Council close Taroom workshop
SEVERAL Taroom residents were seeing red on Wednesday after watching the council workshop being cleaned out and then locked up.
"Council comes in, cleans out the workshop, takes all the stuff back to Biloela and then locks up the workshop," one fuming resident told Central Telegraph.
"This would never have happened before amalgamation.
"They haven't notified the community or their workers about this closure.
"They don't give a stuff about us.
"They just come in, like thieves in the night, and hope that nobody notices.
"It's just wrong."
But the closure of the workshop is not what it seems.
Banana Shire chief executive Ray Geraghty said the workshop was not being shut down and nobody would lose their jobs.
"The problem council faces in that the mechanic that works in the Taroom workshop has been off on sick leave and we have been attempting to find a replacement," Mr Geraghty said.
"But when you are advertising a council job that is worth $50,000 to $60,000 on the same page in the paper as jobs at the mine that pay $80,000 to $100,000, you can understand how difficult it is to find a mechanic.
"But we will keep trying to source a mechanic.
"What council has done in the interim is strike an agreement with a mechanical business in Taroom who will work on council machinery in our workshop when the need arises."
Mr Geraghty said the workshop had been locked, but would be opened by the business owners when he needs it.
