City of Frankston
The City of Frankston is a Local Government Area in Victoria, Australia. It is located in the southern suburbs of Melbourne. It has an area of 131 square kilometres. In 2001 it had a population of 113,000.
The City is located on the eastern shores of Port Phillip. It consists of the flatter north and eastern Frankston, and the wealthier and hillier granite uplands of Frankston South to the south. The civic centre has grown rapidly in the 80's and 90's and now contains several interlocking malls and department stores sprawling over the CBD.
The City is bounded on the north by the City of Kingston and the City of Greater Dandenong, on the east by the City of Casey, and on the south by the Shire of Mornington Peninsula. The boundaries of the City are defined largely on the north by the Eel Race Drain and Thompsons Road, on the east by the Dandenong-Hastings Road, and on the south by a complex boundary featuring Baxter-Tooradin Road, Golf Links Road and Humphries Road.
An aging population in older areas near the centre is balanced by several new housing estates on the fringes and eastern margins of the city.
Frankston Pier is one of the more prominent landmarks, and the summer weekends will find young children dive-bombing off it, in contravention of local by-laws.
History
The City of Frankston was originally the Shire of Frankston & Hastings. The Hastings was split-off later. As part of the Kennett Government's program of municipal consolidation, in 1994 the municipality's boundaries were extended in the east to take over parts of Skye and Langwarrin from the abolished City of Cranbourne (now part of the City of Casey . However in the south the municipality lost the suburb of Mount Eliza to the newly created Shire of Mornington Peninsula.
Sister City
In 1982, the City of Frankston established a sister city relationship with Susono, in Shizuoka, Japan.
Wards
Rate-payers in the municipality are represented by elected city councillors. In the 2005 elections, held on 26 November 2005, the single-councillor wards were replaced with three, multi-councillor wards. These wards are known as North-West Ward (covering mostly Seaford, Frankston North and parts of Frankston, South-West Ward (covering the southern parts of Frankston and Frankston South) and East Ward (covering Langwarrin and Carrum Downs). Voting is compulsory and conducted by postal ballot, and is based on a preferential voting system.
Councillors
At the 2005 elections, voters selected for the North-West Ward: Vicki McClelland, Mark Conroy, and Glenn Aitken. In the South-West Ward the successful councillors were: Suzette Trewhitt, Judy Wachendorfer, Alistair Wardle. In the East the councillors elected were: Cathy Wilson, Colin Hampton and Bill McCluskey.
At the end of November 2005, Vicki McClelland from Frankston North was unanimously elected mayor by her fellow councillors for a two-year term.