IN PROFILE: Chairman of the newly elected Emerald Village Committee, Ed Chatwin.By TANIA MARTIN
WORKING towards building its town as a sustainable and beautiful place, the Emerald Village Committee held its first meeting last week.
EVC chairman, Ed Chatwin said the committee was hell bent on reestablishing the town’s profile as a beautiful place to live and work.
Meeting for the first time last week the EVC has been given the town’s strategy by the council which was originally released in 1999.
Mr Chatwin said the EVC was currently going through the strategy to see what has been achieved by the council and to also look at areas for suggested improvements to provide input for the council in the preparation of a new town strategy.
Mr Chatwin said the EVC has also been asked for its opinion of two road safety issues in the town.
It has been asked to comment on the introduction for double white lines to be placed in Kilvington Drive to prevent vehicles turning across the traffic.
Mr Chatwin said the result of this would be to force traffic to continue to either roundabouts at each end of Kilvington Drive, as crossing the double lines would become illegal.
The second issue that the committee has been asked to look at is having the speed limit on Main Street set at 50km/h.
The EVC was reinstated in June after a lengthy election process where 12delegates were appointed to head the committee that was to act as an arm of Cardinia Shire Council. This election was the culmination of twoyears of hard work by a community working group following the disbandment of the original committee a few years ago.
Prior to the election process a working group for the EVC approached the council to reestablish the committee as an arm of the council.
Since the election discussions have continued over whether the committee should be an arm of council or an incorporated body.
Under the present agreement the council covers the committee for insurance and legal purposes, whereas an incorporated body would cost the EVC up to $5000 a year for legal and insurance fees.
Mr Chatwin said that some of the committee members feel that as an arm of the council the EVC would be too controlled by the council.
However, Mr Chatwin said the EVC members had agreed to act within the committee as it was formed.
In another twist to the EVC committee saga, Mr Chatwin said the council told the elected delegates that if it wanted to pursue the incorporated body option it could go out and form another committee.
Mr Chatwin questioned why Emerald would want two township committees.
The next meeting of the EVC will be held at the Emerald Primary School on Tuesday, 13 September.
