Is it the job of our Shire CEO to tell us whether we need Wards? .

Is it the job of our Shire CEO to tell us whether we need Wards? .

What do our representatives think on the matter..... or doesn't it matter  ?
  Is the  system better or worse since Mr Kennett decided that bigger is better; that less reps are more, and they need to be paid more in order to to be credible? 

Surely briefing 1 local rep  is better than trying to brief 7 who get votes from all over the place . Does changing the people who sit on the now seven seats ( cf 11 before) stop the system from being easily stacked and silent on controversial matters? 
How many recent planning decisions,  like the one that cost the southern ward years of wasted work on the Barham River floodplain, and the North eastern ward a non starting new quarry , would have been nipped in the bud by better informed and more representaive counsellors? How much have all these non starting developments cost the council and the reputation of planning departments , let alone some of our now much poorer ratepayers ?  

If  the Liberals want to win back Corangamite they need to do more than impose big signs and big government on us.  Do the Liberal party think we are stupid and need more business people in government .?  Living off the land, we are not stupid. We can tell that  others are making decisions for us for which we have no part , which are often not well informed and go nowhere , and which cost us a lot more than they need to.  
We notice d you recently supported a house to be built down on the coast - all your pictures in the paper 

WE pay you to know, not to employ consultants

A subtle shift has overtaken local government in the last 20 years . Either the staff we employ are less capable or the decisions those staff have to make have got harder . There is a case for saying that the staff have infact got smarter because we have fallen for the later idea . Somehow the engineers and planners of a previous generation managed before when infrastructure decisions were more complex and were more far reaching . Now we can't even study the traffic without employing a consultant.
I can't see the point too with the totally ineffective expenditure on north Apollo bay beaches over the last 20years why they pay someone to tell them to just put more rock and different pipes when: after all, the land is sand and that's what we want to remain . http://otwaysonline.blogspot.com/2006/12/welcome-to-our-beautiful-rocky-beaches.html Pipes come first - its what you'd expect if engineers made environmental decisions.

You can't please everybody - just make defendable decisions

--Based on sound sustainable environmental and planning advice. You and I might know that good decisions for our future are not going to please everybody, but our Councils , it often appears, avoid hard decisions .
After decades of advising 3 of Victoria's Coastal shires directly and more privately on environmental planning it gives me no joy to see them now snowed under ,more than ever, by paperwork, consultants and processes that avoid decision making. Please gentlemen, I am happy to help . Save yourself the embarassment of having to keep defending those who avoid making decisions and ask for help.

When will you ever come out and say

What you are doing to
1. Fix up the mess in development affecting the northern beaches of Apollo Bay
2. Properly deal with the feasibility of a bypass through the Lake
3 Discuss the future of lake issues before all the money for roads and all the talk of it is gone .
4. Ensure there is decent safety information for travelers on the Apollo Bay to Forrest Road in the event of bush fire.
5. Request that the State allow the burnoff period to go beyond the wettest month of the year ( Frank is appalled )Posted 6th November 2010 Show day

COPAC - is it really the arts centre, or the Council centre?

If death and taxes are certain, so surely is the expansion of local government . So where are all those cars and people going to go ?
Perhaps more importantly, why compromise our wonderful Arts precinct.