Ok here’s another fallout from the amalgamation process. REST, a voluntary organisation that funds its community programs from recycling, had a contract with the old Maryborough City Council to run the recycling operations at its rubbish tips. That contract expires at the end of the month. REST sought to have that extended until the new tenders where called but after weeks of talks with councillors, they now face eviction. The recycling centre is its only source of funding and without it REST and the Bazaar Street Community Centre could be forced to fold.
Information from our friends at FraserCoastFreeClarion indicate that the recycling operations are due for tender in seven months time. If this is correct, what will be happening with recyclable items in the meantime? Why couldn’t council organise an interim agreement with REST to continue their work until a proper tendering process can be completed? If you feel strongly about this issue please send an email to the mayor or his councilors.. or even better the whole damn lot of them and tell them loud and clear they need to sort it out. The future is in RECYCLING!
In regard to REST. It would seem that this may be a bit of a trend developing. To put corporate business ahead of community welfare. Remember we elected the board of a big business not representitves of our community.
Also sneaking through almost unnoticed in the agenda of the first ordinary meeting was the recommendation that the rural shires news publications should be closed and incorporated into the quarterly Council news sheet for all residents.
While this may appear reasonable on the surface it is going to greatly disadvantage the community groups and charities in the rural areas. The shire news publications of Tiaro and Woocoo were their principle means of communicationg with the people in the rural areas.
This matter was discussed extensively during the meetings of the LTC and their consensus was that the best future course was to complete the publications of the 2 journals for this financial year and then have a single rural news publication for the region specifically concentrating on the community groups and events of the rural areas.
The Councillor responsible for this report, Anne Nioa, was involved in these dicscussions, but as soon as the elections are over here she is recommending that the rural news publications be combined for one more issue and then closed down altogether.
As was explained to Ms Nioa at the LTC discussions, the small groups that exist in the rural areas are vital to the functioning of their communities. But they do not have the funds and resources, both personal and material, to be able to promote their activities without the assistance of a Council publication delivered to the homes of their areas.
What Council seems to overlook is that these groups perform many functions in their communities that, if they were not there, the Council would be responsible for. And they can be assured that it will cost Council far more to replace these services with the corporate model than it ever will to produce a rural news paper 6 times a year.