History

Elec­tions for mem­bers of the Eleventh Coun­cil were held on 29 March 2008 and Damien Ryan was elect­ed mayor.

Elect­ed Members

• Mur­ray Stewart
• Jane Clark
• Samih Habib
• Bren­dan Heenan
• Liz Mar­tin
• John Rawns­ley
• Sandy Tay­lor
• Melanie Van Haaren

Changes with­in Council

• Coun­cil elect­ed Alder­man Mur­ray Stew­art Deputy May­or from 17 April 2008
• Coun­cil elect­ed Alder­man John Rawns­ley Deputy May­or from 30 March 2009
• Coun­cil elect­ed Alder­man Bren­dan Heenan Deputy May­or from 29 March 2010
• Coun­cil elect­ed Alder­man Liz Mar­tin Deputy May­or from 28 March 2011
• Name change: Alder­men Samih Habib change his name to Alder­men Samih Habib-Bitar as of 14 March 2010
• Res­ig­na­tion: Alder­man Melanie Van Haaren resigned on 25 Octo­ber 2010
• By-elec­tion: held on 26 Feb­ru­ary 2011 elect­ing Eli Melky to Council

2007 – 8

The $37 mil­lion six-year Alice Solar City was offi­cial­ly launched on Mon­day 10^th March 2008 by vis­it­ing Fed­er­al Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Peter Garrett.

The project and the solar tri­als it entails aim to explore how tech­nol­o­gy, behav­iour­al change and new approach­es to elec­tric­i­ty can help pro­vide a sus­tain­able future for Australia.

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil is lead agent for the project, mak­ing Alice Springs the only Solar City that has a local gov­ern­ment as the lead proponent.

In the six months since its launch, more than 350 res­i­dents signed up to take part. House­hold­ers were able to take advan­tage of sub­sidy vouch­ers for works such as paint­ing their roof white, ser­vic­ing evap­o­ra­tive air con­di­tion­ers, installing effi­cient light­ing, tint­ed win­dows, dou­ble glaz­ing or insulation.

Coun­cil hailed as a suc­cess its instal­la­tion of Closed Cir­cuit Tele­vi­sion Cam­eras in the town, a move designed to com­bat anti-social behaviour.

It launched a tele­vi­sion cam­paign aimed at encour­ag­ing behav­iour­al change, to accom­pa­ny the roll­out of the NT Gov­ern­men­t’s dry town leg­is­la­tion. A simul­ta­ne­ous radio cam­paign was run in remote communities.

In June, Coun­cil con­vened a youth forum to pro­mote friend­ly dis­cus­sion and debate of issues con­cern­ing youth. The forum was con­vened by Coralie Boyd.

Impor­tant­ly, May­or Damien Ryan pub­li­cal­ly expressed his desire to change the way the pub­lic and gov­ern­ment viewed rep­re­sen­ta­tives on the Devel­op­ment Con­sent Author­i­ty who were nom­i­nat­ed from Coun­cil. Pre­vi­ous­ly they had been recog­nised as indi­vid­u­als. Coun­cil believed it was impor­tant they be recog­nised as Alice Spring Town Coun­cil representatives.

Stage 1 of the Aquat­ic and Leisure Cen­tre works at the Alice Springs Swim­ming Cen­tre were com­plet­ed in readi­ness for the Octo­ber 2008 Mas­ters Games.

The works includ­ed a new learn to swim pool, pad­dle pool and drain­ing and revi­tal­is­ing the out­door 50m pool.

2008 – 9

Coun­cil con­clud­ed a num­ber of major works projects dur­ing the year, includ­ing upgrade of the Pat Gal­lagher Net­ball Cen­tre includ­ing resur­fac­ing of all eight courts  con­tribut­ing to a net $1 mil­lion upgrade of the Ross Park complex.

The work had also includ­ed instal­la­tion of light­ing, extend­ing and resur­fac­ing the car park, build­ing new club rooms, and upgrad­ing power.

Coun­cil finalised Stage One of the new Alice Springs Aquat­ic and Leisure Centre.

In addi­tion, Coun­cil con­sult­ed with the com­mu­ni­ty in order to pass new ani­mal and trol­ley bylaws and intro­duced a Town Camps Dogs Strategy.

Res­i­dents and busi­ness­es were con­grat­u­lat­ed on their con­tri­bu­tions to reduc­ing Alice Springs’ ener­gy con­sump­tion dur­ing its time as a Solar City.

Over the year 934 res­i­dents and over 70 busi­ness­es active­ly participated.

More than $2.4 mil­lion worth of finan­cial incen­tive vouch­ers were issued for over 20 dif­fer­ent ener­gy-effi­cient activities.

As part of the Alice Solar City Project, in which the Town Coun­cil plays a lead­ing role, the largest rooftop solar pho­to­volta­ic sys­tem in Aus­tralia was installed and com­mis­sioned at the Crowne Plaza hotel in February.

As well, the trans­for­ma­tion of a typ­i­cal Alice Springs home into a show­case of sus­tain­able liv­ing was begun.

On 9 June 2009 the Town Coun­cil reached an impor­tant mile­stone in its efforts to reduce its emis­sion of green­house gases.

The tar­get ​“Mile­stone 4 in the Local Action Plan it fol­lows as a mem­ber of Cities for Cli­mate Pro­tec­tion Aus­tralia” aims to help local gov­ern­ments reduce green­house gas emissions.

Sav­ings were made by delamp­ing Coun­cil build­ings, con­vert­ing from CRT to LCD com­put­er screens, installing solar pan­els on the civic build­ing and ener­gy sav­ings from reduced water pump­ing at Traeger Park.

In all, the Coun­cil added the equiv­a­lent of 47 tonnes of CO2 to the total amount it abat­ed dur­ing the year.

Oth­er major achieve­ments included:

Con­tin­ued main­te­nance and devel­op­ment of parks and gar­densSuc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ty events includ­ing Christ­mas car­ni­val, night mar­kets and Har­mo­ny Day­Build­ing the Gath­er­ing Gar­den, an envi­ron­men­tal art instal­la­tion that includes a bronze coola­m­on and cen­tral water fea­ture, at the new Coun­cil Civic Centre.

The work, which was a project under Coun­cil’s Pub­lic Art Pol­i­cy 2006, was opened in Sep­tem­ber 2009.Raising envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness through Nation­al Tree Day, Ride to Work day and recy­cling ini­tia­tives at the town landfill.

2009-10

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil began work on the much antic­i­pat­ed stage two of the new Alice Springs Aquat­ic and Leisure Cen­tre in Sep­tem­ber 2009.

Unex­pect­ed rain­fall dur­ing 2010 slowed work by project man­agers CAT Projects and builders Sitzlers.

The project was Coun­cil’s sin­gle largest cap­i­tal expen­di­ture at pro­ject­ed $18 mil­lion and includes two water­slides, a heat­ed indoor eight-lane, 25m lap pool, upgrades to the kiosk and café recep­tion, spec­ta­tor seat­ing, admin­is­tra­tion and ameni­ties, and a sec­ond 20m pool boast­ing a beach entry, tod­dler area, indoor spa and lazy riv­er, and a four-lane learn to swim sec­tion with dis­abled ramp access.

The Alice Springs Aquat­ic and Leisure Cen­tre, also includes 275 Helio­col solar col­lec­tor pan­els installed on the roof of the Cen­tre to pro­vide solar heat­ing to the two new indoor pools and the two exist­ing out­door pools.

The total instal­la­tion cost $300,000, with Alice Springs Town Coun­cil and the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment each con­tribut­ing $150,000.

In addi­tion, Coun­cil allo­cat­ed $160,000 to incor­po­rate pub­lic art into the pool project, includ­ing a mosa­ic walk­way util­is­ing indige­nous water sto­ries, tile walls, native aquat­ic crea­ture decals and a large mural.

As well, the Town Coun­cil com­plet­ed three new round­abouts, widened Ilparpa Road and built a new $400,000 cor­po­rate box and toi­let block for Traeger Park. Also, it launched a seniors com­mit­tee and secured deductible gift recip­i­ent sta­tus with the Aus­tralian Tax Office for the library.

In its ongo­ing bid to reduce lit­ter in Alice Springs, Coun­cil ini­ti­at­ed a Cash for Con­tain­ers Program.

It offered a refund of five cents per con­tain­er and col­lect­ed its one-mil­lionth con­tain­er in Sep­tem­ber 2009. In response, the NT gov­ern­ment decid­ed to sup­port the com­ing year’s pro­gram, in advance of intro­duc­ing Ter­ri­to­ry-wide con­tain­er deposit legislation.

As of May 2010, over 5 mil­lion alu­mini­um cans had been col­lect­ed and 600,000 glass bottles.

In June 2010 the Coun­cil glass crush­ing site was offi­cial­ly opened by May­or Damien Ryan and Min­is­ter for Cen­tral Aus­tralia Karl Hampton.

The recy­cled glass is used as a sand sup­ple­ment to help main­tain the town’s non load bear­ing con­cretes such as foot­paths and bike paths.

Oth­er achieve­ments for the year included:

Ongo­ing review of Coun­cil’s inter­nal organisation.Negotiating an enter­prise bar­gain­ing agree­ment valid to Decem­ber 2012.Continued main­te­nance and devel­op­ment of parks and gardens.Successful com­mu­ni­ty events includ­ing the Triple J One-Night Stand major con­cert, Christ­mas car­ni­val and many library events.