Meeting Determines Next Steps For Skate Park

The second regular Northern Beaches Community Meeting took place last Wednesday, with the Camilleri Street Skate Park one item on the agenda.

Approximately 20 community members attended the meeting as well as Councillors Alison Jones, Fran Mann, Laurence Bonaventura, Pauline Townsend, Justin Englert and Belinda Hassan.

Concerned Northern Beaches resident Bessie Hayes spoke to the agenda item on the night, giving an update on the issue at the meeting and giving councillors an opportunity to provide reasons behind the council’s decision to have the mural painted over without community consultation.

“There was a robust discussion that only clarified that they (councillors) hadn’t voted for the motion as it lay but on their own perception of what it was,” said Ms Hayes.

“However, they did stay to mingle with community members after, who got the chance to speak to them personally to tell them why they were angry.

“They just wanted to be consulted.

“In the purest sense, Wednesday was the opportunity we wanted on July 27.”

Ms Hayes highlighted inconsistencies in claims made by multiple councillors relating to the Camilleri Street Skate Park mural.

In the ordinary meeting of council held on July 13, 2022, Councillors Martin Bella, Englert and Bonaventura stated that an application was made for the installation of public art as a memorial for Northern Beaches boy William Baker.

The application, however, makes no mention of William, as artist Anita Laura clarified in her address to council in the meeting.

“The intention of this mural is to brighten the space and see a mural with sort of themes of connection in that place,” said Ms Laura.

Mackay Regional Council Acting CEO Angela Hays agreed, saying it was her and the office’s recommendation that council support the application.

“The design of the mural itself does not reference any individual in any way and I understand that it is the family’s strong wishes as well that this is not considered a memorial of any sort,” said Ms Hays.

Moreover, similarities have been drawn between this application and past memorial applications made by the community for Shandee Blackburn.

“I voted to have the memorial at Camilleri Street skate park taken down because council policy doesn’t allow public memorials – one example is an application for Shandee Blackburn that was denied,” Councillor Englert wrote in Mackay Life in our August 5 edition.

Mackay Regional Council posted a photo of a memorial garden to Facebook on August 8, 2014, with the Community and Client Services Monthly Review for 4 August - 7 September 2014 describing the image as “Image of Cr Theresa Morgan with Shandee Blackburn’s mum for the launch of the new garden installed by council and a local contractor.”

“They said that they had rejected that memorial wall and, quite clearly, they haven’t rejected that wall and they actually funded it,” said Ms Hayes.

“I’m not comparing the two…one is a memorial funded by council for the right purpose; this one is public artwork, community funded; they’ve added the bias of the memorial to it.”

Ms Hayes addressed council at the ordinary meeting held on July 27, 2022, asking council to go to community consultation.

The motion to take the decision to community consultation was ultimately denied despite calls for community consultation from multiple councillors in the previous meeting.

“That reason was for why they were rejecting the application, whereas they didn’t give any reasons as to why they were rejecting community consultation,” said Ms Hayes.

“It was a beautiful piece of art…it kept obscenities from being scrawled all over there by graffiti…so there’s my rates not going to the clean-up of graffiti, getting something that’s beautiful for the kids going on, that tiny percentage of Will’s family and friends get their own meaning out of it and they can visit and that can mean something to them, but for 10, 20, 30 years, that’s artwork for everyone and not graffiti and obscenities for everyone.”

Another reason given by Council to cover the artwork was the incorrect following of Council’s public art approval process, due to what Ms Laura called a “miscommunication”.

Ms Hayes says the community group will revisit the artwork application further down the track and hopes regular Northern Beaches Community Meetings will see the potential of the northern beaches realised.

“The highlight is that the community is keen to continue the meetings quarterly and collaborate with some other community groups to get some activities and events going,” she said.

Former Councillor Theresa Morgan, Vicki Blackburn, Jason Costigan (former MP) and representatives from Dig-it! Landscapes gathering at a memorial garden dedicated to Shandee Blackburn on the 18-month anniversary of her fatal walk home. Photo supplied: Mackay Regional Council

The mural painted at the Camilleri Street Skate Park before it was painted over by Mackay Regional Council

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