Race heats up

By Rebecca Fraser
COMPETITION is heating up in the race for Four Oaks Ward as the November council poll draws near.
Casey councillors Rob Wilson and Roland Abraham have declared their intention to nominate to run for the ward.
Cr Wilson said he would stand for Four Oaks, currently represented by Cr Abraham.
The move follows changes to the Casey ward boundaries, which have created wards that will require two councillors.
Two former Four Oak Ward councillors were tightlipped this week when asked if they were going to nominate for the November elections.
Sam Afra told the News that he was yet to make a decision on whether he would stand but had not yet ruled out the possibility.
“I have my family to consider and so I will be talking to them and doing a few things this weekend before making a decision on Monday or Tuesday,” he said.
“I am not happy with the way that council is running and that would be the one thing to motivate me to run.
“I have also had community groups contacting me and asking me to run.”
Former Casey mayor and Four Oaks Ward councillor John Hastie was more secretive.
“This afternoon (Wednesday) there is a candidate briefing and information session for prospective candidates at Magid Drive in Narre Warren.
“All I can say is that I will be at the 2pm session,” he said.
Mr Hastie would not discuss which ward he would consider running for if he decided to nominate, but said he wanted to find out more about the vote counting process.
“I want to know more about the proportional representation and they have been talking about quotas.
“How do you determine quotas?
“I want to know the rules of the game first.”
This week Cr Wilson said there were many projects he would like to see come to fruition in Endeavour Hills if he was elected.
“When you look at a suburb with 30,000 people there is no customer service centre and I would also like to see a newlook youth centre and more migrant resource services,” Cr Wilson said.
“With the redevelopment of the Endeavour Hills Shopping Centre I would like to see a connection between shops and the leisure centre and a lot more connectivity.”
Cr Abraham said he had many of the same aims as Cr Wilson, but said public transport and the Narre Sports and Leisure Alliance were important initiatives that needed further attention and support.
He also said there were already quite a significant number of candidates standing for Four Oaks Ward.
“There is Ben Mammone, Paul Richardson and Milroy Martyn.
“So there is a whole gamut of candidates, and other people may run. This is just democracy at work,” he said.