Are we ready for VicRoads?
IT IS 15 months since Joshua Morris, a local Liberal member of State Parliament, demanded via this newspaper that Labor premier Daniel Andrews relocate the state headquarters of VicRoads from Kew in Melbourne's east to Ballarat.
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It is also four months since Mr Andrews' treasurer Tim Pallas told the ABC that work on the proposal was still "ongoing" and that the Labor Government remained "committed to the idea of relocation."
However, as a Melbourne resident employed in Ballarat for the past nine months, I think the people of Ballarat, their councillors and parliamentarians need to ask themselves: Is this city ready to receive VicRoads?
As Mr Morris wrote, such a move would entail the relocation of up to 600 jobs. Unless the state government wants to retrench existing VicRoads employees, these jobs are not going to be filled by Ballarat job seekers because these roles are already filled by Melbourne people whose expertise and experience makes them valuable human resources to VicRoads.
Their interests cannot be overlooked. It will take more than cash to entice these people to move from Melbourne for the sake of boosting retail-consumer spending in Ballarat.
Ballarat needs to pull its socks up.
One: Ballarat City Council must immediately ask the auditor general to comprehensively audit the punctuality of the city's miki bus network. Too many services run disturbingly late, too often.
Two: Somebody needs to impress upon local real estate agents the importance of treating rental tenants like paying customers, not serfs.
- Chris Evans, St Albans
Challenge meal proposal
YOUR headline "Council defends Contract", Friday, July 22, once more highlights unbelievable behaviour on the part of the Ballarat City Council.
No question the provision of a proper meals on wheels service is paramount within Ballarat, however the concept of the meals being produced in Melbourne will seem to many to be unacceptable at worst; incredible at best.
Here we are in the middle of a debate about decentralisation through the proposal to move the VicRoads' head office to Ballarat, while at the same time a critical service for the community, staffed by the community, is about to be moved to the metropolis.
Given the state of unemployment in Ballarat and the apparent redundancies and disruptions this proposal will bring to Ballarat, the sensibility of the proposal must be challenged.
My greatest criticism is the "secrecy" which surrounds the contract. This, like many of the deals done by our council, tag us with the title of "the secret city".
The entire purpose of our council is to deal in the best interests of the community. Every dollar committed and spent by our council is "community money", basically sourced from our rates.
In the case of meals provided by the meals on wheels service, a tidy portion is actually provided by the recipients. The notion any of the details (of costs) can be covered by "commercial in confidence" agreements is improper. The processes by which the meals are produced might be covered by intellectual property rights or production secrets, but the financial cost to the community never can. This situation is repeated time after time.
Last week it was the tens of thousands of dollars for a piece of "kitch" sculpture. In 2010, the sale of the saleyards to RIPL for a peppercorn (real potential community value $20 million) marked "forever to be kept secret".
This week, a contract for the provision of meals to the needy of our city, and it goes on and on.
At the risk of being accused of pinching someone else's slogan "it really is time".
- Grant Tillett, North Ward candidate, City of Ballarat election