April council meeting tomorrow to be live-streamed

By Jeremy Sollars

Tomorrow’s April general meeting of the Southern Downs Regional Council will be publicly live-streamed on the council’s Facebook page, being closed to public attendance due to COVID-19.

The meeting will commence at 9am tomorrow – Wednesday 29 April – and will also involve a video-link between councillors at the Warwick and Stanthorpe meeting rooms.

The meeting will be the first monthly ‘general’ council meeting since the election and following the swearing-in of the new council, which took place at a special meeting held on Wednesday 15 April which was also live-streamed.

Mayor Vic Pennisi and councillors are tomorrow expected to discuss the appointment of an acting council chief executive officer, following the announcement last Friday afternoon of the departure of current CEO David Keenan.

A special council meeting called by Cr Pennisi was held on the Friday morning with the only agenda item listed as confidential and stating it related to “staff issues”. The minutes of that meeting have not yet been posted on the council website.

In a council statement released on Friday afternoon Mr Keenan was thanked “for his service to the community over the last five years”.

The statement said Mr Keenan “played an instrumental role in attracting investment and employment to the region, as well as increasing the level of funding for important projects from both State and Federal Government”.

Cr Pennisi congratulated Mr Keenan “on the valuable contribution he has made to the Southern Downs region”.

Mr Keenan was quoted as thanking “the staff of the organisation for the very good work that they do every day of the week, as well as their resilience in dealing with natural disasters”.

APRIL AGENDA…

The agenda for tomorrow’s April meeting includes financial reports for the first quarter of 2020. Mayor Vic Pennisi has foreshadowed an examination of rates revenue and potential rates relief options related to COVID-19 although this is not specifically identified as an agenda item.

The agenda notes that the second round of water and utility rates for the 2019-2020 financial year were issued on Monday 13 April and are due for payment by Friday 26 June.

Under the heading ‘Balance Sheet’ the financial states that as at 31 March 2020 the council had $52.2m in “cash at bank and investments”, with total loans at $19.3m.

Capital works expenditure to 29 February 2020 was $15.9m “which is 38.8% of the adopted capital works budget (for 2019-2020) of $40.9m”. Capital works include spending on ‘hard assets’ such as roads and water and sewerage infrastructure.

The agenda includes a ‘confidential’ section with items to be discussed including tenders for –

• water meter replacement program

• McEvoy Street sewer pump station refurbishment

• supply and delivery of 19 vehicles of various sizes and specifications

• refurbishment of Freestone Road

Those tenders are understood to have not yet been awarded and to have been called during the term of the previous council.

The agenda also refers to an estimated $13 million “estimated damage bill” relating to flooding in the region in February of this year, with applications for funding being made to the State Government’s Queensland Reconstruction Authority which provides natural disaster recovery aid.

WATER ISSUES…

Reports from council officers on water issues include the completion of de-silting of Stanthorpe’s Storm King Dam and the upcoming finalisation of a ‘feasibility study’ into reversing the Warwick-Allora town water pipeline to deliver treated bore water from Allora to Warwick as part of future potential drought-security measures.

The agenda also refers to the proposed Toowoomba-Warwick water pipeline announced by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in early 2020 but provides no update, with the Queensland Government having made no further statements about the project since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.

• Keep an eye on the Free Times online at www.freetimes.com.au for coverage of tomorrow’s meeting…

• To watch the live-stream of the meeting from 9am tomorrow visit the Southern Downs Regional Council’s Facebook page