24 November 2008 - Candidates Special

Good luck!

We are nearly there and I wish all candidates well for this election. As participation levels in public life decline, your energy and commitment to represent the interests of your local community is appreciated.

I firmly believe that the role and independence of elected Councillors will depend on the way we support each other in the future and the VLGA looks forward to working with you.

2008 Anonymous Candidates Online Survey Results

A very high percentage of candidates (74%) have never been Councillors, nevertheless many of the issues and needs are consistent with those expressed by current Councillors. Results can be viewed on our website.

VEC Counting Arrangements

There are a lot of myths out there about how the counting of votes will occur. The VEC tells us that they should have provisional results on Saturday night for around 25 Local Governments – this includes any preference distributions required.

There may also be some additional 1^st preference results on Saturday night. However, as I have said before, final results will not be known in many municipalities until Monday or Tuesday.

Details of the VEC’s Counting Arrangements can be found on our website.

More local information can also be clarified with your local Returning Officer, and details are also on our website.

VLGA Tally Room

The VLGA will run our usual Tally Room on Saturday night and on Sunday. Our staff have been busy behind the scenes tallying all of the preference arrangements for each election, so after we know the first preference counts, we expect to be among the first to be able to ‘call election results’.

This service proved very popular for the media and members last time, so if you want to hear about results or have your own intelligence from scrutineers, call our office on 03 9349 7999 or email our Acting CEO Cr Darren Ray – darren@vlga.org.au from 6pm this coming Saturday!

Property Council Breakfast This Wednesday Morning

Our Acting CEO Cr Darren Ray will moderate a Breakfast for the Property Council of Australia. Five Lord Mayoral candidates will be put through their paces and the breakfast is open to the public. Further information and registration details can be found on our website.

VLGA and the MAV

Many of the hundreds of first-time candidates who’ve made contact with us over the last month have been curious to understand the difference between the VLGA and the MAV.

There are some misconceptions and myths out there so I thought I might spend a little time clarifying our difference.

For 128 years or so the MAV has played the critical role of concentrating on the long term security and financial stability of municipal corporations and continuous improvement of council's operation, performance and service delivery, including the provision of a mutual liability insurance scheme. The MAV assists municipal corporations by supporting them to achieve the highest levels of respect and recognition through improved performance.

Therefore, it could be said that the MAV’s primary focus is on corporate governance which is work that they do well and is critical to our collective success as a sector.

In contrast, the VLGA concentrates on democratic governance. Our value-add is the work we do with the critical link between the municipal corporation and the community we all serve i.e. Councillors and members of local communities.

Far from being a ‘copycat peak body’, our focus on democratic governance is formally enshrined in our Constitution where we state that:

The VLGA is a unique peak body for councillors, community leaders and local governments working to build and strengthen their capacity to work together for progressive social change. "

Giving Democracy and You The Leading Edge

Not surprisingly given our focus on democratic governance the VLGA’s Learning and Development Arm – the Local Government Leadership and Learning Centre – has been very busy designing an exciting and specialist program for incoming Councils.

We have now finalised training dates for the first half of 2009 which can be found on our website.

We are locking in some final venues and costs, so we will get the Final Program to you shortly. In the meantime, I thought it would be good to share the dates with you so you can pencil course dates that interest you into your diary well in advance.

Final dates and further information can be found on our website.

Warm Regards

Beth