AT THE final Campaspe Shire Council meeting for the current councillors, our departing councillors said their final goodbyes.
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“I'd like to thank the three retiring councillors and give each of the three retiring councillors the chance to make a final address,” Mayor Adrian Weston said.
Annie Vickers
First, may I say thankyou to the people of Campaspe, what an honour it has been serving you as best I can throughout the past four years.
While at times it had been difficult, frustrating and stressful, with all sort of obstacles put in front of me, I feel my contributions have provided value to the community and for that I am very proud.
We certainly gave it our best. Of all the hardworking officers I would like to mention Paul McKenzie; he has always been straight down the line with me, and most importantly he always answers his phone — and not always gives me the answer I have wanted, but he has always been there to assist me.
Campaspe Shire is a big organisation that isn’t perfect, no place really is. But it provides a wonderful outcome, delivered by the dedicated staff.
I wish our incoming councillors the best in dealing with the issues they face, post COVID-19.
Thankyou all, thankyou to all the community.
Leigh Wilson
I wish to thank all the fellow councillors. I suppose my journey started back around 2012 and it came off the back of working with businesses recovering from the 2011 floods.
Looking back over the past eight years, it’s something in the vicinity of 100 ordinary, statutory and special meetings, somewhere around 300 briefing and strategy sessions.
I couldn’t put an amount on the number of sausages in bread or scones or triangle sandwiches. But knowing I put on 4 kg since I first started in council, I certainly have partaken in quite a few.
From early days as a councillor, one of the earlier wins on the board was assisting the Rochester Recreation Reserve in securing $2.3 million in funding which has revitalised that reserve and put it in a position it wouldn’t have been able to achieve by any other means.
From there, the flood mitigation stuff continues for several years. I think in total it saw about $1.5 million invested around the area in flood mitigation and certainly hasn’t resolved everything I had wished, but it would go some way to assisting in a further event.
Looking internally, working with the organisation to prepare the compliance 11 framework and integrate that into the organisation, to see how we handle our complaints and other inquiries, it was a transformative piece of work within the organisation.
One thing that I did sink my teeth into — and it did yield great results — was a planning review of the planning process and helping our staff to reduce their planning approval times, and we’ve got some of the best approval times in the state.
These actions also helped to reduce the number of VCAT actions against council during the past few years, and that is something to be very proud of.
The countless hours of work around our road rationalisation program, many, many years of work, thousands of pages of documentation and leading to 80-odd kilometres of earth road that transitions from a gravel road.
What that allows us to do is focus spending more money on the roads we use more of.
And I know people still have issues with roads, but our road network is pretty good.
Park beautification projects around Rochester, working with the Toolleen community to improve infrastructure around the Toolleen Recreation Reserve — touching on roads, I’ve seen every road you can see.
It has been a challenge at times, but more often a pleasure to work with the community and the organisation.
I am only an individual, and it’s only at the table where councillors form the council — and that only happens by working with the organisation that is the staff of Campaspe, and it doesn’t matter whether they have a role on the roads crew, garden staff — right through the organisation, everyone works together to impact the lives of tens of thousands of people every day.
And often it goes without thanks. It doesn’t matter where you work in the organisation but apparently you should know everything that goes on in council.
There is no organisation that goes anywhere close to providing the suite of services the local government sector does, and it only happens because of the dedication of councillors, regardless of whether we get along.
At the end of the day, all of the work is undertaken by all of the staff in this wonderful organisation.
I want to close by saying thankyou to all the staff.
Neil Pankhurst
I wont repeat all the highlights but certainly councillor Leigh Wilson has gone through a number of highlights of what has been my time on council.
Particularly I think back to my first term and what seemed to be almost monthly forums where local developers and others were.
As councillors, we felt like we were lined up against the wall and they were throwing rocks and arrows at us, complaining about the way council was dealing with planning.
It was certainly a great step forward during the year that I was mayor, to actually accept an award from the MAV for our planning department and the systems they had put in place.
As an individual councillor and a council it has been great to see some of that strategic work we’ve been able to undertake.
I’d like to thank the Ky-Deakin community that saw fit to elect me three times. It certainly has been an honour and I appreciate their support.
Also a thanks to my family for their support, particularly during the 12-month period I had as mayor.
It certainly was an interesting time, given I was elected in November and within a couple of weeks Rochester was having its first or second flood and by January it was up to its third flood.
And I was never sure who was going to be on the other end of the phone when it rang. It was anyone from the Prime Minister, the Premier to ministers for infrastructure and it was very interesting.
But it was a great honour to be mayor of the shire for that 12 months and I appreciate the opportunity.
I’d like to thank the chief executives, Declan Moore, Ray Burton, Jason Russell and, of course, Keith Bailey.
To all the executives who were willing to listen and address my concerns in a professional manner, I certainly appreciated their support.
Thanks also to the many mayors and councillors we have had, but I would like to particularly acknowledge Peter Williams, Ian Maddison and Leigh Wilson for their leadership and personal counsel as leaders of the shire.
It’s always a bit challenging to start naming people, and you’ll always miss some.
But in particular Sharolyn, Kaye, Sandy, Bobbi and others who have been tasked with keeping me and other councillors organised and informed over the years — I appreciate the support they have given.
To the many staff I have come to know and admire, thanks for all that you do.
As I said, it has been an absolute privilege and honour to be a member of council. But with that privilege comes responsibility. And my hope is that the new council takes up that challenge.