POLICE are investigating whether any video footage was taken by a gyrocopter pilot before his fatal crash at Cannons Creek on Sunday last week. They are also seeking anyone who may have witnessed or filmed the incident. Carl Solomons, 59, of Patterson Lakes, died when his Cavalon twin-seater aircraft hit power lines and crashed into shallow water on a flight between Tyabb airfield and Tooradin. His passenger, 37, of Hampton Park, was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital with serious injuries. Neighbours waded and paddled out to assist the stricken men despite the risk of electrocution from the fallen power…
Author: Stephen Taylor
A MT ELIZA restaurateur has been billed $2000 by Mornington Peninsula Shire to reinstate a garden bed outside his eatery. The fine comes after the council last week ripped out his well-established kerbside vegetable and herb patch saying it had been planted without approval. Marc Syawish, who has run 1001 Nights, near the intersection of Mt Eliza Way and Canadian Bay Rd for the past two years, said council workers on Wednesday moved in to strip his plot and replace it with native plants. He said he was devastated at losing verdant bunches of spinach, broccolini, silverbeet and wild rocket…
THE new Somerville police complex – not to be confused with a police “station” – is nearing completion but neither police nor contractors could set a finish date last week. The $16.3 million two-storey building has been dogged with controversy since its inception over fears it would strip front-line police from stations on the southern peninsula and that it will not be open to the public. An intense public meeting attended by 150 people at Rosebud public hall in October was told by Police Association secretary Ron Iddles and president John Laird that the complex should operate as an operational…
WHILE the federal government spends billions of dollars preventing asylum seekers and refugees from landing on Australian soil, the Victorian government has recruited thousands of unpaid workers to stem the predicted tide of voracious hordes from Asia. Although Operation Sovereign Borders carries out the government’s turn-back-the-boats policy the state government’s keep out the mites program depends on the humble bumblebee. If the bees are unable to detect an invasion a $90 million a year industry is threatened. The federal government has never quite spelt out what is under threat if asylum seekers and refugees are allowed to land in Australia…
UNDERGROUND storage facilities – or “cages” – are being targeted by burglars, especially in Mentone. Kingston police are investigating seven cases of theft from the cages which may contain racing cycles, TVs, computer equipment and other valuables. Owners’ cars are also being broken into, damaged, and valuables taken in underground carparks. Childers St, Mentone, has been hit six times. An apartment block resident, who would not be named, said up to 10 cages had been ransacked last month, with the thieves on site for four hours – all captured on CCTV footage. She lost property valued at $1690 in the…