Thank you to everyone who has signed this petition so far, I really appreciate it. We now have over 1000 signatures.
How You can Help Further
- Please share the petition if you haven't already, as every signature helps.
- If you have capacity, and especially if you're a Stonnington resident, please do reach out to the 9 Stonnington Councillors. Councillor's contact details are available here:
https://www.stonnington.vic.gov.au/About/About-Council/Mayor-and-Councillors
If you do contact Councillors directly, please do let them know how you feel but also do be constructive. The Councillors care about animals, and most have pets themselves, but they need to hear from our community about how much we value having a no-kill shelter to help justify going back out to tender again rather than just accepting the recommendation going to Monday night's council meeting.
Next Steps
I will be closing the petition on Monday (28/4) in the late afternoon and will be sending it to Stonnington's Mayor Melina Sehr and CEO Dale Dickson directly so it can be tabled at the council meeting that night.
One person has left a comment on this petition expressing concern that this petition is not a valid petition, so I wanted to to reassure everyone that this is a valid petition as per clause 6.3 of City of Stonnington's current petition policy, which allows the CEO to accept e-petitions from reputable online platforms like change.org even if the online platform doen't allow the petition creator to request a signatory's full address. Stonnington has accepted e-petitions since these changes were made.
Members of the public can attend next Monday night's council meeting (held on 28/4/2025 at 7pm at Malvern Town Hall), and it will also be live streamed online here:
https://webcast.stonnington.vic.gov.au
Members of the public can also submit questions or make a statement to Monday night's council meeting that will go on the public record and be addressed at the meeting:
Please do note, though, that due to changes made last year to Council's governance rules, for your submission to be accepted you need to either attend in person or virtually, and can only make a submission in writing if you have a protected characteristic under Victoria's anti-discrimination law that stops you from being able to attend the meeting in person or virtually. This restriction on questions in writing was confirmed by Council Governance Officers earlier this year at a council meeting.