Ex- staffer protests council restructure
TWO women who allegedly stole clothes from a Rebel sports store will face court after being nabbed with a bag full of stolen goods.
About 12.30pm on Sunday the women were seen at the Duckworth St store, Garbutt, taking a number of clothes and other items from shelves and placing them into a handbag.
The women then left the store without making any attempt to pay for the items.
A short time later, police located two women and conducted a search.
Police will allege they found a number of items in one of the women’s handbag with the tags attached.
A 49- year- old Aitkenvale woman and a 27- year- old North Ward woman were charged with stealing and will face Townsville Magistrates Court. A DISGRUNTLED ex- employee is calling for Townsville City Council to get rid of its chief executive officer on the back of its major restructure.
Former trade waste inspector Trevor Elson has been a lone protester out the front of the council’s Walker St building in the CBD since last week, turning out for a few hours at a time with a sign saying “Remove the CEO, reinstate front line services”.
The sign also includes a political authorisation message.
Mr Elson said he was protesting against aspects of the council’s restructure, implemented after an audit by consulting firm Nous Group.
Mr Elson, a former One Nation political candidate for Mundingburra, left the council in June after his position was made redundant. He said he was offered a compliance officer role but said it was a very different position and skillset.
“All I wanted was to keep doing my job,” he said.
A council spokesman said Mr Elson had voluntarily decided to leave his position at the council.
“Mr Elson decided to take a voluntary redundancy during the restructure,” he said.
“The restructure led to some roles changing in terms of their reporting lines and some experienced minor changes to their job requirements.
“This is the case with Mr Elson, whose role moved from waste services to regulatory services. No forced redundancies have occurred as a result of the restructure.”
Mr Elson said the atmosphere among staff was toxic.
“I get rung by people all the time because they know what I’m doing and a lot of them are looking for other jobs because it’s such a toxic environment at the moment,” he said.
“There’s no stability, people don’t know what they’re doing from day to day because of the way things have been dealt with in the last six months.”
The council spokesman said the restructure was tipped to deliver savings of $ 27.6 million across this financial year, with $ 14 million already saved.
“The restructure has saved ratepayers while maintaining the high levels of services provided to the Townsville community,” the spokesman said. Editorial, page 14