New Campaspe Shire emergency management director Shannon Maynard will lead a team of four whose sole responsibility will be to focus on assisting shire residents through the recovery process.
A yet-to-be-disclosed location in the heart of Rochester will be developed in the coming weeks to house Mr Maynard, respected and well-known Campaspe Shire community development officer Lachlan Couzens and three soon-to-be appointed officers.
Mr Maynard said Mr Couzens would be the team lead at the flood recovery hub, which he stressed would be a service available to all shire residents.
“Once the floods had gone through, it was one of the initial asks to have appropriate staff in the area,” Mr Maynard said.
“Having a flood recovery hub was identified as a vital resource.”
Mr Maynard, in the role for just three weeks, has a two-year contract in the emergency management role.
Newly-appointed staff to the Rochester-based hub will operate on the same time frame.
Part of Mr Maynard’s role will be to manage the recovery efforts and advocacy for support from state and federal governments.
“My focus is very much recovery at the moment, but that will swiftly turn to refining the processes that the shire has in place for emergencies,” he said.
“We want to learn from this event and there will be a fairly hefty de-brief about what worked and what didn’t.
“There will be another event in the future, where it be a fire, flood or something else, and we need to be really well prepared.”
He said emergency management needed to be deeply embedded in everything the shire did and future operational plans would be reflective of this aim.
The first step in the recovery process was filling the roles of the new flood recovery team and co-ordinating the design of the new Rochester base.
Mr Maynard said the recovery hub would include consulting rooms for other agencies to use as a base, instead of using the 4Rs.
“Just over $500,000 has been allocated for the officers, on top of $900,000 for the hub set-up,” he said.
It is being jointly funded by the federal and state governments.
Mr Maynard had nothing but praise for Mr Couzens.
“He has a strong reputation in the Rochester community and has already done some phenomenal work in this space,” he said.
“He has a really good understanding of what is required and we are lucky to have him.”
The remaining three positions at the flood hub will be filled in coming weeks. There will be a genuine flood recovery officer operational in the field on a mobile basis and a customer service officer to take calls, while the third position will be a desk role.
Mr Maynard said the flood hub would service the entire shire, not just Rochester.
“It will be mobile in that sense and every person will have a chance to see us,” he said.
Officers will be available to assist people with submissions for financial assistance, among a range of other face-to-face services.
“A lot of people will not know what they need until they see what is available,” Mr Maynard said.
The new emergency management director has a 20-year history in local government, at Cardinia Shire for a vast majority of that, in the local laws, planning and emergency management space.
He worked at Nillumbick Shire during the COVID-19 pandemic and, most recently, has been in charge of community safety and compliance at Mornington Peninsula.
He and his team were involved in assisting Campaspe Shire a week after the October flood event.
“We helped to set up a program in the recovery area and started secondary impact assessments,” he said.
“Local government regularly reaches out to help each other and there were a number of other councils involved.”
Mr Maynard said he was thrilled to be at Campaspe Shire, describing this work as like the grand final of emergency management.
“It is now about us putting our heads over the ball and getting involved,” he said.
With the shire advertising for four new members of its executive — directors of sustainability, corporate, community and -nfrastructure — Mr Maynard said he was excited about getting started with the new executive.
“We have a massive task on our hands,” he said.
