CR TIM RODGERS – MUNICIPAL ASSOCIATION 10 YEAR OUTSTANDING SERVICE AWARD PRESENTATION
Cr Fraser – Congratulations to Councillor Rodgers on his 10 years outstanding service to the Shire and his Nepean Ward residents.
Councillor Rodgers is intensely knowledgeable and attentive to all the Shire’s activities, its governance and the residents of his Ward – having been elected to this council in 2005 and re-elected on two subsequent occasions. He served the Shire as Mayor 2007/2008.
He represented the Shire at the 2007 Bali COP13 and 2009 Copenhagen COP15 World Environment Conferences and at the 2015 Seoul ICLEI Local Government for Sustainability conference. He is the Shire’s foremost environmental advocate of the effects of climate change, the need to mitigate and adapt to its effects and to achieve carbon neutrality.
He put in train the construction and fitting out of the Eco House at the Briars which, although a modest educational facility, compares more than favourably with the multi-million dollar Eco Living Centre I inspected in Seoul earlier this year. He instigated in Council with his vote, and then led, the successful campaign to ‘Save Rosebud Foreshore”.
His chairmanship of the Shire’s “Friends of Los Palos” East Timor Committee has been with enthusiasm and distinction. In 2013 he led the Shire officer team to visit East Timor and Los Palos and again in January this year at his own expense. East Timor is now suffering terribly under the effects of drought. He instigated the recent resolution of this Council calling on the Australian Government to resume negotiations with East Timor over the seabed boundary in the Timor Gap.
As his co-councillor in Nepean Ward, he has left me in no doubt as to his political skills, his complete understanding as to Council governance and how it ought best function, his broad palette of interests, his understanding of people, and his high community and personal values and, I might add, he has never been slow to remind me of my own responsibilities as councillor.
It has been a delight working with Cr Rodgers and long may he continue to serve the Council and people of the Shire.