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Latrobe City Scoops Local Government Excellence AwardsLatrobe City scooped two of the seven Local Government Professional (LGPro) awards announced at Melbourne Park last Thursday night. By Latrobe City - 22nd February 2007 - Back to News The excellence awards involved 114 nominations from councils across Victoria, with Latrobe City nominating eleven projects it considered having award potential. Five of council’s nominations were named finalists in the coveted local government awards.
Council’s infrastructure operations department took out the award in the ‘Community Assets and Infrastructure Initiative $250K and under’ category, for their project involving the assessment of road signs for retroreflectivity.
Council’s local laws team won the ‘Service Delivery Initiative’ category for service delivery improvements involving domestic animal services.
The other three projects named as finalists were Latrobe City’s depression awareness program in the ‘Young Achiever’ category; Latrobe City’s response during the Moondarra Fires; and ‘Our Future Our Place’, a project involving training for the long-term unemployed and indigenous people in the building and construction industry.
Latrobe City’s chief executive officer, Paul Buckley, said he was overjoyed at the result. "To be named a finalist for five awards and to take out two of those awards is an outstanding achievement. Only one other council took out two awards, and that was the City of Melbourne, so we are obviously highly delighted," Mr Buckley said.
A project pioneering the use of international technology and research and developing a sign assessment process that all road authorities can use or adapt for use, won the favour of the judges for council’s infrastructure operations department.
Latrobe City’s manager infrastructure operations, Stephen Howe, said the project entailed assessing road signs for night time visibility and legibility. "These are key performance criteria that must be met in order for signs to fulfil their road safety function. In Australia, only the initial manufacture and installation of road signs is covered by industry standards," Mr Howe explained.
"As a consequence, Latrobe City successfully pioneered the Australian development and use of a performance assessment procedure for road signs. This includes the scientific measurement of a sign’s retroreflectivity values using a portable retroreflectometer in conjunction with other technologies. The technique has recently been showcased at an international conference and rather impressively is beginning to attract the interest of other road authorities and road maintenance contractors," Mr Howe added.
Initiatives including an online impound register, new local laws vehicles, an agreement forged with the Save A Dog Scheme (SADS), upgraded microchip scanning checks, an in-the-field return of impounded dogs and a centralised pound facility took the eye of the judges in council’s local laws team entry.
Latrobe’s acting coordinator local laws, Steve Wright, said the team has made several integrated and innovative operational improvements relating to domestic animals over the past year. "The changes were designed to enhance service delivery, customer service and animal welfare," Mr Wright said.
"The online impound register which commenced early in 2006 has attracted the attention of numerous council’s which are considering a similar service. A significant spin-off from the web site is that the general public and animal welfare groups access the site to find suitable animals to purchase and or rehouse."
Manager urban amenity, Jamey Mullen, said new multipurpose vehicles that have been specifically designed for the transport of domestic animals are also now in operation. "Together, the initiatives which have been put into place have demonstrated customer service improvements and cost savings to council and the community of Latrobe. However, a proactive approach has also been taken to various potentially volatile issues such as animal destruction; enhancing Latrobe’s standing on animal welfare in the eyes of the wider community," Mr Mullen said.
Latrobe City mayor, Cr Tony Zimora said winning the awards demonstrated that Latrobe’s innovation, competence and leadership set the pace for other councils across Victoria. "My fellow councillors and I congratulate our finalists and winners. We share the CEO’s delight in gaining this recognition for our municipality, in what is a highly competitive award system," Cr Zimora said.
Source: www.gippsland.com Published by: news@gippsland.com
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