Hervey Bay Gossip

The weather was perfect early in the morning for the Multicultural Festival at Scarness yesterday and the crowds certainly came out to enjoy the fun. There was plenty of interesting food from all over the globe and displays too.

The rain did manage to hold off till later in the morning.

No matter who you’re employer is the security of that job often depends on the relationship you have with your supervisor. A good relationship means that everything goes smoothly and you’re basically happy in your job … a bad relationship and you’re often left wondering if you will have a job at the end of the day.

It now seems that there are many employees of the Fraser Coast Regional Council who are now in that tenuous position thanks to some very poor management practices.

You can read more about it here on Bring Back Strewth

It may be that we’re about to soon see the blue fence at the back of Centro and the mountain of dirt on the corner of Main and McLiver Streets disappear now that the Fraser Coast Regional Council has approved development plans for the Centro site.

The plans will see the current building expand with new specialty shops, a food court, a supermarket and a department store. There will also be some development at the rear of the Dan Murphy’s site.

New roadworks will see a change in traffic flows around Main Street and Boat Harbour Drive and a new fast-food outlet will be built on the corner of Main and McLiver Street …. as if Hervey Bay didn’t have enough of them already.

While council has given approval for the development to go ahead there’s no indication yet of when work will start. 

Fraser Coast Regional Council … in desperate need of good managers?

It certainly seems that Hervey Bay, Maryborough and the other areas covered by the Fraser Coast Regional Council are suffering from a lack of good management as Jim MacKellar points out.

The middle managers of the FCRC rate the performance of the Council’s executives at 3/10 or less. Or so it was alleged in the local paper last week. If it is true this is a very grave allegation indeed.

In any organization a result such as this must ring alarm bells for the directors (Councillors) and the shareholders (residents). It is a symptom that something is very wrong with the organization and its ability to carry out its mission.

The middle managers of the FCRC are skilled and competent people, many of whom held more senior positions in one of the old Councils. They are in the best position to assess the performance of our Council executives and its effects on the organization.

If this amount of discord exists between the upper and middle management of the FCRC it goes a long way to explaining the problems being experienced by the community. No organization can run efficiently or effectively in such a position.

It is no wonder the planning department is not running efficiently; it is no wonder that capital works projects are not being completed in a timely manner: it is no wonder that money is being frittered away on frivolous and wasteful projects; and it is no wonder that such a cloak of secrecy is kept over Council operations.

And the only people who can do anything about it are our Councillors. How they could be unaware of this situation is unbelievable. The executives work for them on performance based contracts and thus, are responsible to them.

Will we see any action from Council? Will we be told if the Council are taking any remedial action? Will any Councillor break the Code of Silence? I will watch with great interest to see how many of these executives receive their bonuses this year.

Yes, we have another tropical cyclone.

Tropical Cyclone Jasper has formed and at 2pm was a Category 2 cyclone located approximately 970km northeast of Sandy Cape and was moving southeast at 26km/h.

The Weather Bureau advises that Tropical Cyclone Jasper poses no immediate threat to coastal communites along the Queensland coast and if it maintains its current track no further reports will be issued.

Well the Queensland state elections have come and gone and now we have a new local member from the other side of politics. Will he be any more effective than the last one? Will he be any more visible than the last one?

I guess only time will tell

It seems that our cyclone season isn’t over just yet; there’s a tropical low approximately 700km north-east of Mackay that looks set to develop into a tropical cyclone by tomorrow.

While the Weather Bureau is not sure which way the cyclone will head strong winds are already being felt up and down the coast from Cairns to Sandy Cape and a gale warning is in place for the coastline between Ayre and St Lawrence.

If you’re into scrapbooking and you live in Hervey Bay or on the Fraser Coast then this is for you!

Coming to Kondari Resort on April 4 is a scrapbooking workshop that will be lead by Jill Geraghty-Groves. Jill is Australia’s only Prima verified tutor and she’ll be in town to run two workshops starting at 10am and 1pm.

$98.00 will get you into both workshops but bookings are essential and they can be made at Scrappers Haven, 17 Liuzzi Street Pialba. You can find further details on the Scrappers Haven website

The state election rolls around this coming Saturday and here in Hervey Bay the polling booths will be open from 8am through to 6pm. The polling booths are located at:

• Rural Fire Brigade, 118 Oslove Drive Booral
• State School, 15 Scrub Hill Road Dundowran
• Eurong Beach Resort, cnr Buffy & Eastern Streets Eurong
• State School, Grevillia Street Kawungan
• Police Citizens Youth Club, O’Rourke Street Pialba
• Hervey Bay State High School, 58 Beach Road Pialba
• Shop 5, 54 Ariadne Street River Heads
• Hervey Bay Court House, Queens Road Scarness
• Hervey Bay Senior Citizens Hall, cnr Denman Camp Rd & Totness Street Torquay
• Torbay Aged Care Retirement Village, Exeter Street Torquay
• State School, Herbert Street Urangan
• Urangan State High School, Robert Street Urangan
• Baptist Church, Urraween Road Urraween

At 11.02am this morning the Beureau of Meteorology advised that Tropical Cyclone Hamish has now been reduced to a category 3 cylone and is located 165km northeast of Sandy Cape on Fraser Island. It is currently moving southeast at 11km an hour.

They cyclone warning for the northern part of Fraser Island has been cancelled and the cyclone watch for coastal areas from Yeppoon to Tewantin has also been cancelled.

Tropical Cyclone Hamish is expected to continue to weaken and the Bureau will issue no further Advices unless the cyclone moves back towards the coast.

Hopefully that means that here in Hervey Bay we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief.