General News
12 August, 2024
Petitioner wants Minister to hear complaints
The Horsham community is fed up and has had enough, longtime resident Peter Murray wants to tell Local Government Minister Melissa Horne.
Mr Murray is urging the Minister to visit the city to hear firsthand the complaints from residents against Horsham Rural City Council.
The retired transport driver has also again called on mayor Robyn Gulline and CEO Sunil Bhalla to resign.
Mr Murray said the mayor continued to preside over a "dysfunctional" council and Community Satisfaction Survey results showed that 50 per cent of people did not support the direction of the council and its performance.
This was despite the appointment of a Local Government monitor to the council in 2022.
"The Horsham community needs intervention now," he said.
"We recognise this is an extraordinary step but there is no option. The mayor and CEO have led the organisation into a significant decline in community satisfaction over the past few years."
He said results of the survey were among the worst in the state and "an historical low" for the city.
"The 2023 results reveal the community no longer has the confidence in HRCC leadership," Mr Murray said.
He has prepared a petition calling for the resignation of the mayor and CEO and is approaching business people to place a copy in their shops for people to sign.
"I'm going to give this to every shopkeeper who will take it," he said.
"And if this doesn't work we might need a Danny Johnson-style meeting."
Danny Johnson of Warracknabeal organised a successful march in Melbourne in 1991 attended by about 150,000 people in protest to the state's Labor government and Joan Kirner's leadership.