City of Albany, Western Australia, will conduct Council meetings from Albany Town Hall during May in a nostalgic move to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Albany as an independent Local Government.
Albany was among the first local government areas established outside Perth and has had 465 residents serve as elected members on the municipality’s councils over that time.
In recognition of the role they have played in the development of Albany, all surviving elected members were invited to the Ordinary Council Meeting in the Town Hall on 25 May, which included a performance by the City of Albany Band and a small civic reception.
The Town Hall’s upstairs gallery was transformed into a temporary Council Chamber and also hosted Council’s committee meetings on May 11 and 12.
Albany Mayor, Dennis Wellington said the anniversary marked 150 years of important decisions that had advanced the City to the thriving, regional community it is today.
“There have been a lot of decisions made within Council Chambers that have had a huge influence on where we are today, like merging the Town and Shire of Albany to form a City back in 1998 and even the decision to build the Town Hall in the first place.
“We have been fortunate enough to have a brilliant cohort of mayors and elected members through the Council Chamber and it is a great exercise to invite them all back to Albany to be part of the 150-year anniversary and acknowledge the history that they were very much involved in.”
Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Sharpe, said, “The Town Hall played host to many Council meetings of yesteryear, so it’s the perfect opportunity to recreate a chamber and acknowledge this important anniversary of Albany as a local government with our community.”
The City also made the temporary Town Hall chamber available to schools to run self-guided mock council meetings to learn more about how a Council works.
