Fremantle councillor Andrew Sullivan posted the following comment to the new Don’t Merge Freo with MelvilleFACEBOOK page. I believe it is worth publishing it on my blog as well. Here it is:

If there is to be local government “reform” it must be real reform with demonstrable benefits. The ‘bigger is better’ economic mantra is simplistic and should only be a small part of the equation. More importantly, local government areas should be focussed around true regional city centres like Fremantle, Subiaco, Midland, Armadale, Mandurah and the like (or places that should become those centres…, like Canning Bridge and Cockburn Central).

Boundary reform needs to capture the right community of interest that relates to the centre of interest. We need to establish the right demographic and geographic boundaries – a series of polygons with central nuclei. Within that approach some simple amalgamations of whole councils like East Freo &…