Roads and the environment

I had a problem today, probably not the only one for a while, and didn't get to the council meetings this morning. Sorry, I'll try to do much better in future.

The first meeting today was the City Roads Infrastructure committee meeting. You can download the agenda from that link or just read my rambling about what I can read and glean from it. You will see that three of the five Items are closed to the public, so this will be a very short section.

Normally, when I'm at a meeting, I can deduce something of what they were dealing with as regards a closed agenda item because of the way they construct the resolution for it. Otherwise we get no clues until next Tuesday's Ordinary Meeting! I won't be guessing these three until next week.

Item IN1, Roads & Drainage Infrastructure Monthly Report for November is an eye-opener in its way. The first table in the report shows that only 34% of the capital works expenditure had been achieved by the end of the month. That, from the dollar figures, is $4 million short of the target. However, we have to recognise that roading work is very weather sensitive and we have had a number of rainy periods leading to the end of November, when normally it is the traditional dry period.

The other thing to realise is that roads funding seems to be easier to carry over into the new budget year in July just because of that weather factor. If you want to see what is happening on local roads go to Appendix 4 on page 17 for the list and the completion dates.

In Item IN2, Maintenance of Road Signs in New Subdivisions, there is a summary of legal advice provided by council's legal advisers, starting on page 26, and it might be worth reading what it says because many people do not understand, but remember that this is a specific case where the question answered is about new developments.

Item IN5, the Bicycle Advisory Committee report, will have been adopted.

In the Environment & Sustainability committee meeting the main interest will be in Item ES5, 2012 Environments Program—Call for Applications, shows that council will soon be starting its program. There is a list of newspaper advertising dates in the item.

Otherwise the agenda shows that council will run a World Environment Day poster competition for schools, Item ES3, and they will have a LEAF Day on 3 June 2012, ES6. The other is a Good News Week report, ES4, about 2010/2011 Logan and Albert River Clean-up Program. The main thing to glean from that is that DERM is helping fund it.

On Wednesday the Health, Sport & Community Services committee meeting commences at 8.30 am. The list of Items shows that it is hardly a substantial meeting and there is only one that is not a potential kiss-and-run thing. Item HC7, Logan Community Sharps Management Strategy 2012–2014.

The Customer Services, Marketing & Parks committee meeting has five Items, one, CS5, is closed and about acquisition of a road in Marsden. Two are routine reports and the others are about Diamond Jubilee Celebrations 2012 and the Landscape Maintenance Arrangements for council roads. This, last, Item is likely in response to Cr Power's tantrum last year. If it is, I'm pleased that the Parks Manager has gone out of her way to include all of the roads!