Parramatta City Council

News & Newsletters

Student Story-Board Competition

The Residents’ Panel Team are always looking for younger residents to be involved with the Panel. Recently newly created Story Boards were distributed around local High Schools, Granville TAFE, UWS and other facilities. The purpose of the Story Board is to help Youth easily identify the purpose and role of Parramatta City Council.

The Residents’ Panel are holding a competition for any local residents’ over the age of 16. The aim of the competition is to help create awareness and interest for the Youth of the community to be involved with Parramatta City Council’s Residents’ Panel. The Youth of the community will receive the benefits of being a Residents’ Panel member, such as:

Communicating Youth needs, wants and aspirations in relation to their community.
Being kept abreast of local information that could affect them.
Being involved in local community projects.

The competition commences Monday 16 November and concludes on Monday 7 December.

Full terms and conditions Competition Flyer

Governance Consultation - Do residents want a popularly elected Lord Mayor?

Currently, Parramatta City Council Lord Mayoral elections are held annually, with popularly elected Councillors voting amongst themselves which member of the Chamber will be the Civic Leader of the city for the following twelve months.

An alternatively model adopted by some Council’s has a popularly elected Lord Mayor, in which residents vote directly for a Lord Mayor from amongst the candidates at Local Government elections held every four years.

There are arguments for and against this.

To gauge community opinion on this matter, all Resident Panel members will be asked about this later in the year. We will also provide information for and against these two alternative models for Panel members to consider when making comment.

A mail or email based survey (depending on Resident Panel preferences) will be sent to all members on the 18th of November 2009

Residents Panel team wins Award!

Resident Panel wins award From left to right: Alison Reilly, Albert Gittany, Namrita Nandni, David Borger, John Neish, Darren Wood and Wade Clark with their Award The Residents Panel team was awarded a Gold Award for Management Excellence at the recent Local Government Managers Association Annual Meeting held in September 2006.

The award was won for the Excellence within Local Governance category. The LGMA remarked that the concept of Residents Panel was imaginative and innovative.