THE STINK only gets worse at Bannockburn over its rubbish collection services, or lack thereof.
Double Take readers might remember the trouble in which Golden Plains Shire’s chief found himself when a current affairs TV crew hounded him over ratepayer complaints about rubbish and recycling.
Now it’s turned into a state Upper House issue, with Member for Western Victoria Simon Ramsay joining the baying fray yesterday.
He turned up the heat – it was already 32C in Bannockburn, co-incidentally – by asking how the shire could justify cutting back collections to fortnightly while paying top staff six-figure salaries and running a fleet of 53 vehicles.
The result was “real health problem” from piled-up rubbish, Mr Ramsay said.
Maybe the shire needs a new slogan: Golden Plains – bin there, haven’t done that.
SPEAKING of feeling the heat, local household gardeners might like to think about preparing for summer given the state of the region’s water storages.
Barwon Water recorded local reservoirs at 60.6 per cent of capacity this week as almost 650 million litres flowed out with no replacement in sight.
The storages are now more than 20 per cent below the same time last year, with the traditional spring downpours failing to materialise.
Whether or not Barwon Water might soon ratchet up restrictions is shaping as a rather, er, dry argument.
PATRONS were enjoying a quality evening meal at The Gordon’s Davidson Restaurant in Geelong midweek, with top service from the trainees.
Then an evacuation signal caused minor concern but the garbled instruction from the public address system could well have been in an unfamiliar language, as nobody understood a word.
The young staff, however, were well-drilled and set an example by directing others and moving to the muster point.
Maybe they’re multi-lingual as well.
CAUSING just as much alarm this week as The Gordon’s restaurant was Mayor Darryn Lyons’ latest wardrobe malfunction.
The uptight and politically opposed were quick to condemn his choice of Oktoberfest T-shirt for its image of a naked Madonna hitchhiking with the slogan: ‘Gas, grass or ass, nobody rides for free’.
Trades Hall called a rally to demand his resignation but could only muster around 30 die-hards. Then a Facebook call for a counter rally produced, as far as the Indy could tell, only two apparently inebriated malingerers at its chosen venue.
Maybe Geelong people have better things to do than protest T-shirts.
