Firstly, a huge congratulations to my fellow Councillor Rob Gersch and also to Kevin Bye for receiving the OAM as part of the recent Kings Birthday awards. I would rate this as the highest achievement the average person in the street can receive, and it is a credit to your service to your community over many years.
We recently received the results of our community satisfaction surveys. It was alarming to still be getting so many people saying we need to consult the community. We have run eight of these such meetings in the last three months, and the attendance has been extremely low (in some cases three and four people). We also run a have your say page on our council webpage, have councillors to approach, have a very informative fortnightly e-newsletter and staff members within Council are also very willing to chat about your concerns. Yet we still continue to see a pattern where the community believe they don’t get a chance or believe they aren’t heard.
It was pleasing to see our hardworking staff on the front line in reception get praise and many positive comments for their manner and customer service - Well done.
Since I have been writing this column, I have endeavoured to share figures and statistics of interest to keep everybody as best informed as I can, and I will continue to do so.
In happenings around the Shire, the Rainbow Lake was recently stocked with fish, the Wimmera Mallee Pioneer Museum rally was a great success and enjoyed by many, Lake Hindmarsh is continuing to take on water and appears to be a bit higher than the best level achieved last winter, and we are celebrating NAIDOC week.
Cr Brett Ireland
Mayor
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