A MONITOR sent to report back to the state government on “governance issues” at Frankston Council will mostly restrict reports to tracking councillors’ behaviour and will not look at several contentious major projects. The design and construction of the mostly vacant $11 million plus Frankston Yacht Club, collapse of negotiations with the Frankston & District Basketball Association over a $12.7 million upgrade of the Frankston Basketball Stadium and delays to the Wells Street $5.2 million redevelopment (originally budgeted at $3.5 million), are just three of the major projects seemingly not on the monitor’s radar while at council. While a list…
Author: Neil Walker
A NEW writers’ festival is set to make its debut in Mornington. The Mornington Peninsula Writers Festival will be hosted by the Frankston Writers and Poets Society at the Peninsula Community Theatre on Saturday (10 March). Several established writers including Andrew Rule (co-author of the Underbelly and Chopper books), Paul Kennedy (ABC journalist and author of books including Fifteen Young Men about the tragic 1892 drowning of Mornington Football Club players), Garry Disher (author of several crime novels set on the peninsula), The Age scribe and author Anson Cameron and Nicky Johnson (author and illustrator of several children’s books including…
SAINTS “in shining armour” have made up a cash shortfall to buy a mobile kitchen trailer to help feed homeless and disadvantaged people in the Frankston area. Karingal Hub shopping centre has donated $8000 to Life-Gate after Frankston Council last month failed to support a submission to council’s mid-year budget review (“Mobile kitchen help gets knocked back”, The Times 19/2/18). Life-Gate co-founder, the Reverend Angel Roldan, told councillors at January’s public council meeting that $28,000 towards the $36,000 kitchen trailer had been raised from corporate and federal government donors. St Kilda Football Club has also invited Life-Gate to be the…
TERMITE-RIDDLED classrooms at Bonbeach Primary School have seen pupils taught in a staff room amid cramped conditions. Some frustrated parents have been flagging the termites infestation in crumbling classrooms damaged during a storm last October with the Labor state government for several months. The Victorian Education Department has declined to provide makeshift portable classrooms until the termites can be exterminated and damage repaired. Donna Bauer, Liberal candidate for Carrum for November’s upcoming state election, started an online petition last week calling for a full redevelopment of Bonbeach Primary School. “Bonbeach Primary School is an award-winning school, however after years of neglect the facilities…
RENOWNED Roman Catholic Priest and community worker Father Bob Maguire has lent support to the Frankston branch of a fledgling union for the unemployed. Attendees at an Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union meeting at Frankston Arts Centre last Wednesday (21 February) welcomed Father Bob into the flock gathered to discuss helping unemployed people understand their rights when dealing with Centrelink. Union convener and Hastings resident Fae Roth said the group gave the priest, a high-profile media personality and former co-host of the Sunday Night Safran show on Triple J with John Safran, a warm Frankston welcome. Father Bob dropped in to…