Tag: 2016
Bicycle trip – North Balwyn loop via Ashburton and Box Hill
Today I decided to try a new bicycle route through the middle eastern suburbs. This essentially consists of a big loop from North Balwyn down to Ashwood and returning north via Gardiners Creek and Bushy Creek in the City of Whitehorse. For some reason, Google Maps doesn’t like custom map directions and won’t embed the…
Walking adventures in Port Melbourne
A quest to find an 8cm quiche baking pan brought me into South Melbourne today. After several days of fruitless searching at a multitude of homeware and cooking shops in the eastern suburbs, I finally found what I was looking for at Chef’s Hat on Cecil Street. After a celebratory cheese and spinach borek (for…
Day 1 of Boroondara election vote counting
Today I was scrutineering down at the VEC counting centre in Camberwell, which was a very interesting experience. Getting to see democracy work up close is something that I would recommend everyone do should the opportunity arise. While I was mostly paying attention to the wards I was a scrutineer for (Cotham and Gardiner), I…
Clearing my council desk
When I was first elected in 2012, I anticipated keeping a clean desk with good administrative order. Four years later, this is what awaited me. While my term as councillor officially expires on Saturday morning, I decided to get a head start on the seemingly monolithic task of cleaning up last Friday. It took the…
Ballots are posted today: know thy candidates
From today until Thursday, ballot packs will be mailed out to eligible properties in Boroondara and the other councils in Victoria using postal elections. As per VEC regulations, no more than 35% of ballots can be posted on any one day. Packs are sent by priority mail, but with the recent Australia Post changes, there…
Day 6: Council Elections 2016 – Nominations close, ballot order revealed
Welcome to Day 6 of the 2016 council elections! Please read the Day 1 post for an introduction and more information. Final list of nominations and ballot order With nominations closing at 12 noon today, here is the final list for every ward in the ballot order drawn today with all 33 candidates: As you…
Day 5: Council Elections 2016
Welcome to Day 5 (technically, counting the weekend) of the 2016 council elections! Please read the Day 1 post for an introduction and more information. Preferences One of the unexpected changes to the electoral regulations this year has been the removal of preference indications from the mailed ballot pack. At the end of August, the…
Day 1: Council Elections 2016
A brief introduction Here we finally are at Day 1 of the 2016 local government elections for Victoria. I will be posting here over the course of the next few weeks to keep you all updated on what is happening in the world of local politics. Obviously I will be focussing on Boroondara, but I…
North-south transport connections in northern Boroondara
The inner-east is often lauded for having an excellent public transport system that is relatively well-connected and convenient (at least compared to other parts of Melbourne). While this may be true for some parts of Hawthorn, Kew and Camberwell for getting into and out of the CBD, it is certainly not true of cross-city (i.e.…
Today my scooter had an argument with some tram tracks, and lost
Living in North Balwyn and riding both a scooter and a bicycle, I have always been acutely aware of the dangers of tram tracks in my area. Until today, I had managed to avoid any issues with them. I was riding home from uni down High Street in Kew East on what was/is a very…