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Speaker 1: We know that the Palmerston or the City of Palmeston,

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Speaker 1: they've released their municipal plan and their budget for the

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Speaker 1: next financial year, with the council spending just shy of

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Speaker 1: sixty million dollars. Residential rates are set to increase by

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Speaker 1: about sixty five dollars for the year, with waste fees

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Speaker 1: rising by thirty dollars. Now joining us in the studio

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Speaker 1: to give us some further detail is the mayor Athena

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Speaker 1: Pasco Bell. Good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Athena, good morning.

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Speaker 1: Good to have you in the studio. Now talk us

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Speaker 1: through the rate rise and the changes to fees and charges.

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Speaker 3: First off, okay, so the rate rise will be an

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Speaker 3: increase of sixty five dollars for residential that's to the

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Speaker 3: minimum yep, and sixty six dollars for industrial properties to

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Speaker 3: the minimum. And as you mentioned, the waste service charge

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Speaker 3: thirty dollars. So that's only residential properties that receive a

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Speaker 3: waste collection service. So the total of ninety five dollars

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Speaker 3: for sixty eight percent of households in Palmeston, which will

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Speaker 3: be equivalent to a dollar eighty three a week.

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Speaker 2: So that's the rise.

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Speaker 3: Obviously, some of the other properties we'll see a little

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Speaker 3: bit higher increase there. The municipal plan is out for

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Speaker 3: consultation until the tenth of June, but the significant parts

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Speaker 3: of this year's budget include the Animal Management by law

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Speaker 3: roll out, so that'll come into effect on the first

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Speaker 3: of July. The next stage of Zakoli Community Hub, which

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Speaker 3: includes a skate park and a pump track driver community

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Speaker 3: center redevelopment will be progressed, so we're working on plans

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Speaker 3: and things for that. Half a million dollars will be

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Speaker 3: put towards greening the city, so we're a focus on

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Speaker 3: putting more shade trees in and that's right across the municipality,

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Speaker 3: so not just the city center. We'll also be commencing

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Speaker 3: work on a master plan for Marlow Lagoon, which is

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Speaker 3: a really large recreation area and we need to have

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Speaker 3: a bit more of a future focus on that location

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Speaker 3: there and a boost towards activating our city and looking

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Speaker 3: at ways to improve safety and security in our city center.

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Speaker 1: What kind of things could you be doing to improve

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Speaker 1: that safety and security in your city center.

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Speaker 3: We will be undertaking a septed audit, so that's the

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Speaker 3: safety audit that city center and looking at things that

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Speaker 3: we can do to improve visibility, increase activity in the

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Speaker 3: city center, because we know that the more people you

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Speaker 3: have around, the less likely it is to have anti

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Speaker 3: social behavior.

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Speaker 1: And well, people don't want to sleep somewhere where you've

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Speaker 1: got people floating around doing their day to day business,

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Speaker 1: do they.

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Speaker 3: No, that's right, so you know, and that has to

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Speaker 3: be obviously done in conjunction with the Northern Territory government

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Speaker 3: because some of the properties in there are Northern Territory Government,

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Speaker 3: like the bus interchange, and also with some consultation with

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Speaker 3: the private property owners as well.

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Speaker 1: Now, Son, you mentioned they're a pump track now for

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Speaker 1: a lot of people, and certainly for me up until

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Speaker 1: probably a year ago, I had no idea what that meant.

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Speaker 1: But you're talking like a bike track for people of

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Speaker 1: young or young or old ages.

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Speaker 2: I'm guessing yeah.

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Speaker 3: And it's like a series of little hills and your

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Speaker 3: rises and sweeping bends and things like that.

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Speaker 2: It's almost self propulsion sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: How much I guess it's going to be because I

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Speaker 1: know a lot of like if you've got a you know,

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Speaker 1: a pre pubs and or teenage boy, they probably all

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Speaker 1: girl or anybody, but they're going to be very interested

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Speaker 1: in hearing about this. How extensive is it going to be.

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Speaker 3: We'll obviously make it as large as we can within

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Speaker 3: our budget, so it should be fairly sizable.

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Speaker 2: We are very excited to be doing this as well.

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Speaker 2: You know. Part of that's the Coli Hub area because

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Speaker 2: Zacoli is.

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Speaker 3: Quite dense, so people need places where they can get

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Speaker 3: out and be active, so the pump Track skatepark is

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Speaker 3: one of those activities there.

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Speaker 1: I reckon it's a great idea and how soon do

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Speaker 1: you anticipate it'll be up and running.

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Speaker 3: I understand the civil works have been done, so we

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Speaker 3: should be going out to tender soon to get a

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Speaker 3: contractor in to do civil works, and then I expect

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Speaker 3: that that will commence towards the end of this year.

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Speaker 1: Any other sort of key takeaways from the municipal plan

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Speaker 1: that our listeners might be keen to know about.

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Speaker 3: We've really tried hard to keep it an absolute minimum increase.

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Speaker 3: It's very difficult, especially from last year's inflation that's sort

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Speaker 3: of catching up, and you know, I think it's the

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Speaker 3: same for all the councils around the Northern Territory. A

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Speaker 3: lot of our contracts rely on clauses such as CPI

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Speaker 3: for their annual increases. But you know, hopefully the community

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Speaker 3: will see that we are progressing a lot of our plans.

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Speaker 3: We are renewing infrastructure such as Driver Resource Center as

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Speaker 3: well as building new infrastructure at Zacoli, as well as

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Speaker 3: keeping up all of our other activities such as park

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Speaker 3: mowing and street sweeping and the regular things that council

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Speaker 3: does and all of our activities. So Christmas in Wonderland

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Speaker 3: will still be going ahead. We have the Palmerson Youth

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Speaker 3: Festival as well happening and a couple of new activities actually,

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Speaker 3: so we've got Darren Festival are coming to Goida Square

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Speaker 3: and that will be on the sixteenth and seventeenth of August,

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Speaker 3: which will be fantastic.

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Speaker 1: I reckon, it's really great to see the festival actually

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Speaker 1: expanding and coming out to Palmeston.

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Speaker 3: We're very excited and I think this demonstrates just how

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Speaker 3: well our council has been going to be able to

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Speaker 3: attract some really interesting activities for Palmerston and of course

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Speaker 3: residents in the rural area who are just nearby, they

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Speaker 3: don't have to travel all the way into Darwin to

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Speaker 3: attend some activities. So this one happening on the sixteenth

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Speaker 3: and seventeenth of August. The sixteenth is a Friday night

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Speaker 3: and that'll be a free family day involving the Darwin Festival,

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Speaker 3: and the seventeenth will be an adult only comedy festival.

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Speaker 2: So we're very excited to be having that.

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Speaker 3: The other exciting news is that we're having a street

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Speaker 3: art festival as well from the seventeenth to the twenty

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Speaker 3: ninth of June. So we're partnering with Activate Darwin and

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Speaker 3: Proper Creative who've been running the Darwin Street Art Festival

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Speaker 3: for a number of years, and they will be beautifying

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Speaker 3: a minimum of six walls in the city center and

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Speaker 3: one out in a suburban location. There are also workshops,

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Speaker 3: so they'll be doing some mentoring and workshops for up

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Speaker 3: and coming artists leading up to you. So you get

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Speaker 3: onto Council's website if you're a young creative in Parmesan

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Speaker 3: and interested in this.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff, really good stuff before I let you go.

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Speaker 1: We know as well. The Million Pause Walk when's that happening?

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Speaker 3: Million Pause is happening on Sunday, the twenty sixth of May.

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Speaker 3: It's at Marlow Lagoon nine am to twelve noon. Registrations

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Speaker 3: open at eight point thirty and you can purchase tickets

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Speaker 3: adults twenty five children of fifteen from themillionpaulswalk dot com

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Speaker 3: dot u slash down website.

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Speaker 1: Good Stuff Will Athena Pasco Bell, the Mayor of Palmerston.

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Speaker 1: Good to catch up with you this morning. Really appreciate

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Speaker 1: your time.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for your time.

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Speaker 1: Thank you,