On behalf of myself and Councillors we would like to thank you for electing us to represent the community.
After a long, tough and difficult campaign, it was a close election result for the City's popularly elected Mayor and 12 Councillors who will serve on Fairfield City Council over the next four years.
I would like to congratulate our new Councillors and welcome them all on board. Our Councillors representing the Fairfield Ward are Del Bennett, Anita Kazi, Paul Azzo and Charbel Saliba. Representing the Parks Ward are Ninos Khoshaba, Andrew Rohan, Joe Molluso and Sera Yilmaz. Representing the Cabravale Ward are Kien Ly, Dai Le, Adrian Wong and Peter Grippaudo.
I thank and acknowledge the work and contribution to our City of the outgoing Councillors – Lawrence White, Milovan Karajcic, Nhan Tran, George Barcha and Ken Yeung.
The work of making our City a better place for people and families continues.
As the first independent Mayor of Fairfield City I am excited for the future of our City and appreciate the responsibility the residents of Fairfield have handed me.
Since I was elected as Mayor in 2012 I have worked hard to improve our City for people and families and I will continue to do so for the next four years.
Our City has been transformed in the past four years with millions of dollars being spent on improving our City centres, our parks and recreation areas. We've built a brand new, world-class Youth and Community Centre, the iconic Fairfield Adventure Park, and the exciting new water park, Aquatopia, is almost completed.
We've extended cycleways and walking paths, installed outdoor gym equipment, contributed thousands of dollars to community groups and individuals, congratulated about 4,500 new Australian citizens, and installed CCTV throughout the City.
About 1,000 new parking spaces have been created throughout our City, with the Dutton Lane car park at Cabramatta being the jewel in the crown of this initiative.
There are too many achievements to list here, but one final, important success was that Fairfield Council, through its fiscal responsibility, was found to be Fit For the Future and was able to remain a stand-alone Council.
I'm looking forward to the challenges of the next four years and will continue to work hard to make our great City even better. It's important for the new Council to be unified and that we work together for the best interests of the community.
Thank you again Fairfield for your vote of confidence. I will not let you down.