Its not every day we get multiple email from contacts over any particular subject. Friday was an exception however, it seems there has been some major shake-ups within council in the past few weeks and not everyone is happy.
We’ll print the emails we received as written. In private correspondence with one contributor, the individual has highlighted a concern with one of the Executive Directors.. that person’s concerns have been renewed by recent incidents and this is their response:
Hey BBS
Long time no talk.
Remember my previous concerns regarding one **** ******* and staff? At the time it was the HR manager who stood up to *** got marched out the door. Regardless of what we think of WBW they were smart enough to grab her.
Now ******* has marched several more out the door. Including Gary Baills the main finance officer and Darren Bell one of the good engineers. Not sure how much *** had to do directly with Darren Bell’s departure but *** is Baills’s direct superior. Bell had been there 10 years or so doing a very good job and one of the few engineers with good people skills. Baills was there 30 years or so, tireless worker, always did heaps of overtime for nothing, very pleasant, honest as the day you were born. Not sure who the others are yet.
Most of this happened a week or so ago. I am surprised there has been no news.
******* has been riding others hard. It is now widely believed that *** is trying to get rid of everyone who knows anything so that *** can be king of the playground. The CEO just hides in his office.
Cheers
*****
Same contributor emailed us back later with the following:
Found out a bit more. The 2 others appear to be **** **** a manager in the community services area. A nice person apparently but not a high achiever, and the other one is the manager[?] of the Brolga. Don’t know a lot about that one.
To be fair, if amalgamation was to bring efficiencies then restructures and redundancies are necessary. I was critical of the 22 odd managers on the original corporate structure as being excessive and “jobs for the boys”. My main concern is losing a couple of the BEST!
Cheers
******
And then we had this from another occasional contributor:
“In recent weeks 4 executive managers at FCRC have been paid out considerable moneys to resign or are being pressured to resign. Rumour has it that these managers have been raising concerns about the decisions being made by the CEO and Directors.
These managers were in the areas of engineering, finance and human resources.
Apparently a Councillor raised the matter with the CEO who promptly told the Councillor to butt out of operational matters. Looks very much like the CEO is keeping Councillors in the dark about the state of the organisation.
Apparently there are also power struggles occurring at the CEO and Director level for control of the organisation. Watch out for more so called resignations to come.”
BBS: This situation, if true, is absolutely disgusting to say the least. As our first contributor reminds us, amalgamation was aimed at creating efficiencies – some of these were undoubtedly going to come from redundancies / forced resignations / restructuring of departments etc. Whilst every organisation will have its people coming and going as a natural progression, it seems in this case individuals are being bullied to go.
Again, we’ve heard similar stories in outside divisions also – and before the usual suspects come back and use the old “if this is true why aren’t they going to the unions or.. “ We don’t want to hear excuses – we just want our councillors to ask the difficult questions and demand answers and change.
As the local rag discretely hinted on Saturday, council is also drastically failing the region in regards to Economic Development.
We were not surprised to read that council has gone from 5 officers (based on what the 4 previous councils had) down to just one. Now Andrew Jackson does a fantastic job but it is very unrealistic of council to expect him to be able to keep existing opportunities alive, let alone attract new ones to the region.
Maybe our councillors can consider requesting the CEO allocates more staff to Economic Development in the next budget. Otherwise, its expensive exercise in contracting in a former CEO’s company will be a waste of money. No good coming up with great ideas if you can not implement them now is there?
As always the common people (that’s us), never get the
full story. But if much or most of the above is true?
It’s been a long time coming, as an outsider and I’m
one, it has been obvious that the region is racked
with parochialism and that many council appointments
have been incestuous. Such appointments are not good
for any business, what is required is a diversity of
ideas.
Based on personal contact one or two of those mentioned I believe were good value. But then I did not work with them all day. Also, sadly sometimes good people get lost in the turmoil.
We had a good CEO from outside, who had been down this path before. I believe he saw the light, but when he tried to correct the situation our ex mayor
got rid of him. Council has now hired the services of the CEO who oversaw the build up to our current situation, as a consultant !!! Oh, woe is us.
This is what happens when the Councillors abrogate their responsibilities as the contollers of the operations of the council and allow the CEO and managers free rein to do as they wish.
And it all starts with the lack of accountability of the executive to the elected Council. Built on the fable that Councillors cannot have direct influence on the daily operations of the organization.
This has been constructed on the misinterpretation of 2 sections of the LGA. The first that states a Councillor cannot give a direction to a member of the staff and the second that states that the CEO is responsible for the operation of the council. These are taken together to mean that Council cannot give the CEO directions as to the daily operations.
In fact it means nothing of the sort. It does mean that an individual Councillor cannot interfere in the operations, and rightly so. But it does not mean that the Council, acting as a properly constituted group, cannot give direction to the CEO as to the proper daily operation of the organization for which they are responsible.
And it is long past time that our present Councillors shouldered their responsibilty and took a long hard look at what is happening inside the FCRC.
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Is it me? Every time I open the Daily Fishwrapper I see an article where Gerard O’Connell is mouthing off some drivel about health and other matters. Yet he never does anything. Why is the Editor pushing his name at us every single day? O’Connell is supposed to be Chairman of a Group called the Fraser Coast Health Focus Group. It does not exist. It never has meetings; it has no executive. No doubt if pressed, O’Connell would name Bates, Foley, Alan Wetton, and perhaps Dr. Cotton as members of the Group. If this individual were on the level, he would be pushing for protests in the street about the failing health system, and the possible closure of the Maryborough Hospital. We certainly need 2 hospitals on the Fraser Coast. We should also have a small one at Tiaro. Did you kown there was a hospital there in times past – 4 beds. It’s now the CWA.
Another one of the Editor’s favourites is Anne Nioa. She’s supposed to have the portfolio for Tourism. How is an alcoholic binge such as the Pub Crawl good for tourists or the residents of Maryborough? Good for the boozers I suppose and the publicans – and the tax office and Treasury.
Richard
A sad thing is the loss of the Brolga manager Mr John Flanagan. That is by hand of the Board which has more than one Councillor on it. I have heard that it does not pay to announce at a Board meeting that you have caught an elected member out lying! Especially when that member is an ex Mayor! Contract not renewed. I wonder why!
The Brolga may be one of the former Maryborough councils achivements (although it was inherited from an earlier council). Over many years I have watched the quality of shows improve under the control of the manager and if there is any truth in what is being said by disgusted citizen that the former mayor has gotten rid of him then it really is a sad region that we are living in. That said, surely the former mayor does not have the only say on the matter?
We’d hardly call the Brolga an ‘Achievement’ but we must say that from all accounts, the quality of performances at the Brolga have considerably improved over the time Mr Flanagan has been at the helm. It is also our understanding this man has helped improved the viability of the facility and it would be a shame if 12 months down the track the Brolga is again going backwards all because of a personality clash.