Cr Stephen Tancred is encouraging Southern Downs’ residents to consider standing in the next council elections in March 2024 to lead their community.
“It’s inevitable there will be some retirements from council so perhaps two or three or four new faces will be needed for the 2024-28 Council,” Cr Tancred said.
“I’m sure there are many sensible women and men with strong commitments to their community and the ability to devote sufficient time to the job out there thinking about this.
“This time next year people will be campaigning and now is the time to be talking to family, friends and your staff or work colleagues to see if being a councillor can work for you.”
“I’ve found the last three years to be very rewarding” the first-time councillor said.
“It’s a whole new career learning about such things as bitumen, pools, budgets, saleyards, audits, sewerage, libraries and water meters! Council has a very experienced and capable CEO who leads a team of committed and capable directors and managers who great to work with.
“Councillors are well supported by the staff and well trained by the Department of Local Government and the Local Govt Association of Qld. As long as new councillors bring goodwill and their own special set of skills to the table they are sure to be a success and make a difference in their community.”
When asked what he wanted to hang his hat on for his first term, Cr Tancred had a long list of things he and his councillor colleagues had achieved.
They included many projects that had been on the boil for years. Renovating the Warwick saleyards, enlarging Stanthorpe’s library and art gallery, progressing the Condamine River Road crossing, developing Australiana Park, building the WIRAC extension, moving Rose City FM to a new building, extending the Warwick dragstrip, connecting recycled water to Morgan Park and implementing water recycling at the truck wash, getting solar panels to heat the Killarney and Allora pools, extending the rural bin service, getting a pest management scheme acceptable to landholders and seeing the smart water meters installed were on his list of things that residents would be well aware of.
But Cr Tancred also takes a lot of pride in some less obvious achievements.
“Changing our meetings to live streaming, greatly reducing the amount of each meeting held in confidential sessions and opening up information sessions has informed residents and the press of how and why we do things and this transparency has strengthened confidence in council,” he said. “We have also worked to attract grants for roads, sewerage and water treatment infrastructure that is vitally important but a bit boring, so that doesn’t get many headlines”.
Water security was a big issue at the last election and this council has worked hard for three years at improving this. Achievements include the installation of new pumps at Leslie dam that can extract deeper water, progressing some bore fields towards Allora and improving the connection between Leslie and Connolly dams. Smart water meters installed in Stanthorpe are already detecting leaks and saving water. Warwick is on track for getting smart meters in the near future.
“Another major achievement was the negotiations regards the pipeline from Toowoomba and Wivenhoe dam to Warwick. Council negotiated the best outcome for ratepayers we could with the State Government.”
Cr Tancred said everyone in the region knows roads have been badly damaged by seven flood events since February 2020.
“But despite having the disruptions of covid and not being able to engage contractors or recruit staff as quickly as we wanted council has spent a record $21 million just to repair and improve flood damaged roads,” he said.
“Our staff have done their best in difficult conditions and most residents are understanding and patient.”
Cr Tancred said he was particularly pleased to have been part of the working group that progressed stabilising four of the Cambanoora Gorge Road crossings at Killarney. Hopefully they will be completed in the next nine months.
“The Gorge Road is another issue that was talked about for many years and it was gratifying to facilitate some action.”
He said all the current councillors could take pride in these many achievements and in the coming year they will be able to see work start on the saleyard improvements and see the new drag strip opened and operating.
Who know what 2024 to 2028 will bring as challenges and opportunities for councillors to improve the region?
Cr Tancred doesn’t but he is very enthusiastic in recommending the job of a councillor.
“I’d encourage anyone who has a desire to lead their community, an ability to work hard for good outcomes for residents and a unique set of skills to bring to the table to consider running for council,” he said.
“The whole region needs good people to keep stepping forward if we are to keep the ball of progress rolling in the Southern Downs.”
