THE Lions Club of Western Port has disbanded after 44 years. The club was down to seven members, well short of the 40 on the books almost 16 years ago when current president Bert Harrison joined. Ages of the seven members range from 51 to 82. Mr Harrison and three other Western Port members will be joining neighbouring branches to continue their work in the community. “At the height of the club, membership reached into to 50s, but due to retirement, transfers and the unfortunate deaths of some members, it hasn’t been so easy over the past few years,” Mr…
Month: December 2012
UNITED Energy could face claims of hundreds of thousands of dollars following a massive power surge from a Mornington electricity substation on Wednesday morning. Up to 10,000 properties in Mornington, Mt Martha, Moorooduc and Somerville received 300 volts, 20 per cent more than normal, surging through power lines at about 9am. The CFA said there had been more than 55 calls for assistance, mostly generated by householders smelling smoke from electrical appliances and smouldering wiring. The CFA set up an emergency response team at its Moorooduc incident control centre to take calls from 000 and coordinate its response. Calls were…
HASTINGS police are searching for a man aged in his late 30s who is alleged to have grabbed an 11-year-old girl by the arm as she was walking to school. The girl told police she was in William St at about 8.10am on Monday when approached by the man who asked her to go with him. The girl says that after refusing him she was grabbed by the arm but managed to break free and run to the Kmart shopping centre. The girl reported the incident to principal Richard Mucha when she later arrived at St Mary’s Primary School. Senior…
MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire has its first Aboriginal cultural heritage adviser – Adam Edwards Magennis. Mr Magennis, 37, a Boonwurrung man, has just become a qualified archaeologist after studying for three years full time at La Trobe University. He will advise government and developers, devise cultural heritage management plans, and join 22 other Aboriginal archaeologists and the new Aboriginal Archaeologists Association, founded earlier this year. Mr Magennis has now set his sights on an honours degree, which will take two years part-time. He already has an idea for his thesis – a comparison between two of the great historical places on…
HASTINGS police have uncovered an amphetamine laboratory allegedly operating in a factory in Marine Parade. A private house in Hastings was also raided as part of an ongoing investigation into amphetamine manufacture and trafficking in the Hastings area. Detective Sergeant Ron Fauvel of Hastings crime investigation unit said the six-week operation was conducted with members of the clandestine laboratory squad. As a result of the raids on Friday 30 November, two Hastings men aged 36 and 37, and a 48-year-old woman of Templestowe were charged with multiple offences relating to the manufacture and trafficking of amphetamines. The woman and the…
SMOKING has been banned within 50 metres of lifesavers’ flags at Point Leo. The statewide ban came into effect this week along with a $140 penalty. Smoking is now banned over summer at all patrolled beaches on the Mornington Peninsula. The ban was introduced by the state government to protect beach users from secondhand smoke and to reduce children’s and young people’s exposure to smoking, which may influence their adult behaviour. The government says that smokers will initially be encouraged to self-regulate when near the red and orange flags. No smoking signs will be installed at beaches. Similar bans are…
MT Martha residents have started a campaign to stop the former quarry in the town being sold for commercial development. They fear Mornington Peninsula Shire is about to start moves to rezone and sell the quarry, which operated off the Esplanade at the corner of Stanley Cres and Fairbairn Ave from 1958 to 1985. It is fenced off and used to store rocks earmarked as fill for erosion works at The Eyrie in McCrae. In an arrangement that would be welcomed by community groups paying rent for using council property, Maw Civil was given free use of the quarry as…
THE Victorian Labor Party has rejected more than six years of planning for an expanded Port of Hastings. Last week it released a jobs and investment strategy dumping its support of Hastings in favour of the so-called “Bay West” option, a new port proposed for the western side of Port Phillip between Geelong and Werribee. The decision is a massive about-face as the ALP proposed building a three-stage port at Hastings when it was in government. Hastings Liberal MP Neale Burgess said “Labor has abandoned more than 40 years of bipartisan support for the Port of Hastings, deserted the people…
FRANKSTON Council is about to again embark on a search for investors in the $300 million marina earmarked for development between Olivers Hill and Daveys Bay. Impetus for reviving the search abandoned in 2010 follows advice from council’s investment attraction facilitator Jason Sharp that Tourism Victoria’s offer to help finance the re-tendering the project runs out at the end of the 2012-13 financial year. Mr Sharp’s report on this week’s council agenda says that despite abandoning the tender process in 2010, council officers continued working to gain extra time for the marina from Planning Minister Matthew Guy. “The Cultural Heritage…
THE quality of water being discharged through the sewage outfall at Gunnamatta will drop this week while Melbourne Water works on its latest treatment equipment. The 350 million litres a day discharge will be Class C, below the purity that has been pumped into the ocean since new processes came on line in July. “A three- to four-day shutdown of the new advanced tertiary treatment stage at ETP [Eastern Treatment Plant, near Carrum] is required in November to undertake important works on site,” general manager of asset planning Paul Pretto said. He said the plant’s $418 million upgrade was “nearing…
MORE than 300 teachers rallied outside the McCrae office of Education Minister and Nepean MP Martin Dixon on Wednesday. The McCrae Plaza shopping centre car park was turned into a sea of red clothing and banners as teachers and support staff vented their disappointment at the standoff between the teachers’ union and the Baillieu government. Australian Education Union members are targeting state government MPs as part of the “Keep the Promise” campaign, which refers to Premier Ted Baillieu’s claim made before the November 2010 election to make Victorian teachers “the best paid teachers in Australia”. The morning rally was part…
TWO abalone poachers from the peninsula have been given prison sentences for trafficking a commercial quantity of the endangered shellfish. Last Friday in the County Court, Judge Mark Dean jailed Andrew Carpmael, 49, of Rosebud for 18 months with a minimum of nine months. Simon Hillman, of Rye, received a 12-month sentence suspended for two years. Each man pleaded guilty to one charge of trafficking a commercial quantity of abalone. The judge also banned the pair from having commercial abalone equipment, Carpmael for 10 years and Hillman for three. Hillman, a professional diver who works at Peninsula Hot Springs near…