Western Port
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Western Port’s
No. 1
FOOD AND ENTERTAINMENT
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WESTERN PORT SCOREBOARD
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26 June – 2 July 2012
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Dotted line: At the Beacon Charter signing at Western Port Secondary College were Kenny San, left, Harry Grasso, principal Andrew Nichols, Victorian Health Services Commissioner Beth Wilson, Dayna Carey, Teesha Robins, Tim Truong and Kitlyn Bourke. Full story Page 3. Picture: Yanni
Renewal in turmoil By Mike Hast THE Hastings Neighbourhood Renewal project has been thrown into turmoil with the replacement last week of manager Pam Ford. Steering committee chairman Brian Stahl says Ms Ford’s removal was “disgraceful” and a “bureaucratic process gone wrong”. Mr Stahl, a former councillor and mayor of Mornington Peninsula Shire, sent a highly critical email last Thursday to the project’s steering committee
members, all agencies involved with the renewal project and its supporters. This included the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Peninsula Health, Salvation Army, Mornington Peninsula Shire, police, school principals, teachers and community groups. “I am disillusioned, disappointed and offended at the recent turn of events since our successful and inspiring steering committee meeting last Thursday evening [14 June],” he wrote. “The bureaucrats at Department of Human Services yesterday [20 June]
gave our beloved project manager Pam her ‘marching orders’ from her role at Hastings Neighbourhood Renewal.” Mr Stahl said Ms Ford had been “crucified” and “relieved of her duties without any consideration for her personal welfare, no acknowledgement of her dedicated and inspiring leadership since being appointed project manager seven years ago”. He said he had been told by Linda Cristine, acting director of DHS southern metropolitan region, that “a staff complaint against Pam has been inves-
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tigated internally by DHS and agency representatives”. No one on the steering committee had been told anything about the complaint, he said. “Our renewal project has been held up as an example for others to follow and Pam has played a key role in it,” Mr Stahl said. No manager of other neighbourhood renewal projects in Victoria had stayed the full distance, he said. The move by DHS would make the completion of the eighth and final year
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of the renewal project difficult. “Alas, I now have no confidence we will finish off the things we discussed following Mark O’Driscoll’s address on mainstreaming without Pam’s support and input. No other person can just step in and pick up the pieces.” (Mr O’Driscoll is a project manager with DHS who is helping neighbourhood renewal projects become selfsufficient after funding runs out at the end of the eighth year in June 2013, dubbed “mainstreaming” by DHS.) Continued Page 4
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