CEO’s message

It’s my great privilege to present the 2020-2021 annual report for Wodonga Council at the end of a turbulent period in our city and for our nation. Twelve months ago, we were reflecting on the impact of summer bushfires and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the way forward. A year on, and we find things have changed, and stayed the same, having lived with COVID-19 for 18 months and endured multiple lockdowns. Despite these challenges, I’m very proud to lead a committed council team that has remained agile and responsive during these difficult times, supporting our community and maintaining the services that make our city a great place to live, work and invest. We’ve continued to see growth in our population as well as investment in our city, with several new businesses opening in the past 12 months and ongoing interest in vacant land including at Logic. We have been lobbying to all levels of government throughout the pandemic to share the impact on our community of the border closures, the disparity between restrictions between the states and for more support for our businesses. As part of our business support we simplified the process for businesses undertaking outdoor dining and advertising activities, creating one simple permit that allowed businesses to begin operating immediately. For our hospitality industry, with the boost from Victorian Government funding, we waived the fees for these permits and made improvements in our public areas to accommodate outdoor dining as well as the development of campaigns to support our local businesses. I’m proud that our council built on its strong performance in the 2020 annual community satisfaction survey with another positive result in the 2021 results, despite the many impacts of COVID-19, and with the appearance of public areas again an outstanding performer. The council’s overall performance measure was 67 – up two points on the previous year - compared to 60 for regional centres and 61 for the state averages. We had many disruptions over the past year in the ways in which we inform, engage and deliver services to our community so it is really pleasing that the community continues to acknowledge that our staff are continuing their hard work in making this a great place to live and work. As always, there is much we can take away from these results and where we will continue to improve. We look forward to moving to a new COVID normal way of life and getting back to ways in which we can meet and engage our community, our businesses and our new residents. To close, I want to acknowledge our community, the council - both the previous and current groups - and all the staff for continuing their service to our city and community and upholding our mission “to strengthen our community in all that we do”.

Mark Dixon Wodonga Council CEO