KINGSTON Council is considering changes to its current meeting procedures on the advice of the state government-appointed municipal monitors. Kingston Council was under monitor observation from 25 August 2025 to 14 August 2026, at a cost of more than $1000 a day to ratepayers. The monitors’ report into Kingston Council has not yet been publicly released. While at Kingston Council, the monitors offered advice on council meeting rules and procedures. Council is now consulting residents on some of those proposed changes. Among the changes proposed by the monitors was a ban on “en-bloc” voting. This would prohibit multiple items on…
Author: Brodie Cowburn
THE St John of God Rehabilitation Hospital in Frankston is set to be converted into an aged care facility. Earlier this month, St John of God Health Care confirmed that it had agreed to sell the hospital site to Vasey RSL Care. The announcement read that Vasey RSL has “future plans to redevelop the site to provide aged care services in response to growing community demand across the Frankston and Mornington Peninsula region.” Hospital operations will finish up on 23 October, with handover to Vasey RSL Care scheduled to take place on 16 November. St John of God Health Care…
FIREFIGHTERS protested outside the office of Frankston MP Paul Edbrooke last week calling for greater pay and more protections. Edbrooke was appointed emergency services minister by Premier Ben Carroll earlier this year. The United Firefighters Union gathered outside the offices of Edbrooke and Carroll early last week amidst stalled negotiations for improved conditions for operational staff. UFU Victorian branch secretary Peter Marshall said that during Fair Work Commission proceedings the state government had pursued “legal arguments that threaten longstanding firefighter safety protections”, including uniform and equipment standards. “Every time we resolved one issue, the government raised another. It became increasingly…
THE proposed redevelopment of the Rossdale Golf Club has been put on ice, after the club terminated its agreement with the developer. The Rossdale Golf Club decided to sell its 43.5 hectare home and move in 2018, and began consulting on plans to redevelop the Aspendale golf course in 2023. Kingston Council opposed the proposal, but in 2025 had its authority over the site ripped away when the state’s planning minister intervened. Earlier this year an independent planning panel report into the proposal was released, reading that the conversion of the land to housing was “possible while protecting the site’s…
FRANKSTON Council is considering new measures to ban the use of “smart glasses” recording devices. At their most recent meeting, Frankston councillors voted to prepare a report assessing “council’s conditions of entry and other policies to ban the use of smart glasses at council’s leisure centres and all council-run childcare centres and playgrounds, subject to any necessary carve outs for deaf, low vision or disabled users.” Councillors also voted to advocate to the federal government for “updates to the Privacy Act to ensure it is fit for purpose and able to respond to the risks of new wearable technology, and…