Dozens of Rockingham residents to attend Special Electors Meeting to discuss FOGO, bin collections

Dozens of City of Rockingham residents are expected to attend a Special Electors Meeting tonight to vote on a series of motions including the reinstatement of red-lidded bin collections and an audit of the FOGO system.

The meeting, triggered by a petition of 440 local electors, will discuss five motions including reinstating weekly red-lidded bin collection, an independent audit of the FOGO waste system, establishing a public transparency register for lobbyists and developers, implementing a mandatory Ratepayer Impact Statement for capital projects over $500,000 and creating a public accountability dashboard for tracking questions taken "on notice."

Lead petitioner Jarrad Krollig said it is important that residents have their say.

"Ultimately, we want (weekly) red bins (collections) back...if we can't do that we want an audit of the FOGO system and we also just in general want a more transparent council," Mr Krolliq told West Coast Radio.

"There's been a lot of stuff that's happened lately that has swayed people's trust in the council and we want to try and bring that back up to where the local government serves the people, not the other way around."

Mr Krollig said although he understands the frustration of some residents, he is asking them to be respectful at tonight's meeting.

"Come tonight, say what you have to say, emotion is good, but we don't want to cross a line," he said.

"We want to keep some etiquette in the room so we don't get shut down, because if we get shut down then we won't get to vote and all of this was for nothing.

City of Rockingham Mayor Lorna Buchan said to reintroduce weekly red bin collections would be extremely costly to ratepayers.

"Electors should be aware that if we reintroduce weekly red bin collection across the board, that would come at quite a significant and ongoing cost to all ratepayers," she told West Coast Radio.

"If we reinstate the service, that's an additional $2.5 million every year, however we would need to spend a little bit of money setting ourselves up again to go back to weekly and that would mean in the first year we'd need to be spending approximately $5 million."

Mayor Buchan said it could take over a year to reinstate the weekly service due to a shortage of rubbish trucks.

"Currently there's a wait time of about 12 to 18 months for those," she said.

"We are currently on track with FOGO, we are diverting 12,500 tonnes from our landfill and our contamination rates are low so people of Rockingham are doing the right thing and getting on with the job."

Council last week voted in favour of reducing a second red bin to $80.70 for large families instead of the original concession of $128.

They also reduced the number of eligible household members from seven or more to five or more.

"We are listening to the community and we are responding, but unfortunately rubbish is a big issue and it costs us a lot of money to be able to service 57,000 homes," Mayor Buchan said.

The Special Electors Meeting will be held at 6pm on May 4 at the Gary Holland Community Centre.

Doors open at 5pm and electors must present identification.

Any motions passed at the electors meeting will be considered and voted on by councillors at the next Ordinary Council Meeting.

In February this year, a motion to reinstate the weekly red bin collection was defeated with five councillors voting in favour and five against.

The 50/50 split forced Mayor Lorna Buchan to use her casting vote, deciding against the motion.