Eddy Sarroff finally threw his hat into the ring this week with a series of front-page stories and a media stunt out the front of Coomera Police station. He had five people from the Broadbeach neighborhood watch turn up for this campaign launch. It seems Fast Eddy has woken up to the crime problem on the Gold Coast.
 
His solution to crime? Everyone has to work together to solve crime. Brilliant! I wish I had through of that. We can call it CSI-Eddy.
 
Yep it’s time to put Cr Eddy Sarroff under some scrutiny for the first time in his political life. The back-flips, the media stunts, the populist positions and the endless whining without ever achieving anything needs to be exposed.
 
I checked out his campaign website. Two things struck me as funny right off the bat. The first one is the clipping from 1995 talking about Eddy taking a ‘zero tolerance to crime’. Yes 1995 – 17 years ago. Well Eddy – you haven’t exactly delivered on that promise! Need four more years huh?
 
Yes, crime and public safety is a huge issue here on the Gold Coast, however I’m not going to suggest that I have all the answers, or that Council is the lead agency in such a struggle. Policing is a State Government issue first and foremost and, while I applaud the Council funded part-time chopper, I don’t think ratepayers should be forking out for such state responsibilities yet again.
 
I do think Council has its part to play and my plan is for an expansion of the safety camera network to multiply the effect of the police we have on the ground now, while lobbying Brisbane for police to match the actual numbers of people sleeping on the Coast each night (i.e. including the tourists) not just the number of residents.
 
Council’s greatest role in the crime problem is urban renewal and economic development. Money and people are portable and years of slow approvals, ever rising rates, exorbitant fees and charges as well as inflexibility for business has done exactly that – sent people packing with their money. I intend to pursue a program of urban renewal driven by planning scheme incentives in such places as Palm Beach, Tugun, Chevron Island and Nerang among others.
 
In the past, our two major economic drivers in this city have been tourism and construction. We have emerging economic sectors of education, marine, medical and information technology. I intend to see these four sectors grow to be as important in our city as tourism and construction. I will be the deal making Mayor to bring the bigger firm’s headquarters to base on the Gold Coast. We have to make it attractive for existing businesses to grow locally while encouraging national and international businesses to base themselves here.

The second ‘funny’ on Fast Eddy’s website was the comment about his support for developers and business in the city. A great example of Cr Sarroff fighting major building projects around the city was his relentless opposition to the fantastic Main Place project opposite the Convention Centre late last year. I believe his delaying tactics, unreasonable conditions and demands, as well as actually voting against projects in the city have greatly contributed to our city now being known in many nationwide business circles as a ‘no go’ area for business investment. When I travel interstate on business, I receive considerable kudos for being able to run a successful business for such a long time on the Gold Coast under its oppressive Council fees and charges regime. It is not an accolade I should be receiving.
 
Councillor Eddy Sarroff fought with the help of his Councillor friend, and now fellow Mayoral Candidate Peter Young, for the introduction of the Priority Infrastructure Program (PIP) fees and charges regime. This was well before any other Council in Queensland. As it has turned out we were the only Council to do so comprehensively. Why do we wonder business has stopped dead here?
 
If Eddy ran for Mayor in 2007/08 he would never have put this ’support for developers’ on his website. Back then bashing developers and by association business was all the rage by Councillors such as Eddy. In fact many people tell me that Ron Clarke won his mayoral election on the back of the promise of a population cap. Well folks, we have now seen firsthand the economic downturn that a population cap would have caused us then. Eddy is now on the ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ band wagon after having spent most of his 17 years as a Councillor hurting our city’s economy.
 
Eddy as Finance Chair has achieved something however. He has delivered one of the greatest financial messes this Council has ever produced. What am I talking about? It’s all there on page 112 of Council’s Annual Report, sneakily published online over Christmas, withdrawn and republished a few days later.
 
In 2010, the city’s financial statement reveals a $15 million dollar net result – a surplus of income over expenditure. 2011 has not proved to be a good year for the Chairman of Finance, Cr Sarroff, with a whopping $1.4 billion dollar (yes billion with a ‘b’) deficit being reported.
 
That result is akin to telling every ratepayer in the city not to worry about paying rates for the next three years!
 
Now Fast Eddy will be ready for that one, claiming it is all to do with Allconnex. He won’t mention he was not only one of the Councillors who voted ‘for’ the creation of Allconnex back in February 2009, but actually seconded the motion!
 
Eddy did mention the ‘L’ word at his press conference: Leadership. He said he is the leader to fix the city. The 14 councillors who have been the closest colleagues of his, some working with him for the past four years, some for as many as 17 years, don’t agree. They simply don’t think he is leadership material nor should be leading this city.
 
How do I know?
 
Well for the past 17 years of Fast Eddy’s reign as Councillor for Broadbeach, not once has one of the sitting councillors nominated Eddy as Deputy Mayor, nor has Eddy himself been elected to that position. The option is open once a year formally and actually can be a motion raised from the floor of Council each week. That’s 884 times nobody has called on Eddy to take on the deputy mayor’s job. If the 14 people who work with him and know him the best don’t trust him in the role of Deputy Mayor of this city – why should the rest of the Gold Coast hire him as its Mayor?
 
Yes, I do have solutions for a lot of the problems discussed in this blog so have a look at my website: www.tom4mayor.com.au for all the details.