Hervey Bay Gossip

Mayor of Hervey Bay, Ted Sorenson, has announced the city’s budget for the next 12 months.

Major projects include upgrades to roads, the Urangan Pier and the Hervey Bay airport. The council will be raising rates by 4.5% to cover these new expenses.

The State Government announced yesteday that Queensland’s 157 local councils will undergo their first sweeping reform in more than a century.

A seven-member commission - the Queensland Local Government Reform Commission - has been formed and will spend the next three months considering changes to local government boundaries and the amalgamations of neighbouring councils across Queensland.

You can read the full text of Government’s press release on the local government changes by following the link.

Obviously the changes are going to affect Hervey Bay and if will be interesting to see if becoming part of a much larger local government area proves to be a blessing or a curse for the town.

Exactly what the changes mean in terms of what other councils Hervey Bay will be amalgamated with remains to be seen. Only time will tell if we’re to be joined with Maryborough, Tiaro etc. (which seems to be the logical choice) or somehow connected to Bundaberg.

While that last option may seem to be a little unusual it was proposed recently by the local member for Hervey Bay so it could come to pass.

While I’m not a big fan of the local member I can see some advantages in being amalgamated with Bundaberg that may not be present if we joined the councils to our west.

What is the Hervey Bay City Council going to do?

It seems that the current water restrictions that are in force in Hervey Bay and the surge in developments have been on minds of a number of local residents lately.

Last night one local resident asked me why the Council are allowing the major developments to go ahead when we are obviously short of water. Of course we’ve had droughts in the past, and this one may break sooner rather than later, but now we’re facing dire warnings of more droughts that will last longer.

So why is the council not cutting back on these developments?

Then today Fred Chick, who lives in one of the drier parts of Hervey Bay, left this comment on a very old post that most people won’t see.

A suggestion for the council. One way to save our water level dropping any more, would be to suspend building more new houses and stop giving approval for big resorts and high rise buildings. This suspension would ease the supply until the infrastructure catches up with progress.

Let’s hope the Hervey Bay City Council is listening Fred because if they aren’t we could be in serious trouble in the years ahead.

One of the very sad things about local government here in Hervey Bay is that almost all of our representatives on Hervey Bay City Council are very visible and vocal when they want our vote but disappear off the face of the earth once they have it.

One well-known marketing guru in the United States chronicles his experience with his local government representatives and offers an important lesson that our representatives here in Hervey Bay would do well to learn.

You can find Seth Godin’s thoughts at How to get re-elected. In many ways what he talks about reminds me of Ted Sorenson’s response on the TV news about complaints people were making about the new town plan.

In some ways it’s comforting to see that we’re not the only ones who get treated poorly by the representatives that we pay for.

The view from the Hervey Bay Council Chambers

When the Hervey Bay Town Plan was released the week before last the Hervey Bay Gossip just had to add it’s 2 cents worth to the debate. Over the weekend Hervey Bay Councillor Sue Brooks took the time to add some comments to the piece.

Those comments are important and deserve their own entry here on the Gossip. Councillor Brooks makes some important points about the town plan and she also gives us an insight into what happens at council meetings.

I am but one Councillor in a group of eight. I firmly believe that Hervey Bay is threatened with over development especially and specifically high density development concentrated anywhere that provides a view of our Bay. Most obviously this is concentrated along our Esplanade.

I am sad to say that I am quite alone in my views. I repeatedly have voted against developments that breach our town plan guidelines but am consistently the only ‘no’ vote.

Yes I have supported the new Planning Scheme. Troubling as the extra height allowance is the alternative to supporting the new planning scheme was to leave the city with no planning scheme at all. The old scheme, even if it could have been extended past December 15th, was permitting more high density over a greater part of the city. I felt caught quite literally between a rock and a hard place.

The new scheme can now be amended. I have tried already to have the maximum height reduced back to the six storey limit and failed. (Cr McNeven and myself voted for this prior to adopting the scheme but received no support from any other Councillor).

The new scheme protects vegetation, recognises wetlands and water ways and has other features which make it superior to the old scheme.

I will continue to lobby as strongly as I can against high density tall buildings but feel quite powerless to effect change without support from my fellow Councillors.

Can I please ask members of the community who share my concerns about high density to lobby Councillors directly. I fear our Esplanade will become a tourist strip catering predominantly for tourists.

Ted looks like he’s been taking lessons from the John Howard School for Dealing With Difficult Questions.

Well the town plan for Hervey Bay has been approved and the buildings are going to rise higher in some parts of the town.

I can understand why some people are already feeling angry about the new plan and Ted Sorenson’s response on the television news last night really seemed to indicate that he couldn’t care less about what many people here in town think.

The comment from one councillor that all these high rise developments would include bars and cafes on their ground floors that the people of Hervey Bay could enjoy was just delusional. We already have bars and cafes we can and do enjoy - we don’t need more in places where the rents are going to be so high that normal people won’t want to pay the prices these places will have to charge.

Now let’s hear from those councillors who got elected on a platform of keeping development along the Esplanade under control.

A clear win for Les MucKan

Although the poll will not be officially declared until Wednesday there is no doubt that Les MucKan has won by a clear majority from Kerri McInerney and Wendy Bennett.

In an election that some people did not realise was happening (see the comments here) only 71% of the electorate voted and 6% of the votes were informal.

Who are they?

Hervey Bay is facing the prospects of a by-election to fill a vacancy on the City Council tomorrow and choosing the right candidate is vital but who are the candidates?

We’ve seen one advertise on television (a rather rushed ad that, if you are a little hard of hearing you might have had trouble following), many have advertised in the paper (although not all used their ad to tell voters what they were about) a couple used letter box drops to get their message out and one or two actually took the time to knock on doors.

So you could still be wondering just who the candidates really are and what skills and policies they might take with them into Council if they were elected.

Yesterday the Hervey Bay Independant published a two-page spread that introduced the candidates to the electorate and it is definitely worth reading if you’re serious about voting for the right person.

If you missed the paper then here are a list of tomorrow’s hopefuls with a words on what they say they offer to us voters (courtesy of the Hervey Bay Independant) .

Jorge Roshkov - promises integrity and accountability

Di Schuback - vows to be a servant of the people

Les MucKan - believes leadership is key to the role

Rhonda Simonis - offers independent representation

Wendy Bennett - committed to preserving the Hervey Bay lifestyle

Jan Stafford - offers strong ethics and professionalism

Jenny Peters - brings innovative new ideas to Council

Keri McInerney - an achiever and problem solver

 And if you were wondering what the eligibility is to be a candidate here it is:

• Candidates for Council must live in the Hervey Bay Local Government Area.
• Candidates must be on the Electoral Roll for the Hervey Bay area. (Candidates may check they are on the Electoral Roll by calling the AEC on 13 2326.)
• Candidates must be nominated by at least 6 people who are on the electoral roll for Hervey Bay City or be nominated by a registered political party.
• Candidates do not need to be ratepayers of Hervey Bay City. Non ratepaying residents have the same rights as ratepayers.

 

The residents of Hervey Bay will have the opportunity to vote in a by-election to fill a vacancy on the Hervey Bay City Council on Saturday October 28.

14 Polling Booths will be open between 8am and 6pm and can be found at the following locations:

• Pialba - The Great Hall, Hervey Bay High School, Beach Road, Pialba
• Pialba - PCYC, O’Rourke Street, Pialba
• Pialba/Urraween - Fraser Coast Baptist Church, 171 Urraween Road, Pialba
• Scarness/Torquay - Hervey Bay & District Senior Citizens Centre, Cnr Denman Camp Road & Totness Street, Torquay
• Torquay - Torbay Retirement Village, Exeter Street, Torquay
• Urangan - Urangan State High School, Robert Street, Urangan
• Urangan - Urangan Point State Primary School, Herbert Street, Urangan
• Scarness/Kawungan - Kawungan State Primary School, Grevillea Street, Kawungan
• Toogoom - Toogoom Community Hall, Cnr Torbanlea & O’Regans Creek Roads, Toogoom
• Burrum Heads - Burrum Heads Community Hall, Cnr Howard Street & Burrum Heads Road, Burrum Heads
• Howard - Burrum District Community Centre, Steley Street, Howard
• Aldershot - Aldershot Community Centre, 2 Vaughan Street, Aldershot
• River Heads - River Heads Community Hall, Ariadne Street, River Heads
• Dundowran - Yarrilee State School, 15 Scrub Hill Road, Dundowran

Will we actually get an answer?

The by-election to fill the vacancy on the Hervey Bay City Council will be held next Saturday and there seem to be plenty of people who are prepared to serve the community in the important position of councillor … but who are they?

That was a question that popped in our minds as we drove around town on the weekend. There are plenty of posters around telling us that this or that person wants our vote but who are they and do they really have what it takes to make a useful contribution to Hervey Bay?

While there are plenty of candidates only one seems to have taken the time to get their message out to the electorate via a letterbox drop. None seem to have taken the time to knock on doors or press the flesh. We even live in the same street as one candidate and that person hasn’t even bothered to knock on doors around here.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the coming week. Will any of the others actually bother to tell us why we should vote for them or will we be expected to give them our vote simply because if the way they look on their posters?

Edit: If you’re reading this from the front page then be sure to follow the comment link below. As I write this one candidate has taken the time to respond and her response is well worth reading.