Rural empathy needs to be a ceo’s priority

Ruth McDonald (Gaz 17/1) asserts that ‘this shire is no longer a rural shire, but it is a growth area’, which suggests that it can’t be both.

As I look south from Burke St, Warragul, I see an uninterrupted rural vista from Lardner to Mount Worth.

If I look north I see the scarred hillside being prepared for the latest stage of Waterford Rise, which soon will be an equally uninterrupted growth area vista.

Similar contrasts could be contemplated from other vantage points around town.

My point is that rural and urban areas can and do coexist. Provided growth of the latter is properly planned, executed and contained, Baw Baw Shire can retain its rural character, which I believe it still does.

And it’s not just a matter of semantics: prime farmland is the shire’s main natural asset, and its rural aesthetic the overarching tourist drawcard, so maintaining that character is as important economically as urban growth is likely to be for the foreseeable future.

Rural empathy should therefore be a prime consideration for councillors in selecting the new chief executive officer.

It’s something they’ll need to look for, and insist on, because it’s unlikely to figure in the thinking of city-centred recruitment advisers.

And someone with that quality is unlikely to have the ‘develop at any cost” mentality’ that Ms McDonald rightly warns against.

Shire chief executive officers are not managing directors, with necessarily powerful voices on boards of directors. Their primary role is efficient and effective execution of Council policy and direction.

A good ceo also will be a valued adviser to council on policy and strategy. Councillors should satisfy themselves that the ceo they select sees it that way too. John Hart Warragul have inherited, we have to reform the system that is meant to uphold them. We tend to take our hard-won liberty for granted. But history shows that liberty is much more difficult to win back than it is to lose. Max Thomas, Yarragon