At the moment of writing this letter, Halls Gap has been without mobile phone coverage for more than 60 hours. 

Calls to Telstra get the inevitable overseas operator who is quite likely to say, “Halls Gap….that is in Vic- toria, right?”  She then goes through the usual rigmarole about turning your mobile off and on again, etc, but can then tell you nothing except, eventually, that there is an outage, which you have already told the machine is the reason you are calling in the first place. 

She has no information, even after all these hours, as to when the service may be resumed.  

You then are transferred to their phone survey and tell a machine why your issue was not resolved.  The machine is sooooooo understanding – not!   Frustration factor is at a maximum.

Service was disrupted a few weeks ago for several days and it certainly doesn’t help those trying to run a business here.

Can I encourage all who experience this problem to call Telstra and demand a refund for lack of service? 

Besides that problem, the tower cannot cope during big weekends here, when the population swells to 5000 and more, for example Easter and the Grape Escape.

The lousy television reception is another issue. 

I run holiday accommodation. Many visitors arrive on a Friday evening all set to watch live coverage of footy, or cricket, or just the news and their chances of getting good reception, or any reception, are way less than if they stayed home. 

The next time they think of coming here for a weekend during the footy season, they’ll think twice.  It doesn’t help business.

Television advertisers should also seek refunds, as they are paying for advertising which is not being delivered.

- STEPHANIE BENBOW

Stawell

THE Northern Grampians Shire councillors never fail to amaze me with the decisions they make.

I refer to the appointment of the new chief executive officer.

Out of 68 applicants, they appoint a person who has only had one month of work experience as a CEO. That just amazes me how that can be done.

Did the first successful applicant (if there was one) get cold feet because they had heard about our shire, wanted no part of it and decided the career move was not a good one?

There is no doubt our shire has been in bad shape over the past 10 years. Is that why our last CEO departed?

We need a good, strong CEO who will make us rise from the ashes and I, along with many others, think the same.

We don’t really need someone who has just managed swimming pools. We need someone with a strong management background who has been a previous CEO at another shire or large company.

The shire is a multi-million dollar business and councillors appoint a novice.

We are only going to go further down the gurgler and who will get the blame for that? The CEO, of course, not the councillors.

And to give a novice a five-year contract to do the job just amazes me.

So, if things don’t work out say two years down the track, the CEO gets fired and still gets his overpaid salary courtesy of a bad decision by our council.

- PETER GRAVESON

Stawell