Hervey Bay Gossip

Jim MacKellar ponders the meaning behind the words the Mayor used in  comments to the Fraser Coast Chronicle last month.

I have finally had time to fully digest the Mayor’s comments in the paper (FCC 20JAN10) and I find them much more disturbing the more they are understood.

The first half of the article has the Mayor describing a consistent and worrying interference in the free flow of information to the Councillors. He even mentions the possible negative effects this interference may be having (most probably is) on the morale of the officers who write the reports. But then he says, “But at this point I am not going to do anything because I’ve got a couple of other problems to take care of first”. Which raises a couple of concerns. Firstly, can the Mayor only deal with one issue at a time? If this is so it is no wonder that he is not being pro-active in his role. He is far too busy trying to catch up.

Secondly, is the issue of priorities. A Council makes decisions giving primary consideration to the information presented to it by the qualified staff. If there is consistent interference in the flow of information, with the intent of influencing the decisions made, all the Councillors should be gravely concerned. Any interference with the integrity of the reports must have an end effect on the integrity of the decisions Council is making.

Thus the Mayor is saying that he has a couple of other problems that are of greater importance than ensuring the integrity of the decision making process. How drastic must these problems be?

“What I really want to do is get the Councillors motivated,”  the Mayor then goes on to say. Get the Councillors motivated? The inference is that we have a Council made up of elected members who are not motivated. Is it the Mayor’s job to motivate the Councillors? I think not. The paid staff may need to be motivated during difficult times but Councillors should come as a fully motivated package from day 1 to day stop.

These are not teenagers or members of the local footy team. They are well paid representatives of the people who put themselves forward for the position with a full understanding of all it entails. Everyone of them was an experienced Councillor when they stood for election.

The only possible reasonable excuse for lack of motivation is that they realize that they have been almost totally sidelined by the executive and have become only figureheads of Council to rubber stamp the executives decisions. If this is the case then they need to get together as a team and fix the problem, because they are the only people who can fix it. The solution lies in their hands, do they have the courage to grasp it?

The forecast this morning for Hervey Bay included a high tide of 4.29 metres that was set to peak at Urangan Pier 0929hrs … and it was indeed a very high tide that attracted a lot of onlookers .

This is the view from the access gate at Shelly Bay right at 9.29am

An hour later at Toogoom the water was receding but you can see from the pile of leaves that it had reached the top of the boat ramp.

At its highest the water level must have got fairly close to the top of the rock wall to the north of the boat ramp too.

The water level was well up along the Burrum Heads Road and the road into Toogoom as well.

90 minutes after high tide there still wasn’t much of the beach visible down at Dundowran Beach either.

Kingfisher Bay’s plans to cease operating a fast Cat service to Fraser Island comes to a head today with the very last fast service departing from Urangan at 10pm tonight.

From tomorrow morning it’s the slow boat (barge) to Fraser Island and it will leave from River Heads. While the resort’s general manager for tours and marine … David Hay … is quoted as saying that operating from River Heads is “… very convenient” it may be less so for people from Hervey Bay who may wish to travel over to the resort just for the day.

Self-assessment is always fraught with danger so I’m sure that many of us who saw what our representatives on the Fraser Coast Regional Council thought of themselves a few weeks back was almost funny.

If you missed it, most of our esteemed councillors thought that they were doing an absolutely wonderful job and gave themselves an A or 10 out of 10 for the effort they were putting into the Council. They were so happy with themselves that I bet they all thought that they deserved a raise.

But now we’re discovering that if that’s their best effort then it just isn’t good enough because we’re sinking into a very deep financial mess. It seems the Council budgeted for receipts of around $7.7 million from developers … after all the Council knew that every developer and his dog wanted to build something in Hervey Bay.

Unfortunately … while they might have wanted to build something in Hervey Bay … they weren’t prepared to pay the sort of money that the Fraser Coast Regional Council expected so they didn’t. Instead they stopped their developments and went off to places where Councils didn’t want to kill the goose that layed the golden egg.

So now … instead of sitting on a cash pile worth $7.7 million dollars … the Council has only received $300,000 and that means that we could be broke and the Council is running around looking for excuses … almagamation costs is a good one to trot out at times like this and that’s what Mick did today in the Chronicle. But I’m not quite sure what amalgamation costs have got to do with developers fees so maybe there’ll be some more excuses coming in the next few days.

I wonder what those report cards would have looked like if they had been written by someone who really knew what was going on inside Council. How much longer are we stuck with this lot?

When we first moved to Hervey Bay in 2003 we were told that the extensions to Centro Hervey Bay were “coming soon” and seven years later the extensions still haven’t been started.

Obviously some of that delay has been caused by the developers … there was a financial hiccup back around the time the global financial crisis looming but that’s been overcome and the developers are now eager to start. But now the Fraser Coast Regional Council wants to fiddle … they want more money from the developers … another $3 million according to today’s Chronicle … and quite understandably the developers have had enough.

While Hervey Bay cries out for jobs the Council wants someone who can provide those jobs to cough up $1.1 million for a public art levy and another million dollars for roads that already exist.

Nero is said to have fiddled while Rome burned and now it seems that the Fraser Coast Regional Council wants to emulate him while Hervey Bay goes down the drain.

Jim Mackellar takes a look at the Fraser Coast Regional Council and suggests that they’re doing the best they can … but is their best really good enough?

Despite the rising tide of criticism concerning the performance of our Fraser Coast Regional Council, we should not consider this as a failure of effort by our incumbent Councillors.

Don’t be too harsh on the Councillors. They are doing the best that they can. It is just that the job at hand is beyond the knowledge and skills of most of them. But despite this most are still putting in their best efforts to achieve good outcomes for the region. But they are not attaining these outcomes.

Evidence of their endeavour can been seen in many fields of Council activity, but so also may evidence of their limitations be seen in the outcomes being achieved. Lets look at some examples.

Capital Works.
In the face of the Global Financial Crises the Council, last financial year, put in place a capital works program of over $70million to provide a much needed stimulus to the local economy. However at the end of the financial year they had managed to complete only about 66% of their planned projects. Over $20million worth of projects had to be carried forward. In many areas less capital works was achieved than by the previous administrations.

This failure was blamed on the inability of Council staff to get projects out to tender and to obtain suitable tenders when they were called for. So, to remedy the situation, the created a new executive position (with new executive salary costs) of Director Capital Delivery, whose role is to expedite the process of completing capitol projects.

Result? So far this year Council is already over $6million  behind in its capital project deliveries. And most of these projects are much needed by the community and every delay means that we fall that much further behind in providing the infrastructure needed by the people of the region. No change in approach, just more of the same.

Economic Development.
In times of economic hardship across the region this is a very important sphere of Council activity. And we have seen much of this activity. We have had studies done, working groups formed to study the issue and finally a standing committee of the Council and community stakeholders formed. And what has been achieved?

The backbone of the economy of any region is small and micro business. The mum and dad local business people who provide the basic services to the community. And how do they find dealing with the Council when they wish to expand to create more employment and economic activity? Very, very difficult because the Council is geared for dealing with the big applicants and applies the same process to the small as to the large.

Thus we still have a stagnant economy with falling employment while we continue to look for the single ‘silver bullet’ large investor while neglecting those who are the very foundation of our economic wellbeing. Once again still trying the same means to achieve a different outcome.

Marketing and Tourism.
Well that sign says it all. Great idea, shocking execution. Only three small problems. It does not welcome our visitors, it merely informs them that they have reached the vicinity of Hervey Bay. It cost an absolute fortune and then our Council, in their great wisdom, locate it in a position where it is invisible until one is almost on top of it. One would think that they were actually ashamed of the sign and tried to hide it behind the trees in the hope we would not notice it.

And so the list goes on. They are trying, there is much activity, much money being spent, but are we going forward or backwards?

Remember back to the days just before concil amalgamation?

That was the time when the good people of Maryborough were complaining that they would have to carry the people of Hervey Bay because Hervey Bay had such high debt levels … and Maryborogh council knew that Hervey Bay had high debt levels because the Hervey Bay Council didn’t try to hide that information.

Well now it seems that it’s not the good people of Maryborough who are going to have to carry the Hervey Bay community … instead it’s us, the people of Tiaro Shire and the people of the old Woocoo Shire who are going to have to chip in to support Maryborough and their failing sewerage and water system.

It seems that these were problems that the Maryborough Council knew about well before amalgamation but decided not to tell anyone about.

Of course now there are some questions that we’d all like answers to … questions that are asked over on Strewth is Back … questions that are probably way too hard for anyone from the old Maryborough Council to answer.

Hervey Bay can expect some very high tides over the next few days and this morning’s peak at Urangan  at 9am was set for 4.15 metres.

At around 7.15 this morning an onshore breeze was already pushing spray over the seawall at Urangan and this was the view from the pier at Torquay. There is a beach somewhere under all that water.

Hervey Bay is seeing a real return to the great holiday times back before the recession. Drive along the Esplanade and you will see ‘no vacancy’ signs up at quite a few of the holiday apartments … the caravan parks are packed … and there are people everywhere.

In the shopping areas and along Boat Harbour Drive the traffic is like nothing we’ve ever seen before in Hervey Bay.

Let’s hope these great times continue on through January.

We’ve had so much rain in Hervey Bay this afternoon - currently 33mm at Hervey Bay airport - that there has been minor flooding in various parts of town. In several places along the Esplanade water is covering half the road and the police have closed the Esplanade between Frank St and Denmans Camp Road due to water covering the entire road.

Despite the fact that the tide in the Bay is currently low the water does not seem to be draining away.

Tooan Tooan Creek is running a banker but it has cut through the sand that blocks the mouth at low tide and it is draining but elsewhere the stormwater drains seem to be unable to cope.

I wonder how the people in the poorly drained area in Wondunna have coped this time … did the council finally fix the problem?