Community grants open

THE council has opened its community grants program for the 2017/18 financial year. Not-for-profit sporting, cultural and community groups within the Derwent Valley municipal area are invited to apply for assistance in cash and kind under this program.

The council generally gives preference to groups in the municipality which have broad community benefit, with grants mostly falling in the range of $200 to $1000. A second round of grants may be offered if the budget of $12,000 is not fully allocated in the initial round.

Applications close on February 16. Click here for the application form and guidelines.

Council recording now available

THE audio recording of last month's Derwent Valley Council meeting has been published on the council website today. It can be accessed here.

This is a great step forward and will open the council to greater scrutiny. This is particularly important at the start of a council election year as it will allow voters to hear how their councillors are performing.

The council's audio recording policy says the digital file will generally be available on the council website within five business days of the meeting. Despite this new service I still believe the best way to have the full experience of a council meeting is to attend in person and I remain available to assist any person who would like to attend and ask questions.
 

Council appoints interim recycling contractor

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Councillor update

HERE is my most recent councillor update, published in the Derwent Valley Gazette on December 13, 2017.

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Technical issue closes pool

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Change to Christmas garbage collection

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Henry would have been proud

THERE'S a story that Henry Ford once said: "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black." It was a bit like that a few months back when the council's general manager told assembled councillors they had three colour choices for the repainting of the bollards and fence panels in High St.

The faded blue railings are certainly long-overdue for a tidy-up but the colour choices were fairly uninspiring (some might say restrictive). I'm sure these aren't the official names but they can be safely described as shiny black, dull black and mottled black.

As is so often the case, most of your councillors had little to say about this although several thought black was a better choice than the original blue. I'm not so sure about that, especially given the amount of damage that has occurred in the form of scrapes, bumps and occasional knockdowns by cars since the fixtures were installed in 2002. Black would seem to be potentially worse from a visibility point of view, particularly at night.

The work is now under way and it has been announced via a media release that the chosen colour is called Hammertone Black.