THE Lions Club of Western Port has disbanded after 44 years. The club was down to seven members, well short of the 40 on the books almost 16 years ago when current president Bert Harrison joined. Ages of the seven members range from 51 to 82. Mr Harrison and three other Western Port members will be joining neighbouring branches to continue their work in the community. “At the height of the club, membership reached into to 50s, but due to retirement, transfers and the unfortunate deaths of some members, it hasn’t been so easy over the past few years,” Mr…
Year: 2012
UNITED Energy could face claims of hundreds of thousands of dollars following a massive power surge from a Mornington electricity substation on Wednesday morning. Up to 10,000 properties in Mornington, Mt Martha, Moorooduc and Somerville received 300 volts, 20 per cent more than normal, surging through power lines at about 9am. The CFA said there had been more than 55 calls for assistance, mostly generated by householders smelling smoke from electrical appliances and smouldering wiring. The CFA set up an emergency response team at its Moorooduc incident control centre to take calls from 000 and coordinate its response. Calls were…
HASTINGS police are searching for a man aged in his late 30s who is alleged to have grabbed an 11-year-old girl by the arm as she was walking to school. The girl told police she was in William St at about 8.10am on Monday when approached by the man who asked her to go with him. The girl says that after refusing him she was grabbed by the arm but managed to break free and run to the Kmart shopping centre. The girl reported the incident to principal Richard Mucha when she later arrived at St Mary’s Primary School. Senior…
MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire has its first Aboriginal cultural heritage adviser – Adam Edwards Magennis. Mr Magennis, 37, a Boonwurrung man, has just become a qualified archaeologist after studying for three years full time at La Trobe University. He will advise government and developers, devise cultural heritage management plans, and join 22 other Aboriginal archaeologists and the new Aboriginal Archaeologists Association, founded earlier this year. Mr Magennis has now set his sights on an honours degree, which will take two years part-time. He already has an idea for his thesis – a comparison between two of the great historical places on…
HASTINGS police have uncovered an amphetamine laboratory allegedly operating in a factory in Marine Parade. A private house in Hastings was also raided as part of an ongoing investigation into amphetamine manufacture and trafficking in the Hastings area. Detective Sergeant Ron Fauvel of Hastings crime investigation unit said the six-week operation was conducted with members of the clandestine laboratory squad. As a result of the raids on Friday 30 November, two Hastings men aged 36 and 37, and a 48-year-old woman of Templestowe were charged with multiple offences relating to the manufacture and trafficking of amphetamines. The woman and the…
SMOKING has been banned within 50 metres of lifesavers’ flags at Point Leo. The statewide ban came into effect this week along with a $140 penalty. Smoking is now banned over summer at all patrolled beaches on the Mornington Peninsula. The ban was introduced by the state government to protect beach users from secondhand smoke and to reduce children’s and young people’s exposure to smoking, which may influence their adult behaviour. The government says that smokers will initially be encouraged to self-regulate when near the red and orange flags. No smoking signs will be installed at beaches. Similar bans are…
MT Martha residents have started a campaign to stop the former quarry in the town being sold for commercial development. They fear Mornington Peninsula Shire is about to start moves to rezone and sell the quarry, which operated off the Esplanade at the corner of Stanley Cres and Fairbairn Ave from 1958 to 1985. It is fenced off and used to store rocks earmarked as fill for erosion works at The Eyrie in McCrae. In an arrangement that would be welcomed by community groups paying rent for using council property, Maw Civil was given free use of the quarry as…
THE Victorian Labor Party has rejected more than six years of planning for an expanded Port of Hastings. Last week it released a jobs and investment strategy dumping its support of Hastings in favour of the so-called “Bay West” option, a new port proposed for the western side of Port Phillip between Geelong and Werribee. The decision is a massive about-face as the ALP proposed building a three-stage port at Hastings when it was in government. Hastings Liberal MP Neale Burgess said “Labor has abandoned more than 40 years of bipartisan support for the Port of Hastings, deserted the people…
FRANKSTON Council is about to again embark on a search for investors in the $300 million marina earmarked for development between Olivers Hill and Daveys Bay. Impetus for reviving the search abandoned in 2010 follows advice from council’s investment attraction facilitator Jason Sharp that Tourism Victoria’s offer to help finance the re-tendering the project runs out at the end of the 2012-13 financial year. Mr Sharp’s report on this week’s council agenda says that despite abandoning the tender process in 2010, council officers continued working to gain extra time for the marina from Planning Minister Matthew Guy. “The Cultural Heritage…
THE quality of water being discharged through the sewage outfall at Gunnamatta will drop this week while Melbourne Water works on its latest treatment equipment. The 350 million litres a day discharge will be Class C, below the purity that has been pumped into the ocean since new processes came on line in July. “A three- to four-day shutdown of the new advanced tertiary treatment stage at ETP [Eastern Treatment Plant, near Carrum] is required in November to undertake important works on site,” general manager of asset planning Paul Pretto said. He said the plant’s $418 million upgrade was “nearing…
MORE than 300 teachers rallied outside the McCrae office of Education Minister and Nepean MP Martin Dixon on Wednesday. The McCrae Plaza shopping centre car park was turned into a sea of red clothing and banners as teachers and support staff vented their disappointment at the standoff between the teachers’ union and the Baillieu government. Australian Education Union members are targeting state government MPs as part of the “Keep the Promise” campaign, which refers to Premier Ted Baillieu’s claim made before the November 2010 election to make Victorian teachers “the best paid teachers in Australia”. The morning rally was part…
TWO abalone poachers from the peninsula have been given prison sentences for trafficking a commercial quantity of the endangered shellfish. Last Friday in the County Court, Judge Mark Dean jailed Andrew Carpmael, 49, of Rosebud for 18 months with a minimum of nine months. Simon Hillman, of Rye, received a 12-month sentence suspended for two years. Each man pleaded guilty to one charge of trafficking a commercial quantity of abalone. The judge also banned the pair from having commercial abalone equipment, Carpmael for 10 years and Hillman for three. Hillman, a professional diver who works at Peninsula Hot Springs near…
AN independent planning panel has recommended minimum lot sizes of 2000 square metres in Mt Eliza’s Woodland precinct and 1300sqm on street corners. For almost a decade, the shire has been trying to restrict subdivision of about 1600 big blocks in the area bounded by Nepean Hwy, Humphries, Moorooduc and Canadian Bay roads. Since September 2003, it has received many applications to subdivide, but has not had a planning scheme to limit development. Some landowners have taken the shire to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which has refused some plans, but approved others. The issue has divided Woodland residents…
TEN landowners in a section of Bungower Rd, Moorooduc, will share their rural idyll with more than 65 dogs if the shire council approves an application from a veterinarian. The vet is asking the council to approve plans for “Bark Avenue” boarding kennels at 281 Bungower Rd near Coolart Rd. Stage one will have 20 “luxury” kennels and runs for large dogs and eight for small dogs. Stage two will have six kennels and runs for large dogs and 32 for medium dogs. There also will be 14 exercise yards. Other elements of the complex include a cattery, geriatric dog…
DEVILBEND Reserve was officially opened on Saturday, but the battle between environmentalists, government and fishing groups is far from over. Parks Victoria’s newest reserve was opened by Water Minister Peter Walsh, bringing to fruition more than 12 years of planning and negotiation. Now called Devilbend Natural Features Reserve, the 1000-hectare reserve has an entrance gateway, asphalt entrance road, sealed car park, picnic and barbecue facilities, walking tracks and a boardwalk. Controversially, there are two fishing platforms and the 14,600-megalitre reservoir (an Olympic pool holds one megalitre) was stocked with 5000 brown and 5000 rainbow trout of “catchable” size by the…
DELIBERATELY lit fires wrecked two cars and damaged a third in Hastings early Saturday morning. The cars were torched within two hours of each other, although police have been unable to link the crimes. In the first blaze a Toyota Camry station wagon was burnt out on a nature strip in Villawood Drive, Hastings. Heat from the burning vehicle seriously damaged a Land Rover Discovery that was parked alongside the Camry. Detective Leading Senior Constable Nick Sweetman, of Hastings CIU, said the owner of the Discovery, a volunteer Hastings CFA firefighter, was awakened by his pager calling him to the…
PEOPLE trying to kill snakes are risking injury, says a Mornington Peninsula professional snake catcher. Barry Goldsmith of Mornington-based Snakes and Wildlife Control has been called out to eight properties in recent weeks where homeowners have killed or attempted to kill a snake using a variety of implements. Four snakes that had been mortally wounded had to be euthanised. Trying to kill a snake was far riskier than leaving it, he said. Snakes are on the move following recent warmer weather with Mr Goldsmith and other snake catchers in the region coming into the busy time of the year. “People…
SOUTHERN Peninsula Rescue Squad came to the aid of a charter yacht tangled in a South Channel beacon tower off Portsea last Saturday. The squad was contacted by water police at about 5.30pm and asked to attend the scene where it arrived at about 6pm. Ten passengers aboard Sorrento Sailing Escape’s 12-metre (40-foot) Beneteau class yacht were transferred to the squad’s rescue boat Southern Peninsula 1. The yacht’s skipper and rescue volunteers then pondered how to disentangle rigging that had been snagged on a sign atop the No 4 marker, which indicates the northern side of the channel. Sorrento-based commercial…
MEMBERS of two influential community groups say fast-tracking the move by South East Water to Frankston could add to the woes of Frankston MP Geoff Shaw. They are targeting Mr Shaw in their 11th hour bid to have the water authority’s headquarters sited away from Kananook Creek and the foreshore. “We agree that Frankston is the ideal location for South East Water HQ, but why was it that the state government demanded this key waterfront site and this site only?” former Kananook Creek Association president Rob Thurley has told The News. “Why were better located, less sensitive sites never considered…
THE new Frankston Council was confronted by a thorny problem at its first meeting in Thursday night – how to save one of the city’s iconic trees. A problem solved 10 years ago has come back to haunt the council with owners of 138 and 138A Cranbourne Rd, Frankston, wanting to remove the 120-year-old Moreton Bay fig tree growing on common property between two homes. The tree was the centre of attention in 2002 when the previous owner of the property wanted to cut it down to build two homes. A public outcry saw the council buy the property and…
TOWNS and suburbs on Port Phillip including Rosebud and McCrae could be submerged by coastal flooding combined with heavy rain events by the end of the century, says an unpublished confidential report. Port Phillip Coastal Adaption Pathways Program studied four bayside areas – Rosebud-McCrae, Mordialloc, Elwood and Southbank as well as a low-lying area in North Melbourne. The existence of the report was revealed after Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors held a private meeting on 24 September. This was after the public gallery was cleared at the end of the final public meeting before the council went into caretaker mode in…
SHIRE council officers last Thursday brought an enterprising extractive industry at Balnarring Beach to an abrupt halt. The first site to come to a standstill was the foreshore and later a small reserve at the corner of Campbell and Highview courts. Not known as a mining area, the two reserves were nevertheless giving up buckets of saleable items – earthworms. “It’s amazing how many worms there are in the ground, they were everywhere,” a resident who did not want to be identified told The News. “I’m sure removing this many worms from one spot can’t be good for the environment.…
MT Eliza university student Andrew Dixon has a new interest in his busy life – Mornington Peninsula Shire Council. The 25-year-old was perhaps a surprising winner at the council election on Saturday when he grabbed the last of three seats in Briars Ward, the new super ward that takes in the former Mt Eliza, Mornington and Balcombe (Mt Martha) wards. Cr Dixon joins his Briars colleagues Bev Colomb of Mornington and Anne Shaw of Mt Eliza in representing more than 42,000 voters. Many judges thought Leigh Eustace, who had represented Mt Eliza since 2008, would be elected, but the 11-candidate…
TOP chef Max Paganoni is heartbroken. While he was making sure customers left his restaurant at Red Hill Estate satisfied with their meals, something dark and sinister was happening just kilometres away at his home. Each day when Mr Paganoni leaves the house, he first lets out his miniature daschund dogs, Levi and Zucker. The dogs are in at night, but enjoy time together in the garden by day. On Sunday, four-year-old Levi was shot dead. Her still-warm body was found by a shocked Mr Paganoni at about 8pm. “I had just come home from the restaurant and went outside…
RECONSTRUCTION of the retaining wall on Nepean Highway near Olivers Hill in Frankston will take three and a half months. Work started on the $1.4 million wall in February, but it collapsed on Thursday 19 April before it could be finished. Dramatic pictures of the wall collapsing were taken by a man walking his dog. The first wall was built of rocks in steel cages and backfilled with sand. The second attempt is being constructed using steel posts hammered into the ground, horizontal wooden planks and backfilled with lighter material. The lighter material would “reduce the load imposed on it”,…
FRANKSTON MP Geoff Shaw is likely to keep his seat despite allegations of rorting the use of his parliamentary vehicle. Mr Shaw will be hoping his offer to repay any costs involving the commercial use of the vehicle and the fairly mild results of an Ombudsman’s report will be enough to allow him to keep his job. The loss of Mr Shaw’s seat would force a byelection that could threaten the future of the state government, which holds power with a one-seat majority. Liberal Party insiders have told The News that Mr Shaw would have been forced out by his…
TULLI the wombat was rescued from his dead mother’s pouch more than a year ago and last weekend was taken back to the bush as a 20kg adult. Tulli and her “sheltermate” Wilma are among the animals rescued each year and taken to Animalia Wildlife Shelter in Frankston. The wombats have been taken to a bush property near Nar Nar Goon and put into a small enclosure prior to being released in a couple of weeks after they have finished building a burrow and getting used to the smells and sounds of their new home range. They are being fed…
FEDERAL politicians are about to get a colourful reminder that polio survivors still exist. The disease was declared eradicated in Australia in 2000, but it has left a legacy of complex health issues for an ageing population of survivors. Hastings resident Fran Henke is one of 46 people with post-polio syndrome going to Canberra next week to lobby politicians for more money to support Polio Australia. They will be dressed in orange and have appointments to meet with MPs from their respective areas, in Mrs Henke’s case Flinders MP Greg Hunt and Dunkley MP Bruce Billson. “There are hundreds of…
THE $6 million “affordable” homes project in Marine Pde, Hastings, will not be finished until next year. A halt was called on work to complete the 20 homes earlier this year when builders unearthed a disused fuel tank. Since then the land has been extensively tested to gauge the extent of contamination from the tank left over from a former service station. “It’s really sad this has happened,” state manager for Community Housing Ltd Brett Wake said on Monday. “We’re very confident we’ll be able to finish the project, but it won’t be until the next calendar year.” Mr Wake…
HUNDREDS of volunteers are being marshalled in the final frenzied days of the campaign to build an adventure playground at Rye. More than two years in the planning, the nautical-themed playground will be built by the community over five days beginning Wednesday 24 October. Project coordinator Miranda Gillespie said there was a “last minute panic” to fill the rosters but the mood in Rye was “warm and fuzzy” and excited. “I can’t believe the time to build is actually here,” she said. The Rye’s Up! Community Playground, designed by Leather Associates, a United States company that specialises in community-built playgrounds,…