History

Elec­tions for mem­bers of the tenth Coun­cil were held on 7 June, 2004. Fran Kil­gar­iff was re-elect­ed Mayor.

Elect­ed Members

• Mar­guerite Baptiste-Rooke
• Geoff Bell
• Samih Habib
• David Koch
• Robyn Lam­b­ley
• Jane Muré
• Ernie Nicholls
• Des Rogers
• Mur­ray Stewart
• Melanie van Haaren

Changes with­in Council

• 17 June, 2004: Coun­cil elect­ed Alder­man David Koch Deputy Mayor
• Res­ig­na­tion, 23 May, 2005: Alder­man Des Rogers
• 25 July, 2005: Coun­cil elect­ed Alder­man David Koch Deputy Mayor
• By-elec­tion, 24 Sep­tem­ber, 2005: Alder­man Mered­ith Campbell
• 15 May, 2006: Coun­cil elect­ed Robyn Lam­b­ley Deputy Mayor
• Jan­u­ary 2006: Alder­man Jane Muré advised Coun­cil that she had changed her name to Jane Clark

2004 – 2005

In the annu­al report, May­or Fran Kil­gar­iff, described the ²⁰⁰⁴⁄₀₅ year as anoth­er suc­cess­ful year for the Coun­cil and for the peo­ple of Alice Springs.

Fol­low­ing exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion over the pre­vi­ous two years the Alice Springs Coun­cil Strate­gic Plan was adopt­ed in April, 2005.

The Plan set a clear vision for Coun­cil in part­ner­ship with the two oth­er tiers of gov­ern­ment, non-gov­ern­ment agen­cies, ser­vice clubs, and the gen­er­al com­mu­ni­ty to improve the qual­i­ty of life in Alice Springs.

The May­or high­light­ed a num­ber of achieve­ments that were impor­tant for the con­tin­ued social and eco­nom­ic growth of Alice Springs. Those projects included:

The estab­lish­ment of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the 3^rd Age (U3A) for the senior cit­i­zens of Alice Springs.Participation in a major con­sor­tium bid for Solar Cities, and­Three year Action Plan, Strength­en­ing the Posi­tion of Alice Springs.

The Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, Rex Mooney, men­tioned that progress had been made on a num­ber of infra­struc­ture devel­op­ments aimed at improv­ing the health and well-being of the com­mu­ni­ty. These included:

Com­ple­tion of major riv­er walks along the Todd River,Completion of fenc­ing at Traeger Park, Alice Springs’ pre­mi­um sport­ing facil­i­ty, and­In­creas­ing shade pro­tec­tion at oth­er sport­ing facilities.

May­or Fran Kil­gar­iff wore the new may­oral robes for the first time on 17 Sep­tem­ber, 2004, at a Cit­i­zen­ship cer­e­mo­ny at Olive Pink Botan­ic Gar­den. The new robes includ­ed an Abo­rig­i­nal motif.

In Octo­ber 2004, Sit­zler Bros were award­ed the con­tract for the re-devel­op­ment of the Civic Centre.

In Jan­u­ary 2005, Coun­cil explored the ben­e­fits of estab­lish­ing a Sis­ter City rela­tion­ship. Coun­cil liaised with His Excel­len­cy Mah­moud Saikel of Afghanistan to ini­ti­ate the sign­ing of a let­ter of intent which meant that Alice Springs and the Afghan Dis­trict of Pagh­man, locat­ed in the city of Kab­ul, would become Sis­ter Cities.

Dur­ing the same month, the Alice Springs Pub­lic Library offi­cial­ly launched an upgrade of the Alice Springs Collection’s elec­tron­ic resources. The new resources con­sist­ed of:

Cen­tralian Advo­cate issues dat­ing from 1947 to 1990 avail­able on pub­lic com­put­ers and micro­film, andAl­ice Springs Col­lec­tion web site links page for those research­ing local his­to­ry and culture.

In May, 2005, Coun­cil intro­duced Long Ser­vice Awards.

In June, 2005, Coun­cil appoint­ed Mil­ton Blanch to the posi­tion of Alice Springs Town Crier.

The pub­lic cer­e­mo­ny was held at The Res­i­den­cy on Hart­ley Street on Fri­day, 17 June.

At the cer­e­mo­ny, Eric Sul­tan, Pres­i­dent of Afghan Cameleers Her­itage Soci­ety, pre­sent­ed Mil­ton with a Kameez Shal­war, tra­di­tion­al Afghan shirt and pants, as a show of sup­port for the initiative.

The remain­der of the Town Crier’s attire reflects the indige­nous and pio­neer his­to­ry of the town by way of an Akubra hat with match­ing vest and hat­band in indige­nous print.

Coun­cil re-intro­duced the Social Com­mit­tee in 2004. The Com­mit­tee has organ­ised a staff pic­nic, Christ­mas par­ties, and social evenings.

An Elec­tron­ic Doc­u­ment Man­age­ment sys­tem was imple­ment­ed to replace the exist­ing paper based records process­es with­in Coun­cil. All of Council’s offi­cial records are now kept in elec­tron­ic form. Ben­e­fits include:

Bet­ter records management,Instant and secure access to records electronically,Retention of cor­po­rate knowl­edge, andIm­proved busi­ness process­es and efficiency.

2005 – 2006

The Coun­cil resolved to voice its oppo­si­tion to the estab­lish­ment of a radioac­tive waste facil­i­ty with­in the North­ern Territory.

Coun­cil met with tra­di­tion­al own­ers to deter­mine a shared course of action and an anti-nuclear waste site campaign.

The main swim­ming pool at the Swim­ming Cen­tre was deep­ened dur­ing the cool­er months of 2006 because of safe­ty con­cerns about the depth of the pool.

This work was to be com­plet­ed in time for the Mas­ters Games (Octo­ber, 2006).

Coun­cil estab­lished a sis­ter city rela­tion­ship with Kabul’s Pagh­man Dis­trict. The Embassy of the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Afghanistan com­mis­sioned research to inves­ti­gate the most suit­able city to estab­lish a rela­tion­ship with the Alice Springs Town Council.

The research iden­ti­fied the Kab­ul Pagh­man dis­trict as suit­able. The rela­tion­ship com­menced as a friend­ly cul­tur­al exchange with the poten­tial to devel­op into com­mer­cial ties between the two locations.

Coun­cil sup­port­ed the inclu­sion of the Totem The­atre on the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Her­itage Register.

On 6 Feb­ru­ary, 2006, the Queen’s Baton Relay passed through Alice Springs on its way to the Com­mon­wealth Games in Mel­bourne, arriv­ing by air in Alice Springs and being deliv­ered to The Ghan for trans­port north.

In Decem­ber, 2005, the Employ­ee of the Year Award was introduced.

The sports light­ing at Anzac Oval was upgrad­ed so that an NRL match could be staged there on 18 Feb­ru­ary, 2006. Pen­rith Pan­thers were suc­cess­ful over the New­cas­tle Knights.Alice Springs was short list­ed in the top eleven appli­cants to become Solar Cities.

A con­sor­tium was formed to pre­pare the Busi­ness Plan for Alice Springs’ bid, this being lodged in April, 2006.

For­mer May­or Andy McNeill died on Christ­mas Day, 2005. Because Andy was a very keen golfer, his ash­es were brought back to Alice Springs and buried under a tree at the first tee on the Alice Springs Golf Club.

Coun­cil agreed to name the new Coun­cil facil­i­ty, for­mal­ly known as ​“The Gar­den Room”, the ​“Andy McNeill Room” after the for­mer May­or and Deputy Police Commissioner.

The offi­cial nam­ing took place after the open­ing of the re-devel­oped Civic Cen­tre on 1 July 2006.The Coun­cil con­tin­ued to finan­cial­ly sup­port the Out­back High­way Com­mit­tee Inc. and con­tin­ued to push for improve­ments to that road.

The large Riv­er Red Gum in Par­sons Street came up for dis­cus­sion in Coun­cil after a dead branch fell on to a mem­ber of the public.

Coun­cil dis­cussed the pro­pos­al of the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Gov­ern­ment to give a num­ber of NT Nation­al Parks to Aborigines.

It was agreed that the Coun­cil write to all Sen­a­tors request­ing that they do not approve the pro­posed changes to the Native Title Act and enact leg­is­la­tion to close the loop­hole that had the poten­tial to expose the NT Gov­ern­ment to pos­si­ble litigation.

In May, 2006, the Coun­cil select­ed the song We’re the Alice to be its offi­cial song, a song that Alice Springs res­i­dents could be proud of.

The song was writ­ten by Papun­ya school teacher David Ezard in response to a com­pe­ti­tion ini­ti­at­ed by Alder­man Mur­ray Stew­art to increase com­mu­ni­ty pride.

On 16 June, 2006, a num­ber of Depot staff were pre­sent­ed with cer­tifi­cates recog­nis­ing their ser­vice mile­stones with the Council.

Bill Cronin was pre­sent­ed with as framed cer­tifi­cate, engraved crys­tal wine glass­es and a cheque to recog­nise fif­teen years of service.

Fred Dougher­ty and Peter Dela­haye received recog­ni­tion for ten years of ser­vice, David Fen­ton, Bri­an (Archie) Tapps, and Jason Brougham for five years of ser­vice, and Ker­ry Cook for her unselfish assis­tance to oth­ers and her going ​“beyond the call of duty”.

2006 – 2007

The Town Coun­cil faced many chal­lenges dur­ing the 2006/2007 year.

Despite this it was suc­cess­ful in its bid to become a Solar City and remained com­mit­ted to ensur­ing Alice Springs became a dry town.

In March, Coun­cil made its sub­mis­sion to the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Licens­ing Com­mis­sion ask­ing for the intro­duc­tion of a munic­i­pal wide dry area in Alice Springs to help reduce vio­lence and gen­er­al misbehaviour.

Plans to refresh the Todd Mall and CBD were under way, with Coun­cil also com­mit­ting $100,000 towards instal­la­tion of closed-cir­cuit tele­vi­sion secu­ri­ty cameras.

One of the high­lights of the year was the offi­cial open­ing of the new ten mil­lion dol­lar plus Civic Cen­tre on 1 July, 2006, the 35^th anniver­sary of the estab­lish­ment of the Munic­i­pal­i­ty of Alice Springs.

The Civic Cen­tre was extend­ed and refurbished.

The Alice Springs Solar City Con­sor­tium received $12.3 mil­lion in Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment fund­ing for a vari­ety of solar ener­gy and ener­gy effi­cien­cy projects to be imple­ment­ed over sev­en years.

To help curb the prac­tice of petrol sniff­ing, Coun­cil lent its back­ing to a Com­mon­wealth Gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tive to roll out non-snif­fa­ble Opal Fuel to most petrol sta­tions in Alice Springs.

And work to deep­en the Alice Springs Town Pool was com­plet­ed dur­ing the year in readi­ness for the 2006 Mas­ters Games held in October.

Also, Coun­cil made changes to its pro­cure­ment pol­i­cy to strength­en its efforts to ​“buy local”.

Oth­er sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ments for the peri­od included:

Com­plet­ing the Todd Riv­er re-chan­nelling pro­ject­Con­tin­ued main­te­nance and devel­op­ment of parks and gar­densSuc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ty events includ­ing the Christ­mas car­ni­val, night mar­kets and Har­mo­ny Day­Suc­cess­ful youth events, includ­ing Music and Mas­tery and Rage and Ride­Fi­nal­is­ing the Enter­prise Bar­gain­ing Agree­men­tAp­point­ing Coun­cil’s first in-house solic­i­tor, Mr Chris Turn­er­Town Coun­cil Works Man­ag­er, Tony Cheng was recog­nised as Pro­fes­sion­al Man­ag­er of the Year — Pub­lic Sec­tor North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry at the 2006 Man­age­ment Excel­lence Awards held in Dar­win dur­ing October.Free asbestos aware­ness ses­sions were pro­vid­ed to house­hold­ers, busi­ness­es and trades dur­ing May 2007.The new mini-Litt­ter­Boss vac­u­um sweep­er was rolled out in Feb­ru­ary to cope with a notable increase in glass and lit­ter since the intro­duc­tion of the Alice Springs Liquor Sup­ply Plan.