By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Days after being selected, a would-be director at Greater Dandenong Council’s new $2-million leisure-centre company has withdrawn from the job.
Domenic Isola – a former City of Hume chief executive and Community Chef director – was one of six South East Leisure Pty Ltd directors announced in a council report on 15 June.
He and the four other ‘ordinary-member’ directors were to be appointed for three-year terms of $25,000 a year from 1 July 2021, the report stated.
Greater Dandenong community services director Martin Fidler said Mr Isola withdrew his application due to “being offered other roles and therefore believed he could no longer fulfill the expectations of the board role if appointed”.
The proposed sale of the Walker Street Gallery by Greater Dandenong Council is short-sighted.
It shows a lack of vision and I will continue to fight against it on the outside as I did for eight years on the inside as a Councillor.
The former City of Dandenong purchased the building in 1988, converting the old Dandenong Fire Station and converting it to create the Fire Station Community Arts Centre and Gallery.
Over the years it morphed into the Walker Street Gallery but the community arts component was still there, most recently with Connections Art Space as tenants.
The issue was lack of space – there wasn’t enough space for a both a professional arts gallery and a community arts centre.
Trucks create heavy burden | Dandenong Star Journal starcommunity.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from starcommunity.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Greater Dandenong Council has stated it will not “impose itself” in response to safety concerns over the controversial siting of townhouses in Keysborough.
The council approved an amended permit for Keysborough Townhouses estate at 452 Cheltenham Road, with its western townhouses being built about a metre from a truck access road to HomeCo shopping centre.
Residents raised alarm about the lack of space for a footpath along the access road to the HomeCo shopping centre, child-care centre and Cheltenham Road bus stop.
The estate’s corner property Lot 1 stands just a metre from the corner kerb.
At a 28 June council meeting public question time, Keysborough resident Heather Louis said it was a “potential disaster waiting to happen”.
By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Negotiations to save one of Keysborough’s oldest standing buildings have taken a promising turn, Greater Dandenong councillors say.
Residents and councillors have lobbied to save the markedly-deteriorating 144-year-old Keysborough Methodist Church at 176 Chapel Road.
In the meantime, Greater Dandenong Council and the church’s owner the Uniting Church have been in months of talks about a possible handover for a ‘peppercorn fee’.
Land at the rear of the church may be set aside for “quality” large-lot housing.
Similarly, the council secured the historic Masonic lodge in Mason Street, Dandenong for $1. The Greater Dandenong Gallery of Art is soon to open on the renovated site.