THE Northbridge Festival is set to live again in 2000 after it was killed off by the Festival of Perth to make way for its Calypsamba parade in 1995.
At council’s 12 October meeting Councillor Judy McEvoy successfully moved that a meeting be held on 28 October at the Rechabite Hall to assess stakeholder feeling about the event.
The meeting’s agenda includes council’s sponsorship of the revived festival and other Northbridge-focussed marketing opportunities.
Mrs McEvoy suggested council could put up to $200,000 towards the festival – funds budgeted for the failed Artbridge Festival.
Councillor Tess Stroud said the Northbridge Festival should never have died on the vine.
“This is in line with our policy to make Northbridge a more family-oriented community,” Mrs Stroud said.
Lord Mayor Peter Nattrass said a broad festival covering all cultural groups could be achieved.
However, Councillor Laurance Goodman said the proposal was like an open cheque book. He moved, unsuccessfully, that council spend $10,000 on researching the project and then went through proper council processes to judge the project on its merits.
Mr Goodman said he was upset with the way the matter had come to council.
“The smart thing to have done would have been to bring this up in a briefing meeting,” he said.
“This is not the way council should be run. Decisions are made out of council then pushed through by a bloc vote.”
The majority of council’s contentious decisions of late have followed familiar voting lines. One bloc is Dr Nattrass, Mrs McEvoy, Deputy Lord Mayor Michael Sutherland and Councillor Noel Semmens. The other bloc is Mr Goodman and Councillors Bert Tudori, Janet Davidson and Jennifer MacGill.
In this case however, only Mr Goodman and Mrs Davidson voted against the proposal.
