Economist and private sector property strategist Brian Haratsis will chair the panel charged with Sunbury’s secession from the city of Hume.
Other panel members are Kelvin Spiller, who acted as chief executive of Wangarratta rural council after administrators took over from councillors late last year, and Swinburne University social researcher and Victorian planning panel member Maxine Cooper.
Mr Haratsis was, until recently, a member of planning minister Matthew Guy’s advising committee on Plan Melbourne.
Local government minister Jeanette Powell visited Sunbury yesterday to announce the panel members and said they would provide expert advice on the most effective way to separate Sunbury from the city of Hume.
“The panel will investigate new municipal boundaries and transition arrangements, including the distribution of assets and delivery of municipal services, while having regard to the economic sustainability of the two restructured councils,” she said.
Locals are now waiting to hear who will be on the eight-member community consultative committee to work alongside the panel after expressions of interest closed this week.
Their role will be to advise the panel and refer issues to it for investigation.
Former Bulla shire councillor and Sunbury local Sharon Phillips has nominated, although she’s unsure whether her membership of the ‘No’ group which opposed Sunbury’s secession will work in her favour.
Ms Phillips said her main concern was that there was not the population base in Sunbury to support a stand-alone council, saying ratepayers already received “above if not the same” level of service as the rest of Hume. She predicted Sunbury’s secession from Hume would not be achieved before state elections at the end of November.
