AN analysis of councillors’ claimed expenses in the previous 2012-16 council term found Kingston councillors are the lowest spenders compared to neighbouring Frankston and Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors. Kingston’s nine councillors, including seven re-elected to council at 22 October council elections, collectively claimed $101,807 for expenses over four years compared to $205,329 for nine councillors at Frankston Council and a whopping $616,712 at Mornington Peninsula Shire for 11 councillors. Kingston and Frankston councils publish councillors’ expenses figures in council’s annual report each year. Mornington Peninsula Shire only began publishing councillors’ expenses in its annual report in 2014-15, the first financial…
Author: Neil Walker
FRANKSTON Council’s chief executive officer has gone on a mystery trip and no-one at council was able to say exactly where last week. Dennis Hovenden is believed to be overseas on business and leave but enquiries over several days about his whereabouts failed to locate council’s CEO. The Times understands councillors were not notified of Mr Hovenden’s absence and there is disquiet about the CEO not flagging his intention to head overseas for at least two weeks. The CEO’s trip comes at a time when bedding in councillors, including four newly-elected councillors, for a new four-year council term after last…
DONKEY votes in the Frankston Council elections last month saw two candidates who polled more first preference votes than other candidates miss out on being elected to council. Savvy candidates also found a way around new election rules aimed at stopping candidates in Victorian Electoral Commission mailouts to voters directing preferences to other candidates. The state government banned ‘how to vote’ cards from being inserted alongside ballot papers in September but several candidates in last month’s council elections instead listed preferences in their candidate statements that usually detail a candidate’s background and pitch for votes. Votes tallied by the VEC…
EMERGENCY ambulance response times have risen by the smallest of margins across Frankston and best practice targets for emergency call-outs are still being missed. Data released by Ambulance Victoria shows 83.9 per cent of code one calls in 2015-16 across Frankston were responded to within 15 minutes. The average response time in 2015-16 to 9695 incidents was 11 minutes, 25 seconds. This was a slight increase on an average response time of 11 minutes, 24 seconds to 9345 incidents in 2014-15. The Ambulance Victoria target for under 15 minutes response times for areas with a population greater than 7500 is…
AMBULANCE response times have marginally improved in Kingston but are still falling short of best practice targets for emergency call-outs. Data released by Ambulance Victoria shows 84.4 per cent of code one calls in 2015-16 were responded to within 15 minutes. The average response time in 2015-16 to 8142 incidents was 11 minutes, 32 seconds. This was an improvement on an average response time of 11 minutes, 37 seconds to 8034 incidents in 2014-15. The Ambulance Victoria target for under 15 minutes response times for areas with a population greater than 7500 is 90 per cent. The Kingston area has…