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28 August – 3 September 2012
MPNEWS (1300 676 397) or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au
Powerplay A GROUP of young people from Balnarring raised more than $4000 on Saturday to help a winery convert to low-energy lights and solar power. Eve Pawlik, Jet Sallmann, Joey De Backer, Minna Harrison and Eliza Anthony are part of Australian Youth Climate Coalition, which has been running a national campaign, “Repower Australia”, raising money to help businesses convert to renewable energy and demonstrate how investing in renewable, efficient resources is a feasible option. Highlights of the event included performances by Jet Sallmann, Kodo Motif, Lucky, Esther Holt band, and Marty Williams and band, and talks by Sean Willmore of Thin Green Line Foundation and Frank Fitzgerald-Ryan, founder of Sustainability Street. The group hopes to show a wide range of people the benefits of sustainable living. The Balnarring AYCC Repower group is planning to have a stall at the Balnarring’s Sustainability Fair on 24 November. Details: Joey De Backer 0433 483 007 or joeydebacker@gmail.com Music for sustainability: Repower Balnarring team (Joey De Backer, Eve Pawlik, Jet Sallman, Eliza Amthony and Minna Harrison) with AYCC liaison Patrick Holmes and performers Ryan Luckhurst and Esther Holt and band.
Shop gang arrested By Keith Platt A SPECIAL police squad has arrested five boys thought to be involved in a gang that terrorised Hastings shopkeepers. The five, aged 10 to 14, will be charged with burglary after one of them allegedly stole two packets of cigarettes from inside a High St butcher’s shop. Police say the cigarettes were in a private room at the rear of the store. The theft occurred in daylight and was reported to police by a witness who saw one of the groups enter the back door of the shop.
The boys were arrested by police from the three-member STOP (Social Tasking Operations and Patrol) team, part of the Community Response Engagement and Social Tasking (CREST) strategy. The arrests were made on the team’s first day of deployment in Hastings and just days after shopkeepers were told to photograph or take CCTV footage of the gang. A team member, who did not want to be named, said the arrested boys “did not seem to be going to school”. Four of those arrested lived in Hastings and the fifth had recently moved
to Mornington. Police believe the five, who will appear in the children’s court, were not the only members of the gang causing trouble in Hastings. Hastings chamber of commerce coordinator Sarah Law said police had assured her that foot and bicycle patrols would be increased following reports of boys as young as eight “throwing rubbish, being rude toward shoppers, and causing damage to both property, private and council-owned, and products in stores”. In an email to chamber members, Ms Law said she had raised the issue at a meeting of Hastings Community
Action Safety Group on Tuesday 14 August, but was “not convinced that the police are taking the reports as seriously as we’d like them to”. “The police have asked that you do not call the station to put in reports, but instead call 000 and it will be sent to Hastings station via official means. This also means that it will be tracked and recorded through Victoria Police, so if there’s a large amount of reports I would hope that would alert the powers that Hastings needs more resources,” Ms Law said. “We want to keep Hastings as a safe and friendly place to shop; the last
thing anyone needs are any persons causing damage and exhibiting antisocial behaviour.” The police STOP team has been assigned to the Hastings area after spending three months at Rosebud and three months at Mornington. The team has an unmarked car and is partly financed by Mornington Peninsula Shire to tackle crime issues of concern to the particular community within which it is operating. The operation began six months ago, with a similar team being based in Frankston.
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clothing alterations Ladies & Menswear aOWered WR ¿W Repairs - Mending Zips Replaced SHOP 10, 37-41 VICTORIA STREET, HASTINGS (at rear Westernport Plaza)
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