It’s been a busy month at Council headquarters with current Mayor Steven Edgington tending his resignation to run in the Northern Territory election and as Deputy Mayor, I took his place on the 17th July 2020 and will act as Mayor until the outcome of the election is known.

Since I took the reins it’s been non-stop at council. As the newly appointed Acting Mayor I visited Elliott and inspected Council’s facilities as well as admiring the new town football oval and checked in with community members on Council activities.

Following this we had our monthly council meeting where we considered a number of matters including approving the new financials year Annual Plan. Another key item was approving two draft plans for the new playground at Lake Mary Ann for public consultation, Council also appointed a number of people to vacancies on our Local Authorities.

Last Friday we held our first citizenship ceremony since the COVID-19 restrictions were implemented. We welcomed 4 new Australian citizens to the Barkly Region: Julie Ann Lim Gamuyao, Stephen Jones, Arlene Venezuela Lanas and Gideon Nzimande. Council would like to congratulate each new citizen on reaching the end of their citizenship journey!

We also signed off on a Memorandum of Understanding be-tween the NT police and our night patrol program, bringing the organisations together in solidarity to effectively work better together as a united front.

I also visited Ali Curung on Monday to see how we are going at keeping up with the workload in the community. We have been suffering staff shortages due to COVID-19 related absences on our remote communities. I do have to commend the hard work of all of our staff during these difficult times, as everyone seems to be doing the best they can with the available resources.

I’m looking to getting out to Alpurrurulam in the next week or two to connect with the community and see first hand the recently upgraded roads and air strip. I’m also keen to see the new tip site where Council has approved a new perimeter fencing to be installed.

I along with some other volunteers have been working to grow some grass at the Tennant Creek cemetery, if you see me out there watering feel free to come over and say g’day. This is a long term project which we hope will make the cemetery a bit greener and brighter.

On the 20th August we will be visited by Her Honour the Honourable Vicki O’Halloran AO, Administrator of the Northern Territory. We look forward to this rare occasion to host her visit to the Region and will be putting on a good show to welcome her.

I look forward to the coming month and wish you, the Barkly all the best..

– Hal Ruger