Who’s our next mayor?

John Neve writes:

It appears our mayor has failed to obey orders! So
who’s our next mayor?

To get the answer to this question you would have to
ask our leaders of commerce, but I’ll hazard a guess.

Contenders – Barbara Hovard, Les MucKan, Anne Nioa
and David Dalgleish, in that order.

All four are already putting in the groundwork, poor old
Mick.
Barbara, has past experience, an old world net-
work and a experienced adviser.
Les, got the largest male vote at the last election, has
‘family’ network and in our darkest hour can always give
the people a laugh.
Anne, experienced in propaganda, good at self promotion,
knows who to work the right bases (nothing like a plea for
help), gets the sympathy vote every time.
Which leaves us with David, don’t count David out, Oh no.
David can switch sides at the drop of a hat and has the
history to prove it. One Nation, City Country Alliance,
possibly the LNP and I might have missed a few!

The machinations of the Machiavellian four should make for
some interesting reading over the next few months.

John A Neve

Courier Mail Dam Poll

Roger Currie alerted us to the following:

The CourierMail is running an on-line opinion poll on yesterday’s water events – the delay in the Traveston Crossing proposal and a rethink on recycling. I reckon the government will be watching this poll and it would be worthwhile for people to take half a minute and contribute to it.

http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=1105410

Pass this around to your network of contacts.

Big Bligh Backdown

Well hip hip hooray.. great news today – Anna Bligh and her merry band of blunderers have decided to back down on one of the most controversial projects in this state’s history.

Well done to all those who have spent the last 2 years fighting this project!

We expect better.

Comments on this site and others regarding “lack of community consultation” or advice on the “use of Hervey Bay airport” have just shown us how small minded some in our community really are. Funnily enough, one of the men who our predecessor accused time and again of being in bed with council actually came out in the local on Saturday to condemn the council for losing the Flight Training School. And so he should have – we do not want this region to gain the reputation for being anti-business, anti-progress and anti-development. In tough economic times, the last thing new businesses need is a council who stuffs them around and wastes not only their time but also valuable development funds that could be spend on creating jobs elsewhere.

Maryborough City Council did a hell of a lot of ground work in attracting this business. This included ensuring the new school would be operated in a manner that would have minimal impact on the surrounding community while providing a sound return to the council.

Now here is the fun part. For all you out there who think Maryborough’s council could or should have done more, consider this: The development application for the Flight Training School was lodged at a time when amalgamations had just been forced upon us by the state government.

What this meant was that councils were immediately put in caretaker mode and as such could no longer progress any of their existing projects or development applications.

Following amalgamations, Fraser Coast Regional Council has done nothing more than stuff them around and make things difficult. There are vested interests within council who do not wish this to proceed and from what we can tell, purely personal / parochial reasons. (We aren’t happy and are at the verge of letting it all spill!)

If the Fraser Coast is to move ahead we need all councilors with the “Us and Them” complex to resign immediately and likewise any council manager who is pushing his or her own agenda.

The Fraser Coast is going to suffer as a result of this disapppointing event and the comments made in Thursday’s Chronicle by Mayor Kruger (“They’ll get over it”) show his contempt for Maryborough’s councilors and his lack of leadership.

This council should hang its head in shame and over the Christmas break take a long hard look at its self and then perhaps a cold shower.. and come back and get on with governing for the whole community and not just Hervey Bay. Either that or lets call on the state government to sack the lot of them and we’ll start again.

Gone!

Well it was no surprise to hear today that FTQ has withdrawn its application to build a new flight training school in Maryborough.

We hope the noisy minority in the community who opposed the facility are happy now..

Before we get too many evil responses, ask yourself, did we actually give FTQ a chance to present their side of the picture? And who are the ones opposed to the facility? One councilor who was rather vocal in her opposition to the school apparently owns investment properties in the immediate vicinity of the Maryborough airport – a conflict of interest perhaps?

With the flight school dead in the water maybe council should look at closing Maryborough’s airport and developing it into cheap residential allotments.. it would be rather cheap – the airport backs onto Maryborough’s aging and smelly sewerage plant!

What could we have?

From Ninemsn:

“PM asks councils to spend $300m in 2009″

PM Kevin Rudd says the $300m in new money for local governments must be spent by next September.

More than 400 local mayors and shire presidents left Canberra with a Christmas present of a one-off funding grant and newfound respect from the federal government after a two-day summit.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared the inaugural meeting of the Australian Council of Local Government had gone off without “the faintest whiff of party politics”.

The leaders representing 565 local council areas met nearly every federal cabinet minister to discuss problems facing local government which directly employs 168,000 people to provide billions of dollars in services.

Mr Rudd announced $250 million in one-off grants to be spent on new community infrastructure projects such as libraries, parks, playgrounds and other community facilities by the end of September 2009.

Brisbane City Council received the largest grant of nearly $2.9 million while 195 local councils with populations of less than 5,000 people each received a grant of $100,000.

Councils will also have the chance to bid for larger funding amounts – starting from $2 million – from a $50 million fund reserved for larger projects.

Here is an opportunity for our council to grab a slice of pie, create a few jobs in the process and kick off a fresh project that will benefit the entire community.. suggestions anyone??

Water, water everywhere

Graham writes:

Today (17th November 2008) on my travels I happened to travel along Cypress St. It had been raining most of the day, and was still raining as I went through the 3 round-a-bouts on that road. One of these 3 round-a-bouts had the sprinklers on to water the plants in the middle and about 100m away was a Wide Bay Water truck.

Shouldn’t Wide Bay Water (with its slogan “Every Drop Counts”) be more water wise? They impose restrictions on us over the warmer months to how we can use water and how we can recycle water, but they are giving the plants an unnecessary double dose. Half the water from these sprinklers wasn’t even landing on the plants but on the road nearby.

BBS: Maybe council needs to look into automatic sprinkler systems with moisture sensors to prevent activation on wet days?

A worthy exercise or just another talk fest?

We’ve been intrigued to hear of yet another ‘focus’ group for the Fraser Coast.  Broadly titled, “Committee for Fraser Coast” the group describes itself as “a private, not-for-profit member network of local leaders focussed on encouraging a competitive and innovative business culture and enhancing the Fraser Coast’s liveability.”

An interesting concept and if they can pull it off we might see some action but will it just be another committee sitting around expelling a heap of hot air?  It seems on the Fraser Coast we have committees for this, that and the other yet we still seem to be dragging our feet in terms of attracting new opportunities, infrastructure upgrades and jobs to our area.

Amalgamation has been absolutely disastrous for our region.  We believe that part of the problem is our council which appears to be fractured from top to bottom, unable to work together to bring results in a timely and appropriate manner.

As previously suggested, we strongly feel it is time Mayor Mick and Andrew Brien bash heads and get to the source of the problem. Council managers and employees might be ‘protected’ by law for three years however we feel they still must be held accountable and must perform the tasks they are employed to do – and peacefully

Only as good as the hand that feeds them

A conversation earlier this week got us thinking.

With all the fuss surrounding the dingo fences on Fraser Island, the search for imaginary crocs on the Fraser Coast and the fatal relocation of a croc in north Queensland, we ask who is at fault.

While the buck stops with the minister, Andrew McNamara is only as good as the people in his department.  Which then made us wonder.. with all the crazy decisions coming out of government departments at all levels, maybe its time for a thorough clean out.  Maybe it is time for all governments (and quite possibly many big businesses) to grab the broom as sweep out some of the rot. 

How many bureaucrats have warmed seats for too long – so long in fact that they have completely lost touch with the broader community, reality and commonsense itself?  Sadly, we feel the answer is too many of them.

Closer to home, perhaps councils need to consider a rather active replacement program for their ‘dead wood’ – those department managers who fail time and again to make a positive impact on the team, the council and the community they are supposed to serve.  We need a team of positive players who are all working in a common direction to enhance the entire region and not just self-serve or keep putting issues in the too hard basket.

Weekend Mail

It appears our local newspaper, or at least the editor and the state member for Maryborough, have taken up the case of the controversial Flight Training Centre destined for the old Maryborough Airport. Whilst their zeal to inject some life into the local economy is admirable, the Fraser Coast Regional Council needs to look very carefully at this project. Apart from the potential noise problems, a need to do something with this “white elephant” and the projected $20 million plus which we are told will flow into the local economy, one has to ask if the previous Maryborough City Council and now the Fraser Coast Regional Council have carried out any cost-benefit analysis or prepared any Business Plan for the project.

Before a decision is made we need to know how much of the ratepayers money the council is going to spend to get the school here and operating, and what the deal is likely to cost in the future. One only has to look at some of previous entrepreneurial activities of both Maryborough and Hervey Bay Councils to see the disastrous business ventures which we, the ratepayers have subsidised. In Hervey Bay there is Widelinx, the Hervey Bay Airport Industrial Estate, the defunct Registered Training Organisation, to name a few. All of these ventures can in no way be considered to be great success stories. In Maryborough we had the ill fated REX project which cost the ratepayers dearly, whilst the water supply, sewerage system and swimming pool were so obviously falling apart.
 

Although they need to have some involvement in the economic, educational, health and tourist development of the region, the Fraser Coast Regional Council’s priorities should be to manage the ratepayer’s money to provide excellent services with regards to roads, water, sewerage, rubbish, etc., while facilitating sensible environmentally responsible growth for the region. We do, after all, have a number of very well funded state and federal government organisations with the relevant expertise whose functions are to promote and facilitate economic and tourism development.

The Observer