BULLETIN 19 January 2018

• A few more people are  needed as cricket marshalls, litter pickers and whatever else. Dates 28 January and 28 February. Names to Barbara please
• Local Lions clubs also need help – track down Eric's email from yesterday and respond, please

OUR SPEAKER was Rotarian Max Mason, aka Councillor Mason who started off on the right (or left) foot by  getting two rounds of applause after leaving and then retrieving  his notes from his breakfast table. Good start, Max. His perception of his time on Council  was punctuated by a series of 'how true' cartoons, the first up being 'I'm here today to tell you what you want to hear' Stories flowed freely, like the flood of protests to the proposed parking arrangements next to the Kingsview apartments, not surprisingly from several residents!.

 

There's a lot of PC stuff these days, especially;y when you realise that Council has some 600+ staff members controlling a budget of $300m via 30 divisions – regulatory, community- and environmentally-focused. Max reckons that a $70k salary is not enough and cited the fact that documents (sometimes hundreds of pages long) often arrive on a Thursday afternoon and these are expected to be read and disseminated by the end of the weekend.

 

Max has a pet hate – PAPERWORK – and seems to be taking a very pragmatic approach to problems, like when he visited a lady lawyer who had accumulated hundreds of documents over the course of a year relating to a particular issue. Max's sensible approach was to sit down and talk about it. Result? All sorted in less than an hour! There is a case for more external experience within local government to provide a balance between political and corporate governance.

 

An interesting insight into the workings of Council.

 

SERGEANT Wayne reported that Simon had dobbed in Michele for trying to upload or download a huge amount of data but then reversed the fine as Simon was in charge of technology. Did you know that technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born? Couple of lovely stories concerning a fire extinguisher and a hand grenade and cardboard box dwellers and an enterprising real estate person.