The appointment of a new W’bool City Council CEO in Peter Schneider came with high hopes, but he has struggled to turn the ship around.Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Today (22/6) the Warrnambool City Council fell off a cliff and we need to know, right now, what our CEO Peter Schneider is going to do about it.
The annual WCC community satisfaction survey results released today show the overall performance of the WCC is at its lowest recorded level – ever.
Absorb that for one second.
Its overall score of just 42/100 is lower than the darkest years of the past decade.
It’s far lower than the regional average (56) and the state average (58), despite several councils having been dismissed, exposed or shamed.
Confidence in our council’s direction has crashed to just 32/100.
The ability to make community decisions scored a paltry 38/100.
Of the 28 different areas independently measured – from parking to tourism to traffic – satisfaction was down on every single measure, bar one (the environment, which stayed the same).
This is not just a failure, but a full-blown crisis.
As the survey company warned in its summary, it is going to take a mammoth effort to turn around.
We are looking to you, Mr Schneider, for answers and direction. This is why we pay you more than $320,000 a year.
But what do we get from our chief?
Well, today we got this statement to Katrina Lovell from The Standard:
“While we can look at the challenging issues that were playing out at the time the survey was conducted – horses on beaches, a councillor resignation, the Reid Oval design, The Lookout proposal, free car parking, ongoing investigations into management of credit cards and the start of COVID-19 restrictions – the reality is that many in the community are not happy with our performance and we must address this,” he said.
We get more excuses.
We get “not happy”.
Where is the plan, Mr Schneider? Where is the hope for change and real connection with the community you serve?
The council would have had these survey results for some time, and yet we don’t get even a hint of a plan, but more platitudes.
I, for one, am sick to death of the platitudes.
And where is the statement from our Mayor?
This is why we have a Mayor, to speak on behalf of the six other people elected to represent us.
Are they shocked? Outraged? Saddened? Determined to start working on this from first thing tomorrow morning?
We have silence.
They just don’t get it. Even after a report card littered with metaphorical Fs and Es, they still can’t reach across the divide and say “we hear you”.
In the meantime, there is a second survey that was released about a week ago, that we won’t see. This is the staff survey which, I have a sense, is equally as shocking.
The WCC will not be releasing those results. I wonder why.
Bring on October – and vote for change.
[The community survey report is 163 pages long and buried on the WCC website. I will drill down into it as the week unfolds. You can find it here.]