Regarding your recent article “Council amalgamation recalled with reflection on change” and in particular as it is described as an “amalgamation celebration event” and reference to “bloated staffing numbers”.
To celebrate such an event and referencing staffing numbers as bloated in my view is insulting and disrespectful to many workers involved who suffered trauma, distress and upheaval as a result of what could easily be described as mass sackings within an industry.
Never has there been any evidence produced to prove the benefits of amalgamations, it seems as if though it has taken Foster 30 years to recover and as a reader recently pointed to the reduction in customer service at the shire office one is left wondering.
Perhaps the celebration was a poor attempt to redraw history, learn from the past about how not to make change without proper consultation and effective collaboration, the consequences of responding to a political decree about reducing state debt rather than benefitting communities, or to open up a discussion about the merits of a possible merger of the South Gippsland and Bass Coast Shires.
David Roche, Korumburra.
