It is a privilege to be one of your seven elected representatives. As I look back on my first year as a Councillor what an interesting journey the past 12 months has been.
We have been in and out of lockdowns which meant converting to online Council Meetings and briefings, completing mandatory training, receiving the Community Vision from the deliberative panel, finding my feet, learning a whole new set of government acronyms and developing a new routine along with so much more.
At the end of my term I will still be learning and we all learn to be better, grow and develop.
At the beginning of my Council journey I acknowledged that we would not make everyone happy with the decisions we make and the outcome we reach.
There needs to be a shared understanding and compassion about where we all fit into the process, as we all have an important part to play in our community.
It has been a pleasure to have some wonderful conversations and to receive phone calls from residents along with emails congratulating Council on all its works.
I have enjoyed seeing families share in the joy of the funding announcement for the Nature Play Park. It’s also been great to see how much the accessible changerooms at the Aquatic Centre will mean to families.
What I am extremely disappointed about is people who believe it is okay to speak or write the following to their elected representatives.
You are self-servicing, you are on the nose, you are greedy, you are entitled, you are not doing a good job, you have been warned, you need to be sacked, the idiots you employ…
No one in society will ever be payed enough to cop this abuse.
Our nurses, teachers, childcare educators, pharmacists, those who work in customer service, Council staff and even elected representatives do not undertake a position or role to be threatened.
So as we all learn to live with Coronavirus we need to make a choice about what life will look like moving forward.
Do you want to choose anger, or compassion? I am choosing kindness and appreciation.
