Hervey Bay Gossip

Wednesday is crunch day for Centro for it’s on that day that the company either has to get approval from the banks to extend their debt repayment or go into receivership.

If the banks do give Centro extra time then the company has a chance to sell off a number of the shopping complexes that it lists as assets. Centro Hervey Bay will not be one of them though for ownership of that complex here in town is shared between Centro and another retail investor who apparently holds an option to buy out Centro’s share.

You can read the full story here on the Sydney Morning Herald’s website.

 

I can understand that a car might be part of the employment contract for a senior employee on the Fraser Coast Regional Council.

I can’t understand why Councillors on the same council should be supplied with a car at ratepayers expense. We already pay them a bucket load of cash so why should we also supply a car for them to swan around in?

And I really can’t understand why, when a Councillor is married to a senior employee of Fraser Coast Regional Council … and said employee is off on two years leave … both Councillor and employee should have a council-funded car each.

In these difficult times I’m sure that there are plenty of people in Hervey Bay who are struggling to afford just one car.

You can read the full story of this crazy situation here on the Fraser Coast Free Clarion

The talk over the last few years of renewed coal mining in the Howard and Torbanlea area has been of great interest to many people here in Hervey Bay. Few though would have heard much of the Tiaro Coal Company

The Tiaro Coal Company is an ASX listed company that’s exploring an area of around 2,200 square kilometres that stretches from around Dundathu in the north to south of Gympie and well to the west of the Bruce Highway. You can find a map of the Tiaro Coal tenements by following the link.

A hat tip to Roger Currie’s interesting blog for the link to Tiaro Coal. Interestingly Roger sees that some of these coal tenements may be affected by the Traveston Dam. If the Dam will flood some valuable coal deposits it will be interesting to see what unfolds as the State Government decides whether water is more important than coal.

If you’re coming to Hervey Bay during the current school holidays … or at any time really … then there’s only one place to have breakfast and that’s at Aquavue.

This was the view at 7.30am this morning and it really is about as good as it gets here in Hervey Bay.

The Yad’ubi organising committee has announced that the festival for 2008 in Hervey Bay has been cancelled. While no reason appears to have been given for the cancellation perhaps the numbers that didn’t attend last year have something to do with the non-event.

Although the committee last year suggested that the event was well-attended at least one attendee wrote in his blog that numbers appeared to be well down on previous years.

Preliminary work has begun on a $10 million road upgrade to significantly improve peak-hour traffic flow and road safety in Hervey Bay.

Main Roads Minister Warren Pitt said a 1km section of Boat Harbour Drive between Hunter Street and McNally Street would be widened as part of a $2 million contract.

The work will be carried out by Neumann Contractors.

Mr Pitt said the upgrade would ensure Hervey Bay was ready for its future growth.

“This project will widen the road to four lanes, upgrade eight intersections and provide a new road surface suitable for the expected growth over the next 15 years,” Mr Pitt said.

“A new concrete pedestrian footpath will link existing council pathways between Banksia Park Drive and McNally Street, to the new signalised pedestrian crossing at Banksia Park Drive so pedestrians can cross safely.”

Member for Hervey Bay Andrew McNamara said roadworks would take place between Monday and Saturday from 7am to 6pm and were expected to be completed by the end of this year.

“This stretch of road already carries about 20,000 vehicles a day, 2000 of which are commercial in nature,” Mr McNamara said.

“Widening this section of Boat Harbour Drive will significantly improve capacity during peak hours and improve traffic flow for all road users. Improving road safety is a top priority for myself and the State Government.”

Mr McNamara said while the works would make a significant difference to road safety in Hervey Bay, it should be remembered that driver behaviour was a contributing factor in serious crashes.

“I ask motorists to slow down near these road work sites and observe all traffic signals and always drive to the conditions,” he said.

The $2 late night taxi surcharge which already applies in most major Queensland cities will be extended throughout the state from today.

Minister for Transport John Mickel said the decision to apply the surcharge statewide was an extra incentive for taxi drivers.

He said the surcharge was needed to counter a serious shortage of drivers, especially in the early morning hours.

“There is a national shortage of taxi drivers and we are feeling it here in Queensland just as much as any other state,” Mr Mickel said.

“It means taxis are sitting in depots when they should be on the streets providing services to Queenslanders.

“In particular, drivers have been opting out of the midnight to 5am period, leaving a severe shortage of services for people such as shift workers and late night revellers,” Mr Mickel said.

He said the $2 surcharge was introduced a few years ago in Brisbane and then extended to the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Townsville and Cairns.

“It proved to be an effective incentive to drivers to sign on for those shifts, therefore we are extending it to all areas of the state,” Mr Mickel said.

He said the $2 surcharge was applied to the flag fall for each trip between midnight and 5am every night of the year except Anzac Day.

… some perspective

So our elected Councillors thought that they were worth a lot of money and so they voted to pay themselves the top pay rate. So what does that mean in terms of the common working man?

Well the base pay for one of our Councillors is $75,940 a year … or $1,460.39 a week … or $36.51 an hour (based on a 40 hour week).

The base pay for our Deputy Mayor is $85,430 a year … or $1,642.89 a week … or $41.07 cents an hour (based on a 40 hour week).

The base pay for our illustrious Mayor is $120,230 a year … or $2,312.12 a week … or $57.80 an hour (based on a 40 hour week).

Now if you were an employer and were asked to pay an employee amounts like that you would expect to get a heck of a lot of productivity from that employee or otherwise you would just be wasting money. If you were purchasing something worth those amounts of money you would hope that you be getting value for the dollars you were spending.

I leave it up to you to decide whether the ratepayers here in Hervey Bay and the rest of the Fraser Coast region are getting value for money – or will ever get any value for money -  that we’re paying our Councillors.

Get ready for some interesting traffic delays at the busiest roundabout in Hervey Bay. Yep work is about to start on something on the Boat Harbour Drive/Main Street roundabout.

Speed limits have already been reduced to 40km/h and traffic controllers have been seen and there are some unusual marks and numbers painted on the road surface that look rather ominous … and don’t the school holidays start next week?

Now that’s what I call planning!

… to subdivide an area into 600 sq. metre housing blocks here in Hervey Bay as the people out at Craignish and Dundowran are again finding out.

While the rest of the area is zoned for 2000 sq. metre blocks because there are no sewerage connections one developer looks like he could get the nod to subdivide without having to worry too much about anything as insignificant as effluent.

You’ll find the full story here on the Fraser Coast Free Clarion.