Message from the Mayor
As I write this, I’m sitting in our office with the little heater going for the first time since last winter. It’s finally cold! & continues to rain lightly outside. I hope you all had some worthwhile numbers in the gauge this morning. We managed right on 25mm so will get on with our seeding program now as we have only done a small amount of dry seeding. Hopefully the weather scribes are right & a wet winter (& spring if possible) will prevail.
Last Friday afternoon I was most privileged to spend a couple of hours with David Goyder & his wife, daughter & son-in-law. David is a direct descendant of George Goyder of Goyders Line & our get together had been arranged by son-in-law Leigh Whicker a couple of months ago as part of their holiday up north. We visited the Goyder Monument & Tank Hill & it was delightful to be able to share some of Orroroo’s history with them. There was also the usual comment about the cleanliness of our toilets, I hope our reputation in that area never dies.
Earlier this month (May) was the 25th anniversary of the Orroroo Carrieton Council & it was interesting to read the extracts from the Goyders Gazette from those days. I still have a strong recollection of the process we went through at the Orroroo Council & the many things that were discussed at the time. I can still hear Chairman Des Fromm saying that we were about to vote on the most momentous motion in the history of the Orroroo Council when we finally amalgamated with Carrieton.
Something which seems these days forgotten which occurred at the same time is the formation of the Federation of North Eastern Councils where we joined with Peterborough for administration purposes & shared all our senior staff. This federation lasted for six years & I’ve personally always been disappointed that it wasn’t as successful as it could have been. It was the Councils’ fault in my opinion. We didn’t resource it sufficiently.
However the Carrieton amalgamation went ahead & to my mind its been most successful. Over the years we’ve had council representatives from both areas & done some exciting projects for all. In 1997 the continuation of the sealing of RN 3000 (Carrieton to Hawker road) by the combined staff of Council was responsible for around $1 million coming into our coffers & has remained our “rainy day” nest egg for all that time. I’ve very proud to have been associated with the Orroroo Carrieton Council for all those 25 years. Its a council that continues to punch well above its weight.