Greedy woke council’s long rap sheet of poor choices

They can fly all the aromantic flags they like — there's nothing enlightened about greedy councils who exploit small businesses.

Pettiness and greed are unfortunate hallmarks of local councils that repeatedly make headlines for the wrong reasons.

You don’t hear much about those councils that fulfil their chartered roles in collecting rubbish and maintaining parks.

But some local councils stand apart. They are constantly mired in self-inflicted controversy. They are the local councils who forget to represent their ratepayers’ best interests, who find weird agendas to push, and which seek to profiteer from the hardships of Covid.

Exhibit A is the City of Yarra. Featuring Richmond, Fitzroy, and some of the most exalted shopping and dining strips in Melbourne, Yarra has advantages that other municipalities ogle.

It also boasts a string of entirely avoidable own goals which bring into question its governance, priorities and relationship with the realities faced by every Melburnian.

The latest ill-conceived idea involves hitting business owners with $5000 fees for the use of carpark spaces for outdoor dining.

These absurdly inflated fees would sting business owners who, as everyone knows, have struggled to sell a few takeaway coffees and bagels in locked-down Melbourne.

These businesses have existed, not thrived; indeed, many will probably close in the unerring uncertainty of a Covid world.

Why introduce outrageously exorbitant fees for those so poorly placed to pay them? You have to wonder at the motivations here.

Is this about the community’s best interests, or a corporate council bottom line, which ignores the unfair demands placed on those ratepayers who contribute so much to Yarra’s undoubted assets of place and vibe?

The City of Yarra totes a long rap sheet for poor choices.

Under its “recycling revolution” late last year, Yarra complicated rubbish removal so badly that bins overflowed throughout the municipality, prompting warnings from rubbish bin patrol officers.

The council ditched plans to increase local club charges to use sporting grounds almost 10-fold — after not bothering to consult with the affected clubs.

The City of Yarra, of course, flew the flag of aromantics, which made even less sense when the mayor tried to explain the decision: “Yarra flies the Aromantic flag in recognition of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, acknowledging those whose experience of romance is disconnected from normative societal expectations or who experience no romantic attraction,” she said.

The council withdrew an ad seeking a “climate emergency” artist.

At $72,000 for six months work, the desired candidate would have worked with “community stakeholders to develop a creative response to the climate emergency”.

Now a Greens-led council, Yarra was the first in Victoria to ditch Australia Day citizenship ceremonies, in 2017.

In July, the council was in disarray after councillor Anab Mohamud resisted calls to step aside when she was charged with assault following a late night incident outside a South Yarra nightclub in April.

Yarra Council likes to call itself “progressive” but the symbolism of its projected priorities invites other descriptors.

To borrow a line, the City of Yarra seems “disconnected from normative societal expectations”.

For there is nothing enlightened about the opportunistic exploitation of sagging businesses by a local council which is supposed to serve them.