News

Ali­son Bitar takes on role of Deputy Mayor

Alli­son Bitar has been appoint­ed as Deputy May­or of Alice Springs Town Coun­cil fol­low­ing a vote by Elect­ed Mem­bers in Cham­ber on Tues­day after­noon. Elect­ed Mem­bers vot­ed for Cr Bitar to take the role after serv­ing as an Elect­ed Mem­ber for two years.

A long-term Alice Springs local, Cr Bitar has shown a ded­i­ca­tion to pub­lic ser­vice dur­ing her time as Coun­cil­lor. Cr Bitar is a strong believ­er in work­ing togeth­er with peo­ple from all walks of life and will bring a fresh per­spec­tive to the role that will con­tribute to the growth and long-term pros­per­i­ty of Alice Springs.

Cr Bitar takes over the role from Eli Melky, who has served in the posi­tion for two years. Each year, Coun­cil­lors vote for the posi­tion of Deputy May­or for a term of 12 months.

Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee appointments

Your Elect­ed Mem­bers do a lot of behind the scenes work to ensure your voice is heard by key deci­sion mak­ers across the NT. One way they achieve this is by sit­ting on Advi­so­ry and Exter­nal Com­mit­tees. In August’s meet­ing, Coun­cil­lors nom­i­nat­ed for seats on these var­i­ous com­mit­tees with a full list of rep­re­sen­ta­tives below:

Risk Man­age­ment & Audit: May­or Pater­son, Cr Hop­per and Cr Cof­fey
Sports Facil­i­ties Advi­so­ry: May­or Pater­son, Cr Brown, Cr Cof­fey and Cr Mor­ris
ASTC & Tan­gen­tyere Steer­ing Com­mit­tee: All Elect­ed Mem­bers
ASTC & Lhere Arte­pe Abo­rig­i­nal Cor­po­ra­tion Part­ner­ship Com­mit­tee: All Elect­ed Mem­bers
Out­back High­way Devel­op­ment Coun­cil: May­or Pater­son and Cr Cof­fey
LGANT Gen­er­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tives: May­or Pater­son and Cr Cof­fey
Devel­op­ment Con­sent Author­i­ty: May­or Pater­son, Cr Hop­per, Cr Bitar and Cr Cof­fey
Alice Springs Art Foun­da­tion: Cr Bitar
50+ Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre: May­or Pater­son
North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Water Safe­ty Advi­so­ry Coun­cil: Cr Banks

Parks a prime priority

We know that kids in Alice Springs want bet­ter parks, and they should be able to play on play­grounds all year long. That’s why Coun­cil has been hard at work upgrad­ing parks across the com­mu­ni­ty and there are some excit­ing plans still to come.

Last month we finalised a shade struc­ture for play equip­ment at Fin­layson Park to pro­tect kids from the harsh sum­mer sun. That’s in addi­tion to the 12 parks we shad­ed ear­li­er in 2023! Work is under­way to shade more parks in 2023 – 24 as well so our play­grounds can be used every day of the year.

We are also pro­gress­ing with out Parks Mas­ter­plan with a draft imple­men­ta­tion plan being pre­pared for Coun­cil endorse­ment in Octo­ber. This will help Coun­cil iden­ti­fy exact­ly what parks in our com­mu­ni­ty need a lit­tle bit of love and attention.

Prepar­ing for a Green­er future

Coun­cil are plan­ning for a more sus­tain­able Alice Springs with plan­ning now under­way for a game chang­ing Green­ing Strat­e­gy! Aimed at enhanc­ing our town’s green spaces and help­ing with heat mit­i­ga­tion, this strat­e­gy will incor­po­rate plant­i­ng more trees, enhanc­ing pub­lic parks, and imple­ment­ing mea­sures to con­serve water.

In a major step for­ward on the project, Coun­cil have engaged O2 Land­scape Archi­tec­ture to devel­op this strat­e­gy. It will then come back to Elect­ed Mem­bers and guide deci­sion mak­ing on tree plant­i­ng mov­ing forward.

Help­ing every­one feel wel­come in our community

We already know that Alice Springs is one of the best places in the world to live and vis­it, and we want to make sure that is known through­out the coun­try. To make sure the mes­sage is spread far and wide, Coun­cil is aim­ing to devel­op more strate­gic part­ner­ships to boost our vis­i­tor econ­o­my, includ­ing vis­it­ing fam­i­ly and friends. In addi­tion to work we already do with major Gov­ern­ment agen­cies in mak­ing new arrivals feel wel­come, we will be look to part­ner with Tourism Cen­tral Aus­tralia (TCA) to expand this pro­gram and com­ple­ment work they may already be doing.