As Councillor Vanessa Ekins celebrates 20 years of service to Lismore City Council, she has decided to run for the position of Lismore Mayor at the September Local Council Elections.

“Let's revive Lismore,” is Cr Ekins vision with community engagement, awareness and discussion, “I'm just so full of hope for this place. I love it so much.”

But first, let's rewind to what Vanessa has been a part of developing in her time as a councillor and her 1-year stint as mayor.

Vanessa’s first encounter with council was as a concerned citizen.

“My political awakening was when I lived in South Lismore in one of those beautiful old timber rainforest houses. My whole street was impacted by petrochemical fumes from industry on the other side of the railway tracks.”

It had closed classrooms at the local primary school, “so I started lobbying council about it, started a campaign and went to see the Mayor. I'd never done anything like that before. I was invited into the office, and Ros Irwin sat and listened to me and asked me some questions.”

From there, the council took action to find out what was happening: “I went to the council chambers to see the report. I hadn't been to a council meeting before. And I sat there in the public gallery—it's all very formal and official.

“The first item on the agenda was horse manure. I realised I sat in between the horse people, and the neighbours who didn't like the flies. The whole thing just went off, and they started yelling at each other.

“I thought, oh, my God, every Tuesday night, I am coming here! I just got hooked. I started coming to all the meetings and getting to know all the issues and all the personalities in the room. 

“I realised that council has a big impact on our daily life and it really contributes to the liveability of a place.”

(Tree planting on the banks of the river in Lismore)

Vanessa has always been involved in tree planting at the river, and at that time, there was no support from council, other than an occasional thank you. So Vanessa “set up an environment committee and identified environmental issues that needed a budget.” 

There were a couple of other aspects of the way councillors acted at that time, that spurred action from Vanessa.

“When I was first observing the Council, there were only a couple of women; the others were all mostly men in their 70s and 80s. Some of them would sleep at the table, one fellow used to read the paper, while the council meeting was on. It was shocking. 

“They'd be presented with petitions, thousands of people asking them to keep the lake for the birds. They put motorboats back on it. And they just ignored the representation from the community.”

These instances compelled Vanessa to run for council, and Cr Ekins was voted in.

“I'm really interested in infrastructure. I've got a genuine interest in how things work.”

 Waste, water, roads and place. Cr Ekins has seen good and not-so-good in waste.

“Our waste management is incredible. Over 20 years ago, our staff went and pulled the wheelie bins apart to analyse what went into them. They worked out that 70% of the waste in a wheelie bin was organic matter. 

“Concerned about the longevity of the tip, we decided to introduce a three-bin system. That was revolutionary. No one else had done it. It's mandatory now across the state. But we did that over 20 years ago. It was ground breaking at the time.

(With Janelle Saffin lobbying for and getting $20 million)

“However, more recently, our council has decided to privatise our waste collection services. Essentially we've ripped a million dollars out of our economy to pay a private company to come and collect our waste bins.

“Council is the major investor in our economy. With $150 million a year investment that we make, we're one of the biggest employers. And the way that works in waste is that we buy our waste trucks from a local business. We'd buy our tyres, $300,000 a year for those trucks, locally. We'd buy our petrol for those trucks from North Coast Petroleum. We would employ the truck drivers. 

‘Now, we've just given all that business to a private company out of town. Now, they don't buy fuel here or trucks here or tyres here. And those people that are employed locally work for less and don't have job security. So we've effectively ripped all that money out of our local economy.”

“And our waste charges have gone up.’

“Our roads are some of the oldest roads in Australia. Our oldest road is the one that goes up past the square, past the hospital and up the hill. It was built for the bullock carts to get from the river to the cedar up there. 

“We've got really old roads, steep slopes, and pug soil that expands and contracts. So it's really expensive for us to maintain our road network. I'm fascinated by all that. 

“One interesting stat came up when we did our traffic study a while ago. Our population is about 45,000 people, and half of those people live in Goonellabah. But every day 35,000 motor vehicles drive into Lismore for work, that almost doubles our population.

“So these commuters come into town every day, and then leave again. It's phenomenal. That impacts our road network. 

“That's one of the reasons why we've got a quarry, because our main business as a Council is to build and maintain roads. I'm very concerned about some of the moves recently to sell the quarry. Why would we sell the quarry which is the main resource that we need for the main work that we do?

“There are some that are saying that private enterprise can do it better than we can. There's no evidence of that happening anywhere in local government. I think it's really important that we own the resources that we use, and we manage those efficiently and effectively with our own staff. So yeah, I just find all those issues really interesting.”

(Site inspection at Rocky Creek Dam with Rous County Council)

In Cr Ekins experience with water, she has seen the Rocky Creek Dam taken out by a lightning strike, “It took three days to get a technician or from the Gold Coast to fix it. I think it's absolutely essential that each home has rainwater tanks on it.”

Cr Ekins speaks highly about the people working at Council, “I really like that we've got local people who work here, care about the city, and want to do good for this place - want this place to thrive, 

“And we're taking on a whole lot of trainees as well, like, I think about 19 Indigenous trainees. We brought that in, in the previous term of council, to bring people on as trainees and hope that they stay with us as they move on through."

On the topic of who we get to fill the myriad of positions vacant in the city, Cr Ekins says, “We need to attract people if we don't have the information base here, and that comes back to the question of housing.  

“I have a really strong interest in town planning matters.”

Cr Ekins appreciates the entertainment and cultural options that she describes are "thriving in Lismore", from punk to poetry, jazz to cello at the con, books written by locals, movies, theatre and galleries to grunge.

“We just went to the launch of the Koori Art Prize. I opened that when I was mayor. It was amazing - Indigenous artists from all around Australia who filled the gallery with artworks. 

“It was really incredible. We're funding that now. I was really proud of that.”

“We are really lucky to have a healthy and large Indigenous population here who are really generous with their stories. And they want to share - they're open with the culture, so we know the names of some of the places around and we know where there are massacre sites and some sacred sites are.”

“The indigenous history here is amazing. This is a major gathering place. The last time they had a big ceremony here in the 1880s, people walked through the town for three days. Tribes from all around gathered at the showground.

“This is a famous gathering space because of all the swamps with delicacies like eels and turtles. This area fed a whole lot of people, which was why it was really popular for ceremonies and gatherings.”

(Cr Ekins at her home)

Another aspect that Cr Ekins has seen develop is Agriculture, “We’ve got such a deep history of agriculture. Agriculture is part of our recent past, and I really think it's part of our future. We’ve got five food markets a week that you can go to and buy fresh produce.”

Turning to where council is at now and Cr Ekins' decision to stand for Mayor, she says, “It's time for some fresh faces in there. I've just been overwhelmed by people saying, We need someone who's community-focused to run for mayor.

“Otherwise, it's just the current mayor and his team, and that's not healthy. We need alternatives there and I thought, well, I've done it before.”

Cr Ekins speaks of Cr Bird’s decision to leave: “Elly Bird’s put a lot of energy in, and she's now very focused on the recovery and preparedness for our community, which is a really important role. Good on her; they're doing good work down there.”

On the current Mayor, Steve Krieg, Cr Ekins says, “He's an affable man, people like him. His team doesn't say much in the chamber, so people don't really know why they're making the decisions they do. I think it's really important in the chamber to express your views.

“They came in at a time when I think the community wanted to change. I'm not sure that's the change the community wanted,” says Cr Ekins.

Steve Krieg easily won the 2021 Local Council Election, receiving 54% of the primary vote. His nearest rival was Vanessa Ekins with nearly 15% of the vote. There is a large gap to overcome. Cr Ekins sees that there is a large part of the population who did not vote for him. "Just 54% of the people voted him in. That's close."

“I know how to do it. I've got the experience, I'm responsible. I'll give our community some choice. I have a lot of hope for this place. It has such a history, and it's got this can-do attitude that I really like.

“I'd really like to see the community more engaged in local government. We love this place, we want it to thrive and how do we know what it needs unless we're out there talking to people.”

(Lismore's three women mayors, Jenny Dowell (2008-2016), Vanessa Ekins (2021), Ros Irwin (1997-1999)

Cr Ekins stresses the importance of diversity at council and the time that councillors give to the matters at hand. With an allowance of $24,000 a year, “It doesn't represent the hours that go in. We'll sit in every Tuesday night for briefings and workshops, reading a business paper, 800-page documents can take days to read, and you've got to do the follow-up calls. 

“I'm on six committees, so you've got committee meetings that you prep for. And then there's all the interactions with the public.”

Asking Cr Ekins about the short to medium needs for Lismore, and she said, “Medium density master-planned housing up on the plateau. So that we've got affordable housing for people, for key workers - that is absolutely number one."

Vanessa Ekins is a High School Teacher, and is studying filmmaking at TAFE.

“And I still love getting my hands dirty on the riverbank planting trees and watching the water go by.“

Vanessa is not running for a councillor position at this year's Local Council Election.