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District Council Meeting cancelled for lack of quorum
Indeed, members of the gallery outnumbered elected members at the scheduled
March meeting.
Council had received apologies from two councillors. Needing four for a
quorum, it became a matter for concern when only three were present at the
time of the scheduled start of meeting.
The only other councillor in town was Cr Harry Blobel.
A council staff member tried to phone him but could not get an answer so was
sent to Mr Blobel's home. The staff member returned and told the meeting
that Mr Blobel had said he wouldn't be coming.
All councillors and staff were very disappointed in the attitude of Cr
Blobel.
An informal meeting took place.
Mr Geoff Sykes gave an entertaining demonstration with his model of a
proposed Changing Rooms to be built at the town oval. The building will be
for anyone to use, being on council land and maintained as a council asset,
even though the Coober Pedy Football Club is the main 'driver' in the
project.
The high strength of the material proposed to be used for panels in the
change rooms was highlighted by Mr Sykes' "geriatric gymnastics".
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Mr Ted Brereton, Operations Manager enGen, in his address said that the company had now been operating the Power Station for 21 months. He said the unplanned outage recently, which affected the whole town when the station shut down completely, was disappointing. EnGen runs 17 power stations and any faults are normally fixed remotely by computer. He has an investigative team working here to try to find the cause of the problem.
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Re-convened Meeting
Dog Problem
Ten dogs were destroyed last month, but the number of dogs wandering at large is increasing. They are breeding faster than they are being caught, and are too smart for the traps currently being used. A new trap will be tried.
Street signs
Street signs keep disappearing. It seems people in Coober Pedy don't like them to be there.
'Court Jester' Meets Match
Mr Geoff Sykes again addressed Council on the proposed new sporting change rooms, and for the second week in a row bounced on the piece of panelling without coming to grief. Self-appointed council court jester Cr Harry Blobel commented that if there are to be 25 football players to have their showers in 5 shower booths in the proposed new change rooms that would mean 5 players in a booth at once. Mr Sykes retorted that in Harry's case that would only mean two players at once.
Triangle Playground Shade Structure
Correspondence is continuing with John F. Berthon Engineers regarding the mechanical integrity and proposed fix for the shade structure at the triangle It was not discussed who is responsible for checking that an engineer's specifications are followed by a builder.
New public toilet being installed
Councillors let their imaginations run wild about the kind of services available in the 'you beaut' new public toilet being constructed in the Lions Information Bay in the main street.
..................................Report by Keith Simmonds, Environmental Health Officer
Letters were written to all owners of premises inspected advising results ofinspection. The standard of premise were very good.One of the premise inspected were follow up on a business that are currently undergoing upgrades. Work is at an excellent standard.One premise was a follow-up as result of unsatisfactory standards reported from previous inspection that resulted in a letter being written requesting for work to be undertaken otherwise an Improvement Notice under the Food Act will be issued. This matter is in the process of being resolved.
Swimming pools were tested for compliance to Standards. There has been a vast improvement in standard of operation and upgrading pool monitoring equipment since the previous year testing.
Daylight Saving
From http://www.abc.net.au/backyard/timezone.htm:
South Australian Daylight Savings Time ends on Sunday April 2 at 3.00am.
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If you thought March has been hotter than usual this year think again: the Bureau of Meteorology stats say that on average we have 22 days in March over 30. And that's how many we have had.
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Statement from Damien Clark,
Finance and Administration Manager
District Council of Coober
Pedy
"Council is pleased to inform the public that the Department of Transport, Infrastructure & Energy has made the first payment to Council for the increased cost of fuel for the Power Station that Council has had to incur over the past 2 years. These payments will be made in quarterly payments and will total somewhere in the order of $1.5M till the end of June 2006.
Over the past 2 years Council has had to pay the increased fuel price to its power supplier while having no increase in subsidy from the Government. This has meant that Council has had to extend its Line of Credit (Loan) to makeup for the shortfall.
With the payment being received this week by Council, it has now enabled us to Payout that Line of Credit ($1.256M).
This payment has put Council is a position of stability that it has not had for a period of time.
Council is very pleased that the increasing cost of Fuel has not impacted on the tariffs that our Customers have had to pay. As many Customers would be aware Council does not have the power to set Tariffs. This is determined by the State Government."
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