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Mayor Jamie Hyams
November 5, 2018 by J-Wire Newsdesk
The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council's senior policy analyst Jamie Hyams has taken a year out to carry out his new civic duties as the mayor of Glen Eira in Melbourne.
Deputy Mayor Joel Silver and Mayor Jamie Hyams
Sharing his mayoral duties from time to time will be his deputy Councillor Joel Silver.
Speaking on his appointment Mayor Hyams said: "We have made great strides in improving the way the council engages with and serves the community; We have initiated many new urban planning and transport strategies and plans; We have continued to improve our limited public open space; We have introduced a number of significant environmental initiatives; We have continued to maintain and improve our assets and facilities and services, all the while keeping rates at the second lowest in metropolitan Melbourne, to name just a few.
Of course, we have many challenges, and we will continue to work hard to resolve them. Continued population growth is causing massive pressure on neighbourhood amenity, so we need to keep developing strategies and plans to minimize this impact, and minimize congestion. We have the least open space of any municipality in Melbourne, while demand is ever-increasing, so we need to continue to maintain it at the high standard that is the envy of so many, and continue to seek opportunities for new open space.
Rate capping restricts our income, but we need to continue to spend strongly on capital works and on maintaining and improving services."
Talking about his year away from AIJAC, Mayor Hyams said: "I am looking forward to over the next year include further advancing our structure plans and other planning work, including starting work on implementing some of the planned improvements in our major activity centres including upgrading our sporting facilities, establishing our first community garden, in Moorleigh, working with the state government and racecourse reserve trust to start to achieve better public access and community facilities in the massive open space in the centre of the racecourse, construction of the dog agility park adjoining the racecourse and a new and far more user-friendly website."
Mayor Hyams will be wearing the mayoral robes and chains when appropriate because "they represent the history and traditions of this place and this role".
He commented: "Each link on this chain bears the name of a previous mayor of Glen Eira, or the City of Caulfield before that, going back more than 100 years. It is a physical reminder of the literally heavy weight of responsibility we take on when we take this role, a responsibility I will remain fully cognizant of over this next year. Also, I think the community likes them."