As the October 15 lord mayoral elections near, Lisa Scaffidi is hoping for a second term as Perth’s first female lord mayor.
PERTH born and raised, Lisa Scaffidi never contemplated that she would one day become the lord mayor of the City of Perth.
“It wasn’t planned and it wasn’t like I said that I wanted to be lord mayor one day. But as I look back, a lot of my jobs in the past have allowed me to develop the interpersonal skills necessary to take on this role,” Ms Scaffidi told WA Business News.
Ms Scaffidi worked in the hotel and hospitality industry, in corporate sales, and as a dental therapist before making her move into local government.
“I worked as a dental therapist for a while but realised pretty quickly that when I had my hands in people’s mouths I couldn’t really get a good two-way dialogue happening, so I moved out of that,” Ms Scaffidi joked.
It was her interest in emerging issues in Western Australia that led her to become the state director of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia and a councillor of the City of Perth in 2000.
“I’ve had a close association with the Perth fabric for most of my life and when I got onto the Perth City council I realised that urban renewal was something that I was truly interested in,” she says.
When three-term former lord mayor Peter Nattrass stepped down in 2007, Ms Scaffidi decided to run for the position against deputy lord mayor Michael Sutherland, entertainer Max Kay, former stockbroker Neil McKinnon and pensioner Bill Bradbury.
“I almost didn’t run for it because Peter Nattrass had kind of thrown his weight behind Max,” Ms Scaffidi says.
“But then I thought I had as good a chance as anyone else and I had very deeply passionate views that I felt were perhaps in some respects, a lot stronger than some of those other candidates.”
After outpolling Michael Sutherland 2,622 votes to 2,190 in the October 2007 election, Ms Scaffidi put her pro-development vision for Perth into play, focusing largely on infrastructure renewal.
At that time, she says, the council had to demonstrate to the people of Perth that it was serious about creating an updated face for the city, to match the dialogue that was occurring.
“I think that we as a city organisation, we’re sitting on a lot of surplus accumulated funds and I don’t believe people pay their rates for us to be holding that money in big bank accounts,” Ms Scaffidi says.
The people of Perth are calling for more bars, more inner-city residential areas and for streets to be more inviting at night, she says.
“Through the growth of small bars that we have been encouraging and the enhanced developments that have concurrently occurred, we’ve been able to deliver that.
“And fortunately for me during my term, we have had the announcement of the Link and the Perth Waterfront project, so the next four years will allow the City of Perth to consolidate that vision.”
Other than spend money on infrastructure, many may wonder what the lord mayor does on a daily basis.
“It’s a varied role, from officially opening new buildings and cutting the proverbial ribbon to looking at long-term strategic goals and correlating those to budgets,” Ms Scaffidi says.
Keeping the people of Perth informed about development projects is most important, she believes.
“I don’t think you’ve ever seen as much development happening concurrently as you’ve got happening right now,” Ms Scaffidi says.
“At the top of my agenda is getting a vision and a strategy prepared to ensure we help people understand the immense amount of infrastructure that’s going to be happening around Perth and to help people understand the greater vision for these works.”
And Ms Scaffidi is quick to defend the city’s image against claims Perth is a ‘dullsville’.
“I think that the saying is dead, any one night in Perth you can be going to several events, shows, parties and people who use that word are not connected, not trying and are hermits,” she says.
But it hasn’t always been a dream run for Ms Scaffidi; if re-elected there are a couple of things she says will be done differently.
“We have learned that you have to inform people well and maybe not do as much at once,” Ms Scaffidi says.
“To have done the St Georges Terrace and Wellington Street works at the same time was probably a little too much, but we have learned from that, so we will just slow down the phasing a fraction.”
Even though Ms Scaffidi has indicated she will run for a second term, she has no expectations about the result.
“I believe that it’s the right of the electorate to say whether they want me again in the role, so I don’t take it for granted or presume anything and I will be working very hard,” she says.
However, she says she has gone out of her way to make herself accessible to the public.
“You need to be seen as friendly and welcoming because to me, this job is a PR job,” Ms Scaffidi says.
“Hopefully in my first term people have gotten to know who I am, they know I’m a Perth girl, that I love my city, that I’m out there doing the best I can and then based on that, they might say ‘yep, we’ll give her another term’.”
