notes

Community Forum – Wahgunyah

Mission Statement:

To support and develop a sustainable, thriving and resilient community

through leadership and partnership.

HELD: / Tuesday 8 April 2014, commencing at 6.30pm
LOCATION: / School of Arts, Wahgunyah
attendEES: / 17
Councillors / Cr Bernard Gaffney, Cr Peter Croucher, Cr Jenny O’Connor, Cr Roberta Horne, Cr Don Chambers, Cr James Trenery
Officers / Acting CEO Greg Pinkerton / Acting GM Infrastructure Services Robert Uebergang / Acting GM Corporate Services Fiona Shanks / Manager Communications Roberta Baker
Acting GM Sustainable Communities Ian Scholes / Manager Community Planning David Koren
Participants (INSERT NUMBER OF ATTENDEES) / 17 / PLEASE NOTE: These notes are not verbatim. Some editing has occurred for clarity.
1 / WELCOME / Mayor Cr Gaffney welcomed everyone
2 / APOLOGIES / Cr Barb Murdoch
/ ITEM / ACTION / DONE /
3 / Capital Works completed this Financial Year – update from Acting GM Infrastructure Services Robert Uebergang
o  Morley Park Shade Sail installed over playground
o  200m of Concrete footpath installed from School to Victoria Street
Stormwater drainage works on Elizabeth, Blanche and Sarah Streets.
4 / Capital Works underway – Robert Uebergang
Elizabeth Street kerb and channel installation and associated drainage works nearing completion.
5 / Wahgunyah Railway Reserve – Robert Uebergang
Robert met with Alan Pleitner this afternoon on this matter. Stage 1 is not in the current draft capital works budget. Alan Pleitner explained that most of the fundraising will be done locally. $20,000 has been donated by Uncle Tobys.
Stage 1 includes new public toilets and a RV dump point on railway reserve land, picnic shelters and road work. Need to work with the Wahgunyah Progress Association. Mayor Cr Gaffney met with the CEO of Uncle Tobys earlier this year on this project.
6 / Wahgunyah Recreation Reserve – David Koren
This $610,000 project is now through the concept and design stage. We have approached agencies for funds. We will try and get $300,000 from the State Government’s Putting Locals First fund, $100,000 from Local Netball funds program, Council will contribute $140,000 and there will be $70,000 from the Recreation Reserve committee in cash and kind. Project proposal and grant applications will be submitted within weeks.
Wes Canny – said the committee had letters of support from Cathy McGowan, Tim McCurdy, schools for productions etc. We have had great support from community. This is it, if not this year, next year. Could start as early as September. Wes had plans at the forum for people to look at.
Mayor Cr Gaffney - people from Wahgunyah have worked really hard for this. Good to see it come to fruition, complimented David Koren and staff.
7 / Council Plan review process – Greg Pinkerton
Council has considered the plan and it is currently unchanged. It will be reviewed more thoroughly in August-September- to better link with Council’s budget preparation processes. The process is for an internal review then the plan would go out to the public for input.
8 / Your Say
Estelle Hollingsworth from Short St , Wahgunyah – this is the 3rd busiest in Wahgunyah, trucks, traffic going to water board, to fish and chip shop and caravans and boats that go up and down, turning into Frederick Street, it’s a dangerous corner, with people speeding up. Can we have more bitumen here on the road?
Robert – we will have a look at the road in terms of bitumen and get back to you.
Wes Canny – recreation reserve road. Can’t ride a bike down it, it is a route to get to footy training.
Mayor Cr Gaffney – Robert, Wes, Alan and I met with DEPI. They don’t want it. It is a Committee of Management issue.
Robert Uebergang – we will talk to Ron Sneddon, our operations manager, and get it graded at least.
John Clapton – re an industrial estate. Council was looking into it, how far have you looked?
CEO Greg Pinkerton – Council has looked at other industrial estates for other towns; a few years ago State Government’s was eager to fund this, but not now. At the moment Council is looking at a possible project in Chiltern. Once we finish that, Wahgunyah industrial land is on the radar. It is something that council has flagged as something the Wahgunyah community is interested in.
Mayor Cr Gaffney - when I met with Uncle Tobys, they were not interested in making some farming land into industrial land. They are growing different grains on land near them.
John – Uncle Tobys is the biggest employer, but there are no services, all services are in Albury and other nearby towns. Wahgunyah is not a retail strip. We have the potential to be a great industrial town, need to value add by providing industrial land for services to be established.
Fiona Shanks – will raise this with Council’s economic development officer.
John Clapton – it would also create jobs, need to provide jobs for our kids.
Mayor – ageing population in Indigo Shire, there is a problem across the shire of teenagers leaving.
John Clapton – asked about an audit or inventory of registered business in the shire.
Greg Pinkerton - since then we’ve had the Know and Grow information, and we are getting more understanding into those sort of figures.
Wes Canny – thanks to Don and Bernie for coming to the regatta this year and great to have the Shire there to present the medals. It promoted the area, industry, the wineries; it’s a windfall for Wahgunyah, Corowa and Rutherglen. It gets people to see the area.
Cr Don Chambers – terrific event, long term need is to keep water in Lake Moodemere.
Des Sheridan of O’Donoghue’s Road - asked what can be done about amount of green waste being dumped at that end of town. Behind Pfeiffers you will find 4-5 trailer loads of rubbish on the grass. Basically green clippings, prunings, lawn clippings.
Alan Pleitner – it’s happening right around the area. One of the major reasons is for people having to go across the Rutherglen on very restricted days to dump rubbish. One of the few Shires to move away from hard rubbish collections.
Cr Don Chambers – there are many shires across Victoria that have moved away from hard rubbish collections. People need to take responsibility for what they are putting into rubbish. Yes, Council can do things, but it comes at a cost.
John Clapton – how do you take old washing machines, tvs ,computers when you are 80 years old.
Cr Chambers – this is free at any time of the year when the transfer stations are open. Hard rubbish collections on nature strips are a real Occupational Health and Safety issue. Comes back to us as individuals and how we take responsibility for this.
John Clapton – put a container on railway land, get volunteers to collect hard rubbish and put it there.
Cr Chambers – the cost of taking that away to Albury landfill has tripled in recent years. It’s the balance we have to look at.
Comment – at Boroondara Council in Melbourne – if you do not have a trailer for hard rubbish, you phone Council and they will come and pick it up. Less cumbersome than having a skip.
Maroondah Council’s annual hard rubbish collection, they swapped to a system where you ring and book. You are entitled to two pick-ups a year. From the Council point of view it is cheaper than when they provided yearly service to the whole shire. They used private contractors to collect rubbish through booking system.
Discussion took place about signs saying it is an offence to dump rubbish including lawn clippings, and what the fines are. It was suggested that signs were needed on Distillery Road.
Council’s Indigo Informer newsletter will include a permanent item about waste, what is free, and Transfer Station hours.
Robin McLeish – raised issue of what do people do with old batteries.
Cr Chambers - they can be taken to Wodonga, central place for north est for all those small hazaroud
Rosemary Gordon – with the dumping of rubbish, it gets back to education, and maybe a penalty for dumping but to have signs proliferating is as bad as the rubbish.
Ian Scholes – it is an EPA matter and there are fines applicable. Our local law’s officer will look at the heap, try and work out who has dumped it. We do have a process if depot workers are concerned about what’s in the heap, our health officers will look at it. If we are able to prosecute we do.
Wes Canny – with batteries, why can’t we have a little bin where you can drop the batteries off. Is there an option to do that? Might be something for the whole shire?
Greg Pinkerton – will take this take on notice and find out what we can do. If it could be done at transfer stations it becomes easier.
Wes – have bin centrally located and shire comes and picks it up when it is full.
Mayor – then we have to educate, publicise – that’s more cost – we have to balance services with keeping rates down.
Robin McLeish – one central bin in every town is a good idea.
Comment – include information in the Council newsletter.
Comment - at last March Council meeting – re a proposal for Barry McGowan to do a heritage study. What’s happened with this? Since then I have spoken to Don Chambers, who said it has to go to the budget. Was that
Mayor- there was no motion, document was just tabled. The content of the draft budget is not made public until Council adopts it, then it goes out for public comment.
Wes Canny – suggested grass clippings be put at the front of homes and have it mulched. If Wahgunyah wants it, can we have it – pay a cost per house?
Robert Uebergang – our use internally is very minimal. We would probably have to dispose of it.
Comment – it would be easy to get rid of it.
Don Chambers – not quite as simple as that. If people collect it Council is responsible for pathogens and weeds seeds that might be in it. What we mulch in our transfer stations we use in our parks and gardens. What this Council is attempting to do is move to a total organic recycling to turn that into mulch to go back onto farmland. Looking at reducing the amount of material going into landfill.
Don Chambers - in Albury there is a system to take batteries back. In metro Melbourne there are businesses that are a ‘batty back’ site, the Victorian Government is working with industry to try to collect these things. I will find out what is happening across the North East and get back to you.
Robin McLeish – planet ark does this.
Don Chambers – depends on the batteries. Indigo shire takes back mobile phone batteries in our libraries.
Cr Roberta Horne – Planet Ark looks after printer cartridges.
Robin McLeish – Coles have bins as well.
Alan Pleitner – mentioned the history group of the Progress Association and its first history weekend. Want to run it again, applied for $2000 grant from Council’s tourism department – we received $1500. In that application I had to guarantee when we would be self-sustaining. But it appears the Shire policy re self-sustaining does not always apply. Can Council looks at this.
Mayor – those grants are decided by a community advisory group to Council with representatives from right across the shire, Council ratifies what advisory committee recommends. Positions are advertised for that committee.
The forum closed at 7.55pm / Robert Uebergang
Robert Uebergang
Fiona Shanks
Greg Pinkerton
Cr Don Chambers

c:\documents and settings\ruebergang\local settings\temporary internet files\content.outlook\bskctap0\wahgunyah community forum notes.docx Page 1