I attended the City of Port Phillip meeting last night.  They were discussing their EES submission on Metro Rail.  At the suggestion of the Deputy Mayor (Serge Thomann), I made a brief presentation (max of 3 minutes allowed).

A copy of my script is attached.2016 06 City of PP submission

There was only one other person making a submission – he was lobbying to have the Boer War Memorial moved permanently to the Shrine area.

I felt my submission was well received.

• Cr Amanda Stevens asked that the emergency exit issue be included in the Council’s submission.  The Council rep did state that the Metro Rail people had assured him that Metro Rail had already been considered and agreed to this, but agreed to alter the submission.
• Cr Thomann pushed that the tree philosophy of “remove late/ replace early” with mature trees was a very good idea.  He also supported the ‘don’t waste money on bike lanes’ – but didnt’t get much traction.
• The Mayor (Bernadene Voss) was very supportive and made the comment – we are absolutely committed to keep the local community involved and informed.  When I was talking to her before the meeting she said that the real time monitoring that I was proposing, had recently been done on a project in Port Melbourne and worked very well.

There was an interesting aside when I said that the City of PP had a very poor record with our street tree.  The Mayor turned to the CEO and he made a note.  Perhaps they will plant a new mature tree, just in time for it to be removed!!

The Boer War guy failed in his attempt to permanently move their monument.