Two Wyndham councillors have voted against the 2015-16 draft budget, arguing that the council’s proposed $20 million spend on roads is not enough.
Councillors Intaj Khan and Heather Marcus raised their concerns with the proposed budget at a special council meeting on Monday, calling for the council to invest more money in local roads instead of the advocacy portion of the Get Wyndham Moving campaign.
The draft budget includes $1million for Get Wyndham Moving, half of which will be used to upgrade roads while the rest will be used for advocacy. The council has previously spent $2 million on the campaign.
Cr Khan said Wyndham’s roads were unacceptable.
“I’m extremely frustrated myself with the quality of our roads,” he said.
His attack followed the leaking of a Facebook post by Cr Khan on April 14, in which he labelled Wyndham’s roads as “shocking” and urged the council to fix them because they were “not good enough to drive a Farrari (sic) 458 Italia”.
Hitting back at Cr Khan’s criticism on Monday, Cr Marie Brittan rejected that the council was entirely to blame for the state of the city’s roads.
“I’m really sorry your expensive car and our roads are not compatible, but you know that many of the roads are not our responsibility,” Cr Brittan said.
Cr Marcus backed Cr Khan’s concerns about the state of Wyndham’s roads, saying that she would rather the council spent money on building and improving roads than on an advocacy campaign.
She said the council should focus more of its attention on making it easier for residents to move around the municipality.
The council plans to spend $5.1million duplicating Leakes Road between Tarneit and Davis roads, $4.2million reconstructing Dohertys Road between Fitzgerald and Foundation roads, $1.2million on
Blackforest Road between McGrath and Armstrong roads, and $6 million for road upgrades.
Cr Gautam Gupta defended the draft budget, saying it was fair and balanced and met the needs of a growing city.
“We can never get everything 100 per cent to everyone’s perfection … this budget has a clear direction for the future,” he said.
He said the $20 million would buy 10 kilometres of new road and 20 kilometres of upgrades.
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