Now councils have no party no visible party affiliation, though they do appear to be a lot that are affiliated with different parties. Was mister McLendon’s suspension warranted? I don’t know. I’m I’m don’t know whether to reach out to him or not, because this as I said, this this is just an effort. This is a podcast. It’s not a political podcast. It’s a podcast about what’s happening in Mill Park, and everything like that. But, by the same coin, if the residents of Mill Park have just lost the mayor and, you know, it it’s one statement. I you know, should we instead of just believing what the government, which is what the the local council is, it’s the government believing what the government has put out. Should we talk to the person themself?

I might have a ponder about that one over the next couple of days and reach out to him if I can get hold of him for, just a a five or ten minute discussion, I will, see how we go. Reading other things, there’s a couple of things in a couple of different Facebook groups. There was one, what was it? Council watch or something like that where actually, that’s where it was. I found remember where I saw the link? It was on Facebook, so I bookmarked it somewhere else. You know, that indicates that the people in the council conspired to get rid of, to suspend mister McLendon because he was asking questions about the rate increases, and things like that. And, of course, we know that the government doesn’t like being questioned about things.

So there is the possibility that that was done to prevent him asking questions that may embarrass the council. I think there was a 3% rate increase. How we can justify that, I don’t know. The draft budget is included on the Whittlesea government, Whittlesea Council’s website. I will include a link to that in the show notes, along with a couple other documents that, the, you know, that that we should be having a, what was it? Adding adding comments to and giving out our feedback and and input in. Whether that goes anywhere with counsel, who knows? But I just think it is something that, is worthwhile doing.

[00:08:44] Speaker 1:

Let me just

[00:08:47] Speaker 0:

try to sign in to Facebook here. And two factor authentication means that you’ve gotta add in a a code. So adding that in now. We spend that much time on Facebook, but I just do remember that that is where I saw the link. The cancel watch. Cancel watch view. There is a comment there. Cancel watch view. Counselor Laurie Cox’s word shows clearly why McLindon was in the way of labor. Now the comments are, the average house, our bill, waste charges. So there is if we have a look, that, we’ll see rate pays where a 3%, rise as draft budget.

So that’s for the rates. Waste charges driven by a 20% increase. Average household bill will increase $400, 4 hundred and 10, let’s say, $409.95. So 410 with a full levy passed on to rate payers. Counselor Laurie Cox acknowledged the concern of residents struggling with living costs, but pointed to the challenges of governing a rapidly growing municipality. There will be a lot of criticism about the rate increase. But the reality is, as a council in a developing area, we need a lot more money. You want more services? You’ve got to fund them. And we can only do that through rates and grants. Mayor Mac, eighty McLendon, before suspended by the state government, condemned the state’s replacement of the fire levy with a new emergency services and volunteer fund, labeling it dirty money and warning it could double cost for rate pays.

Community feedback is up until May. So that’s a day after election day. And so I’ll include a link to this in the show notes. He mister McClendon has turned around and said, this is in our city council, gone on to talk about it. He said my crime my political views didn’t align with the powers that are currently in place. If you seek a rates freeze, cutting waste is financially responsible in the cost of the crisis.

[00:11:43] Speaker 1:

Blah blah blah blah blah blah.

[00:11:49] Speaker 0:

It’s it’s interesting. I as an anarchist, I think that there is a lot of, problems with state or with any government, at all. And I, you know, as I’ve said, I I can’t find one reason why government needs to exist.

Anything else that can be done, you know, services and and all that sort of stuff can be provided by by the community if the community is allowed to provide them. And you know, what about the roads? Well, roads were ran long before governments were. They’ll be around long after governments got or, actually, no. They won’t because I won’t even last one term. But, anyway, as I said, I I I don’t want to make this a political podcast. I I think that this is something that we do need to talk about. And before people jump up and down and say, oh, but hang on. You know, Hayden McLendon ran as a, candidate in the Werribee, by election.

Oh, yes. He did. What’s he going to get in? I don’t know. You know, it gave him a platform to talk about stuff. And, I mean, let’s also remember that what does he council for last three and a bit years or nearly four years has been under the control of government appointed administrators. So, you know, for for something that is all about democracy, I mean, these were administrators appointed by the government of the day. And, you know, no input from the community and all because there there were discrepancies. And, I mean, you know, the council was this council was that whatever.

But it’s the thing is that the government has appointed people to manage the Whittlesey local government area for the last four years. And now, you know, people have had the chance to vote and voted in a group of counsellors. And now the government has turned around and said, well, you know what? No. That person has said, no. We don’t want you. So so we’re suspending you for six months. So, yeah, it’s it’s it’s something that doesn’t sit right. And as residents of of Mill Park and surrounding areas and part of the Whittlesea Council area, I think that we need to be putting pressure on the relevant local member, at the state level and saying that this is not acceptable.

You put people in and you expect them to be there for the period of time. If they quit, well, then that’s up to them. You don’t expect them to be booted out or suspended because they, you know, have a report. And, you know, as it as it says, it’s a report. And this is, you know, there’s no finding of guilt or any guilt or anything like that, and other information. So this is it could essentially be gossip or hearsay that hasn’t been tried, hasn’t been tested or anything like that. And, you know, has, is he counselor now, mister McLendon, being given the right of reply, or is it just something that bang? You know, he’s deemed to say, you know, suspended. So anyway, can you do too much more of that? But, yeah, it it’s just one of those little murky things that I think that we need to start paying more attention to, as residents. So anyway, moving on from that, what have we got coming up?

Feel good. Feel good Friday, movie and mingle. This is put on by the National Disability Care. So they said, 40 in Mill Park. It’s the Mill Park All Abilities Play Space. Feel good Friday, movie and mingle. Relaxing afternoon of connect connection and activity. Dog friendly. There’s an unleashed area. Last Friday of the month, 03:30 to 05:30, Mill Park, All Abilities Play Space in Mill Park. We’ll include a link to this in the show notes. It is free admission, though it does appear that you need to book via eventbrite. There is some, weekly support groups up at the y at, Plenty Valley.

I’ll include, as I said, a link to all that in the show notes. Their Mill Park Community House has a disco coming up on May 2 because we’ve missed the April ones, the fourth and the eleventh. This is an all ages disco supervised by professional disability workers from Park Community House. Equip entertainment music is supplied by a professional DJ, pitch and soft drink. Adolescents to young adults, $8. Once again, that’s at Mill Park Disability Services, eight sixteen Plenty Road, South Morang. Enter via the Red Street car park. There is a flyer that I will include in that. So it looks like it’s, is it every Friday?

Couple of Fridays a month. So there’s three in May, ‘2 in June, ‘2 in July. So, every fortnight. By the looks of it, head on to there. What else is there? Oh, something that I did wanna talk about that going back into this whole costs and and everything like that with the council is and I missed this one because I really wasn’t paying any attention to it, but there was a media release or latest news that talking about that the bins bin leads are going to be changing. So the dark red green dark red. Dark red. Dark green bin lid is changing to red to comply with Victorian governance use standard bin lid colors so that means we’re going to have a Yellow one a light green one a purple one, and a red one. So we have yellow recycling.

Light green is your green waste. Purple is your glass, and red is your general waste. So interesting is how much is this costing the council, and is the government footing the bill for this? It doesn’t the information that is available on the website says no. Because is there a cost to residents for replacing the lid? No. The replacement of rubbish bin leads is part of our commitment to meeting the state government’s recycling standards and managing waste in our community. So there is a cost to residents, though that’s part of your rates. I mean, why do we need to change the lids on the bins?

It it it just one of those things that just baffles my mind about what happens. Once again, I mean, government anyway, I I as I said, it’s not a political podcast, so I’m not going to go there. What else? We’ve got the usual events at Mill Park, Yarraplenty Mill Park. Mill Park’s Yarraplenty Regional Library. And the Mill Park 1 is story time today, preschool story time, toddler toy time, toddler toy time. Toddler story time, it’s Tuesday 11:30 to 12:30. Tech help, this afternoon. Tomorrow, we’ve got preschool story time from ten till eleven. Baby story time from 11:30 till twelve.

Jobs, careers, and advice. So from one till 03:15. Tech help from two till three, and all that sort of oh, family story time from 06:30 till 07:30 tomorrow. Libraries after dark. Chatty cafe from on Thursday from 06:30 till 07:30. And I think the library is closed, on Good Friday. So but, yeah, there’s there’s all things like that. So head on over to the YPRL website, see what’s going on. And it talks about stuff on next Monday, so I’ll skip that one because I’ll cover that next week. And as I did mention, you last week’s episode, I wanna talk about a local business. Now the first business that I’m gonna talk about is one that I’ve dealt with personally, and, these people have not approached me. All I’m gonna do is I’m just gonna share my thoughts on it. They haven’t approached me. They haven’t asked me to do anything like that. So, as I said in earlier episodes, and I think at the start of this or I will later on, is that I’m not seeking advertising revenue from from promoting and talking about these businesses.

These are just businesses that I’ve used myself, and I think that it is worthwhile talking about. Now this one is Melbourne Safety Services. They are located out at, South Morang on Danaher. Contact. I think it’s, yeah. Unit 20 Number 33, Dan Hood Drive in South Morang. There is a phone number there. I’ll include that on the, you know, in the show notes. But have a look. The Melbourne Safety Services, they do all your fire extinguishers annual, by biannual. So every six months, you test and tags. They do have first aid equipment, and things like that. I do, recommend them so they can do do test and tag your extinguishers.

So, you know, test it, shake it, check it, replace any extinguishers that are reaching their five year limit. They will do your exit lighting, and all that sort of stuff. They’ll check your fire panels, all that sort of stuff. And they’ll also, test and tag electrical equipment, and for that. So I do, recommend actually, I can’t recommend them enough. As I said, I’ve dealt with them, in a professional aspect from, my my day job, for a number of years now. And I’ve found the service, to them to be exceptional, and I cannot recommend them enough. They’re always available.

They you know, if you talk to Rob, who’s the founder or the the head on show of the business, he’s always gone with that, you’re not just a number. It’s, you know, you’re dealing with a person there. So I know, prior to getting them involved, we did have, you know, my day job. We were serviced by a couple of other different companies. I found their service to or then, you know, their their customer service to be lacking, and then happened to be driving past one of their vehicles one day in the neighborhood and thought, oh, you know what? I’ll, you know, try something local, and went with them and can honestly say I haven’t looked back. There’s been no problems with them whatsoever.

They’ll call you a couple of days beforehand to say, hey. You know, your inspection’s coming up. Can we do it on this date or or whatever’s going on? So there’s always that. I’ve found that they’re always available if you need something. The, you know, it is. It’s one of those businesses that you you you when you’re there, you don’t feel like they’re just talking to you because they get their money, you know, because they’re getting money from you. I do, you know, it it is something that with with Robin, the the team out there at Melbourne Safety Services, I I do, you know, value and think that it it is quality that they produce. I mean, as Rob said, and, you know, I’m sure if you have a chat to him that he will tell you is that the idea of him starting the business was, to main you know, to always have that that personal approach, rather than just being a number, and all that sort of stuff. So, you know, as I said, that’s why you get a phone call a couple of days beforehand to say, hey. This one’s coming out. When’s when’s good for you?

I’ve met people, site for a couple of different locations that haven’t been opened, so they’ve let me know they’re coming out. So I’ve gone in to open up, and all that sort of stuff. So it’s the thing is yeah. Yeah. If if you need them, and they do service most of Victoria, if you’re outside of somewhere of of far reaches of outside of Metro or anything like that, your best bet is to give them a call and see if they can service, you know, meet your service needs or what you’re after. But as I said, fully recommend them, and all that sort of stuff. Say it.

Head on. You know, give them a call. Actually, the phone number, +1 30556651. Give him a call. I’d say speak to Rob, but I’m not sure when he’s at the phone at the moment. But if you say, hey. Heard about you from the Mill Park podcast, and Cameron recommended you. So, you know, make a comment about that. See what happens. See what see what response did you get. And, we’ll wait and see how we go, and all that sort of stuff. But as I said, you know, I I fully recommend them. And as I’ve said, I’m not getting any, advertising kickbacks or anything like that. They haven’t approached me to, talk about it, to talk about their business or anything like that. This is just something that I’m doing to, you know, to to make people in the community more aware of what we do have in the neighborhood.

And as I said, so you have a look. All your your first aid equipment and your fire extinguishers, fire blankets, all that sort of stuff. They can do new installs. They can go out through your old ones. They can do audits, test and tag your electrical equipment, all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Go for it. Have have a chat to them. You know? If you get hold of Rob, Tom as I said, Tom Cameron sent you, and see how we go from there. So but, anyway, that’s it. Now this comes up to the important part of this episode, and that’s where I talk about why I started this. And this was to just a creative resource for people in Mill Park and surrounding areas to be a spot where they can find out what’s going on the neighborhood, what’s going on next week, you know, what’s happening and everything like that.

And as part of that, I, you know, I’m not gonna ask for advertising money. I’m not going to advertise businesses because I want to be able to have an honest view on the business. So, you know, if if, you know, Acme takeaway shop at The Sables says, hey. We wanna advertise, you know, we want you to advertise business, and I’ve gone there and had a crap experience. I’m not gonna advertise. I’m not gonna talk about it. I won’t necessarily pan them, or can them or or, you know, speak bad about it unless it’s been a number of bad experiences. But, you know, if there’s one bad experience, I might not go back there for a while.

And any as I said, any business that I talk about or anything on this podcast, it is, you know, businesses that I’ve had a a personal experience with. And I think that, you know, we we do need to do start doing more stuff locally because, it is local where they’re gonna be the ones that will support us. They’re gonna be the ones that’ll help us out. And so that’s the idea of this podcast. And as I said, everything on this podcast is my my thoughts, my views on things. And as that, there’s not gonna be anything hidden behind paywalls or anything like that. It’s all just going to be there for you to have a look at. And, you know, it it’s a thing. And I’ve created this under the value for value model, which I will say give credit to, Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak from the No Agenda podcast for introducing me to that. That’s how they run their podcast.

And I thought, you know what? It makes sense. It allows no. It it means that I can can put out something ethical and, you know, not have concerns about, oh, you know what? You know, this business has given me, you know, a hundred bucks or $200 to advertise this show. But, no, I really don’t feel comfortable doing it. I don’t have any of that, for that one. So under the value for value model, all I ask is that if you get value out of this, that you return that value to me in some way. I can either be through time, talent, or treasure time telling other people about this podcast, sending me a message about something that you want to talk about in this podcast, and things like that, your talent, helps beefing up the website.

You know, it’s going to be fairly basic because I want this to just be a resource. I’m not gonna fill it with glossy pictures because I don’t know. Maybe we just wanna see things and not look at pictures and and everything like that. There will be some pictures on some of the other posts that come onto the website, but majority of the time it won’t be. So your talent, if you wanna create podcast artwork or anything like that, let me know. If you wanna spruce up the website, let me know, for that one. Or even if you’re aware of something that’s going on in the area, the in the neighborhood that you think others should know about, let me know, and I’ll pass it on to everyone else.

And then there’s a bit weird treasure. If you’re up to it and you feel like donating to support this show to help, reduce the financial burden that the show has, then feel free to do that. You can find that through the, millpark.blog/vforv. You’ll find a link there. We’ll take things through Stripe. I might include a pay ID or something like that there, in later episodes, once I get all that set up in the bank account and all that sort of stuff. But the idea why to do it is Stripe. Or if you wanna send the old fashioned checking or money order, you do that PO Box 33 Mill Park, Victoria 3082.

So, anyway, that’s about it for this one. Thanks for listening to my catalog for half an hour now. And, yeah, I look forward to having you join me on the next episode of podcast, which will come out next Monday. So until then, bye for now.