Wake up Joondalup!

In the most recent Local Government Election, just 27%* of Joondalup ratepayers voted, which is down again on previous years. I scrutineered in this year's elections and - with the amount of ballots I saw that simply numbered down the boxes 1, 2, 3, 4 - it seems to me that even less are paying attention to who they are actually voting for. I believe this reflects a general lack of engagement with the decisions that our Local Government are making on your behalf. And it's a BIG problem, because if you knew half of the ideas that sail through, it is my contention that you would be up on arms about them. Having spent the last four years an elected Councillor of the City of Joondalup I have seen and voted against, a tsunami of decisions that have quite frankly, variously enraged and appalled, and kept me up at night. Worse still, as a Councillor, once these decisions were made, I was bound to support them and gagged from speaking against them. Partly because of this, I decided not to recontest my seat and so the gag is off now and I intend to provide an unvarnished opinion of the kind of ideas that are being made on your behalf and that your ratepayer dollars are funding. The purpose of this blog is to try and wake you all up to how important and significant the decisions your Council make are and hopefully, when it comes to the next election, we can get more than 27% of you to vote in people that represent your best interests and, in the interim, make sure your Councillors make decisions that are fair and in the best interests of our district. **

* Source: Elections WA ** Source https: Elections WA