MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire’s new CEO Carl Cowie has started retrenching staff. The first of several axes fell last Friday, the 13th, when 17 people lost their jobs. It is understood more people will go this Friday. The job losses come after a three-month review of the entire shire operations by Mr Cowie and his senior executives. The shire’s four directors were called to meetings with the CEO on Friday 6 March to be told the fate of their departments. The shire has about 1000 full-time equivalent staff. The News understands that some directors, managers and middle management staff are among…
Author: Mike Hast
MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire hired prominent dispute resolution facilitator Bruce Turner to run a three-hour mediation session with shire planners, RACV Cape Schanck Resort people, and objectors last week. It was the first major meeting of all parties following increased opposition to the RACV’s proposed $135 million, five-storey, 30-metre high conference complex at its resort off Boneo Rd (“Opposition mounts to RACV resort plan”, The News, 3/2/15). Mr Turner is hired by the shire and other statutory authorities to run public meetings about controversial planning issues and was last “keeping the peace” during the nine-month fuss in 2013 over plans to…
GREENS upper house MP Sue Pennicuik has gone in to bat for anti-gondola chairlift lobby group Save Our Seat. In Parliament last week, Ms Pennicuik called on state environment minister Lisa Neville “not to sign the lease for the [Arthurs Seat gondola chairlift] project without further consideration of its merits and the extreme bushfire risks, including issues of potential liability for the government”. The MP asked Ms Neville to “meet with Save Our Seat representatives at her earliest convenience; … consult with Minister for Emergency Services, the Essential Services Commission and the Country Fire Authority about bushfire risks; and ……
MT Eliza residents are opposing plans for a liquor outlet in a shop not yet built. The outlet will be part of the expanded Eliza Square shopping centre on the corner of Mt Eliza Way and Canadian Bay Rd. Lead tenant is a supermarket and Mornington Peninsula Shire recently received an application for a liquor shop at Shop 10, 85 Mt Eliza Way. The proposed expansion by building owner Blackbrook Pty Ltd has been on the cards since 2008. In 2010 the shire knocked back the plan but this was overturned by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in September…
PRESSURE is building on South East Water and Mornington Peninsula Shire to create a nature reserve instead of a housing estate on land occupied by an old reservoir at Mt Eliza. Last year the government water authority asked the shire to rezone 2.8 hectares on the corner of Barmah and Kanya roads, east of Kunyung Rd, for 24 blocks of about 1000 square metres. The shire called for public comment and is likely to consider the matter at its 23 March meeting in Mt Martha. Several of more than 75 submissions point out this part of Mt Eliza has just…
AFTER years of battling development in Tootgarook Swamp, defenders received good news earlier in the month when Mornington Peninsula Shire released a planning amendment designed to protect the iconic wetlands. Save Tootgarook Swamp president Cameron Brown said Amendment C188, if approved, would create a new Environmental Significance Overlay (ESO). “For the first time the wetlands will have a site-specific overlay specifically designed for the needs and issues of the Tootgarook Swamp,” he said. “The ESO will acknowledge the unique characteristics and values of an area in need of protection and preservation. “It will provide concise direction for appropriate planning and…
POLLUTION of Rye Beach is being investigated by the state Environment Protection Authority and Mornington Peninsula Shire’s environmental health team. The probe was revealed to the council on Monday last week by the shire’s communications manager Todd Trimble during his annual “summer report”. He said the two bodies were “conducting a risk assessment of Rye Beach to determine possible sources of bacterial contamination detected”. “As part of the assessment, the environmental health team is assisting Monash University and Melbourne Water in a bacterial water sampling program around the Rye Beach stormwater outfall, including sampling from septic systems and groundwater bores,”…
ABOUT 3500 people packed Rosebud’s Village Green on the foreshore for the Peninsula Short Film Fest, delighting organisers and cementing it as one of the peninsula’s premier arts events after just four years. The films were streamed to Federation Square in Melbourne. Festival founder Steve Bastoni said the event generated a “fantastic, friendly community feel” and the galaxy of acting stars who came down to Rosebud “loved it”. Bastoni, a Rosebud resident and award-winning actor (On the Beach, The Matrix Reloaded, The Water Diviner, and Blue Murder), started the festival in 2011 to give his acting students a forum for…
THE derelict lower station of the old Arthurs Seat chairlift is no more. A Parks Victoria contractor operating a tracked excavator flattened the building, which contained a kiosk and storage sheds, in less than a day on Monday last week but a Parks spokeswoman said the work would take about a week as there was asbestos material throughout the building. Parks Victoria said the building was surplus to its needs. The demolition also removed graffiti that appeared on Thursday 5 February: “No vandalism in our park” and “I am not the vandal”, presumably painted by a person or people opposed…
MORE international tourists visited the Mornington Peninsula over summer than last season with a large percentage using the region as a “gateway” to Phillip Island and the Great Ocean Road. Peninsula tourism operators reported that visitors spent between 10-20 per cent more, and more bookings were made in advance. These and other trends were reported to shire councillors last week by the shire’s communications manager Todd Trimble in his annual “summer report”. “Tourists complained less, perhaps due to improvement in quality of services and products,” he said. The increase in international visitors came particularly from Asian markets. Statistics on the…
THE shire council has been embarrassed by revelations it could have stopped the controversial Rye food truck park. Food truck traders under the banner of Australian Mobile Food Vendors Group set up on a vacant block on the corner of Weir St and Point Nepean Rd last November. The move sparked angry protests from Rye traders with Mornington Peninsula Shire saying it could not stop the food trucks. Signs protesting the food trucks were erected on fences with one painted on a shop roof. Now it has been revealed the food truck park needed a planning permit. Rye eatery Baha…
PORT of Melbourne Corporation will dredge the South Channel of Port Phillip for a week from 19 February as part of its “maintenance dredging” program. The port authority stated the work was needed to ensure safe navigation of declared channel depths in the channel between Rosebud and The Heads. Dredging would remove high spots revealed when the corporation carried out hydrographic surveys last year. It will be done by 84-metre trailing suction hopper dredge Brisbane, which was in Port Phillip for maintenance dredging last year. It is the same type of dredger as the Queen of the Netherlands, which did…
THE derelict bottom station of the old Arthurs Seat chairlift has been daubed with graffiti: “No vandalism in our park”. The graffiti appeared on Thursday morning and is believed to have been done overnight. The building’s owner, Parks Victoria, is unlikely to remove it as demolition of the building is due to start this week and take about a week. It will be the second Arthurs Seat structure removed to make way for the proposed $18 million gondola chairlift being built by Arthurs Seat Skylift, headed by businessman and philanthropist Simon McKeon. The mountain’s iconic, 78-year-old lookout tower was demolished…
CAPE Schanck residents are objecting to RACV plans to build a $135 million, five-storey, 26-metre high conference complex at its resort on Boneo Rd. RACV Cape Schanck Resort of about 250 hectares currently has an 86-bedroom hotel as well as restaurant, cafe, rooms for meetings and weddings, outdoor heated pool, sauna, games room, gym and a four-kilometre walking/running track. Centrepiece of the resort is its famous 18-hole, Robert Trent Jones Jr-designed championship golf course as well as practice facilities and driving range. The resort started life as Cape Country Club, first approved in 1985 by the Shire of Flinders, and…
LACK of passengers has put the brakes on the innovative Peninsula Explorer Bus with the service making its final trip on Monday, Australia Day. It was a disappointing end for the consortium behind the scheme as well as tourism businesses that supported or benefitted from the hop-on, hop-off bus tour service. Shareholders of a company formed to run the buses have lost $450,000. The service started on 1 November with two double-decker, 80-seat, open-top buses running around the southern peninsula, with hourly stops at destinations such as Peninsula Hot Springs, Point Nepean National Park, Eagle Ridge Golf Course, Boneo Maze…
MORE than two years after opening on 17 January 2013, Peninsula Link freeway will get directional and tourism signs that were omitted from the original brief for the $760 million road. The signs followed intense lobbying by federal Dunkley MP Bruce Billson and peninsula tourism officials. At least $175,000 of the cost will come from a federal Coalition government grant organised by Mr Billson in what some people will see as an unfair cost burden. Peninsula motorists were surprised and disappointed at the lack of directional signs when the freeway opened in 2013. Strangers to the peninsula using the freeway…
THE co-founder of the Mornington Railway Preservation Society, Howard Girdler, has died at age 85 of pneumonia. Mr Girdler’s funeral was held at Tobin Brother chapel in Mt Martha last Wednesday and as his coffin was being taken from the chapel to a hearse, the sounds of a steam train were played, putting smiles on the faces of crying mourners. The former teacher was the driving force behind the foundation of the railway society, which saved the section of the rail line between Moorooduc and Mornington, although the society was unable to stop the state government selling the railway reserve…
A MAJOR legal obstacle to the $18 million gondola chairlift on Arthurs Seat has been removed with Save Our Seat announcing it will not appeal a planning tribunal decision in the Supreme Court. Save Our Seat had until last Wednesday to lodge an appeal against the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal’s December decision to confirm Mornington Peninsula Shire Council’s approval of the ride last June. Save Our Seat spokeswoman Kylie Greer said “on advice from our barristers, we would be hard pressed to overturn the VCAT decision”. Ms Greer said deciding not to appeal would not stop SOS from “pursuing…
MT Eliza’s Nepean Highway and Tower Rd intersection needs traffic lights or turn restrictions to make it safer, says resident and former shire councillor Leigh Eustace. Mr Eustace and other residents continue to lobby for improvements at the black spot intersection, which has claimed two lives and seen a number of crashes that have injured drivers and passengers since 2008. A man in his 70s was killed at the intersection in June 2012 when his car struck the back of a truck that was stationary in the centre median waiting to turn north, having crossed southbound lanes from Tower Rd.…
IT’S four and a half years since hundreds of sandbags were placed on Rosebud beach next to the jetty to protect the eroding foreshore as well as sand brought in to replace the eroded beach. The damage was done in April 2009 when storms and high tides blasted the beach as well as others around Port Phillip. The project – carried out by contractors for the Department of Sustainability and Environment (now called Department of Environment and Primary Industries, DEPI, but perhaps set to be changed again by the new Labor government) – cost $250,000 and the government claimed it…
MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire councillors have dipped into the world of business finance rather than local government to find the shire’s new CEO. The appointment of Carl Cowie, who was born and educated in Scotland, was announced at a special council meeting last Wednesday. He started work on Monday. The shire was unable to provide Mr Cowie’s age or other basic information but The News believes he is in his late 40s. Previous employment history was taken from his LinkedIn listing. Mr Cowie replaces Dr Michael Kennedy, who unexpectedly left the shire mid-November after almost 16 years after being told by…
AUTHOR Graham Patterson took a financial risk last year when he self-published his book Coastal guide to nature and history – Port Phillip Bay. It was the first of what he hoped would be a series of Coastal Guide Books about his 40 years walking the Victorian shoreline. He started the ambitious task in his mid-20s and is now in his mid-60s, and has covered three-quarters of the coast. “Whether I finish the task depends on my fitness,” he said. Mr Patterson, 66, a retired secondary school science teacher, was surprised at the reception the book received. It has sold…
MORE than $800,000 will be spent to improve traffic flow, car parking, and pedestrian and boat ramp access at Mornington’s pier precinct. Shire councillors last week approved the spending of $250,000 of ratepayer funds for the Mornington Pier Forecourt Plan. This will be combined with $365,000 from a state government boating safety and facilities fund with the balance coming from Parks Victoria. The work will level the area between the pier and the yacht club, and there will be a roundabout at the pier end of Schnapper Point Drive to enable cars and buses to turn more easily. Other items…
BEV Colomb is the new mayor of Mornington Peninsula Shire. It is Cr Colomb’s second mayoral term as she was “first among equals” in 2007-08. She replaces Cr Antonella Celi of Seawinds Ward. Cr Graham Pittock, also of Seawinds, was elected deputy mayor. One of three Briars Ward councillors, Cr Colomb is the 19th mayor since the “super” shire was formed from Mornington, Hastings and Flinders shires in late 1994 (three Kennett government-appointed commissioners ran the municipality until councillors were first elected in 1997). The shire has had five women mayors – Judith Graley in 2000-01 (now state Labor MP),…
TOXIC substances such as heavy metals, hydrocarbons, pesticides and anti-foulants appear to be low in Western Port, says one of five new reports commissioned by Melbourne Water. The reports are part of the government authority’s investigation into the health and environmental management of Western Port under the banner Western Port Science Review. The project started in 2010 and brought together a panel of scientists to consolidate the existing research on Western Port to improve knowledge of the area’s marine and coastal environments. Reports have been released in stages since then with five published in late January. The reports examined five…
COUNCILLORS will face greater scrutiny from the local government watchdog, the Local Government Inspectorate, when new powers are introduced into Parliament mid-year. Two new offences relating to breach of confidentiality and improper direction of council staff will be introduced. Mayors will have the power to order the removal of unruly councillors from council meetings, although how this will occur has not been detailed. The Chief Municipal Inspector will have expanded power to investigate and prosecute breaches of conduct under the Local Government Act 1989. Misbehaving councillors will face stronger penalties. Local Government Minister Jeanette Powell announced the changes on Monday…
SEEING satirist, comedian and actor John Clarke standing in the mangroves of Western Port at Hastings, you naturally enough expect a sardonic comment. Perhaps something about the odour of the mud at low tide. Eau de saltmarsh, anyone? A crack about the seagrass? This would look good in the fish pond. But, no, Clarke is on a mission; something completely different, as the Pythons once said. He is a founding board member of Western Port Seagrass Partnership, an independent trust formed in 2001 to lobby for the protection and restoration of Western Port and its catchment. Why does a 65-year-old…
THE threat of legal action by Frankston MP Geoff Shaw over an article written by former mayor Christine Richards is a Mexican standoff. The article headed “There’s more to Frankston than beer and bogans” was published in The Age on 7 January and led to Mr Shaw’s solicitor Quinn McCormack seeking a formal apology from Ms Richards (“MP’s defamation threat”, The Times 16/1/14). Ms McCormack claimed the article, which was co-signed by four other former Frankston mayors, “made a number of defamatory imputations” including that Mr Shaw “had acted violently, had engaged in bullying, had misappropriated public funds and was…
BALNARRING’S catamaran world champion Robbie Lovig has rivals for best yachtie in the Western Port region – two teenagers he has been coaching for about 14 months. Michelle Bursa and Chelsea Haynes, both 17, secured a place in the Australian team for the ISAF Youth World Championships in Portugal in July when they won their Hobie 16 class two weeks ago off Blairgowrie and Sorrento on Port Phillip. Mr Lovig, 29, who with his French crewman Andy Dinsdale won the Hobie Tiger Worlds in Germany last winter, said they were the first-ever female team to represent Australia in the class.…
A PILOT from Albury and his young female passenger escaped injury when their light plane flipped onto its roof when landing at Tyabb airfield last Saturday morning at about 7.15. The pair had flown from Albury, leaving just before 6am. The Cessna 182S Skylane was halfway along the runway when it flipped and sustained “substantial” damage, according to the Aviation Safety Network website. The cause of the incident has not been released. Police and Tyabb CFA volunteers were called to the airfield and the plane was later removed by crane. It was the second incident at Tyabb airfield in the…