INTERVIEW: Mayor Lisa Lake Tells GEPS Press Gang What It’s Like To Be A Mayor

This week Lisa Lake, Mayor of Cumberland City Council met with members of the Granville East Press Gang to answer questions about the responsibilities of the Mayor. Reporters, Aisha SA, Rayanne G and Lujane led the interview.

Press Gang: What is it like to be a mayor?

Mayor Lisa Lake: Well, being the mayor is great fun, firstly, because I get to spend my days going around meeting new people and listening to their issues and working through their problems and hopefully finding good solutions for them. Um, but I also get to visit lots of different people, lots of really interesting people. And every day for me is a bit of an adventure because I’m learning about how different people live, different cultures, different languages.

And I get to go to lots of events and see people putting on wonderful shows and I get invited to lots of beautiful meals, wonderful dinners. So I have a lovely time. It’s good fun.

Press Gang: What are your main responsibilities?

Mayor Lisa Lake: One of the things that I do is listen to people in the local community, listen carefully to their concerns, see what their problems are and see if I can work out a way to resolve those problems with the other Councillors on the council. I’m the mayor, so my job is to look after the whole of the council, there are 15 Councillors, including me. And so I lead those 15 Councillors to attend meetings and work together to find solutions to make things work.

One of my big responsibilities every year is to set the budget. So everybody who owns property in Cumberland has to pay the council a fee called rates. Every year everyone pays their rates and the money goes into the council’s revenue. And it’s my job with my other 14 Councillors to work out how that money should be spent and to make sure that we don’t overspend so that we’ve always got enough money for the future. That’s a big part of our job.

Press Gang: What do you do to support your local schools?

Mayor Lisa Lake: The council has a pretty good relationship with a lot of our local public schools, particularly in trying to coordinate programs that support the children in the schools. So we put on lots of programs during school holidays, particularly in relation to sport or arts and crafts or dancing or other sorts of activities.

We also have something called a community grants program. So if the schools want to apply for some funding so that they can do extra programs, they can apply to the council.

Apart from us running programs and or supporting the schools, running programs, the other thing I do in my job as mayor is I work in the political area trying to convince other leaders to do things that’s helpful to our schools. So one of the things I did last year was I went to Parliament House and I met with some politicians and I talked about our local schools and what we needed here and encouraged them to give more money to the schools. So that’s another part of my job.

Press Gang: What are some local issues that impacts school kids?

Mayor Lisa Lake: I think from the council’s point of view, we’ve been looking pretty closely at safety. We want to make sure that our children in Cumberland are safe at school, out in public, and also feel safe at home. One of the things we’ve been doing over the last few months is trying to encourage everyone to learn to swim.

Water safety has become a, a big issue for us in Cumberland Council. We’ve got five swimming pool and we want to make sure that when the children visit, they’re safe there. Road safety is also a big, big issue for us. We have a road safety officer and we work with the schools and the police to make sure children are safe on the streets.

Press Gang: What advice can you give kids that want to make a difference in their local community?

Mayor Lisa Lake: That’s a really good question. I think the best thing you can do is be part of the community. So don’t just go to school and go home. Try and volunteer, try and get involved in other things that are going on. Join a sport on the weekends and start to meet people away from your friends and family. Meet other interesting people. Get involved in extra activities at the school. If the teachers are asking for volunteers for some special activity, put your hand up and get involved.

The more you get to learn about the local community, the more you can help it. So I think that’s probably the best thing you can do. Just be active and spend time with other people.

The other thing that I think is really good is to ask lots of questions, but from people you trust, friends and family and your teachers. So if you’re curious about something, speak up, ask more, and then you’ll learn more and people will start to involve you more because they know you’re interested in the things you’re asking the questions about.