Another Denmark councillor resigned this month, changing the notional balance of power.
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Cr Dawn Pedro had been a long-standing councillor with a commitment to environmental management.
A group of councillors who campaigned with sacked shire engineer Rob Whooley are now in the majority.
However a day after Ms Pedro resigned, Cr Whooley found every other councillor voting against him on a motion.
A former Deputy Shire President has resigned his seat on Denmark Shire Council in Western Austrlia’s Great Southern region.
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He told me he did this because of the way the former CEO was encouraged to resign late last year (you can see my report if you scroll to the next page).
I can see the balance of power shifting as the newer wave of councillors, driven by the former Shire Engineer’s campaign in last year’s election, now command half of the votes.
From The Great Southern Weekender, February 4, 2016.
WORDS AND PICTURE BY GEOFF VIVIAN
This is the kind of local story I love to do, and I will tell you why.
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It is about an everyday citizen trying to do the right thing by his community and his family, despite apathy and opposition.
Mr McPherson liked to cycle the gravel paths around a large bush block near his home with his kids.
These paths had become increasingly blocked by illegally dumped rubbish, the last item being a whole discarded trailer.
Taking this sort of issue straight to the media is an aggressive measure, but he had already tried to contact the landowner and the local City council so I didn’t mind batting for him.
I contacted both of these late in the afternoon, and by next day the landowner had decided to start fortnightly inspections, and the City council to “revisit” the issue.
From The Great Southern Weekender, January 21, 2016.
ALBANY’S chief fire control officer offers a different slant on the events of the past few weeks.
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Residents of the South West town of Yarloop have criticised authorities for not warning them of the catastropic blaze that destroyed their town until it was almost upon them.
He contrasted this with the actions of a few young campers at Two Peoples Bay, near Albany, who alerted authorities within 15 minutes of a similar fire starting, allowing firefighters to start arriving within another 20.
From The Great Southern Weekender, January 14, 2016.
This is a little gratuitious municipal smut from The Great Southern Weekender, October 22, 2015.
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ALBANY’s Mayor said the City had fewer than three months to build a large aircraft hangar if Regional Express Airlines (Rex) was to start operating early morning flights in late February.
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In late November, Albany Mayor Dennis
Wellington and Member for
Albany Peter Watson said the
airline, which was the State Government’s
preferred tenderer for
the Perth to Albany route, was yet
to speak to anyone from Albany.
“I would have thought it would
have been a really good idea to
come and talk to us before we get
too excited about anything,” Mr
Wellington said.
There are various ways of reporting a local government story.
Some like to concentrate on personalities.
I prefer to show how a given issue will affect everyday people’s lives.
The Mayor’s disappointment at the City not being consulted is worth noting, but not the story’s main angle from my point of view.
The Great Southern Weekender, December 3, 2015.
While Broome is home to several unique and vulnerable ecosystems, two ecologists say builders and planners could take fairly simple steps to preserve them.
The Minyjuru tree within the restricted Broome PEC, provides a much coveted sweet fruit and traditional Yawuru Mayi (pictured).
They have exhaustively mapped the four ecosystems so that making small zoning changes and planning new works and subdivisions around them would be a fairly simple matter most of the time.
Science Network WA [read this story]
A southern WA shire is seeking the power to prosecute property owners who let their cattle stray on to roads.
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Vehicles collide with straying stock fairly frequently on Australian country roads, sometimes with fatal results.
If successfull, this would allow Kononup Shire to police straying stock on its own roads, but not those owned by the Main Roads Department.
The Great Southern Weekender Thursday, November 12, 2015.
GEOFF VIVIAN
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A senior manager at Demark shire has complained to WA’s Minister for Local Government after being put under virtual “house arrest” while under suspension.
As the shire’s engineer, he was suspended after he wrote a report to council recommending public money not be spent on a feasibility study for a development.
He said the shire had a culture of intimidation.
[From The Weekender, June 4, 2015 p3]
GEOFF VIVIAN
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Denmark Shire in Western Australia sacked its engineer after he made a complaint to the Minister for Local Government.
However the sacking was supposed to be for an unrelated matter that had allegedly occurred some months beforehand.
[From The Weekender, June 11, 2015 p4]