A PUBLIC rally in the Civic Gardens on April 4 will call for the sacking of the City of Greater Bendigo council.
The rally will be held at 5.30pm to coincide with the start of council’s meeting.
Representatives from community groups, business leaders and ratepayers met on Wednesday to finalise plans for the rally.
The meeting saw the formation of a group, tentatively called Bendigo Ratepayers Association Council Scrutineers. BRACS spokesman Martin Ruffell said the rally would call for an administrator to be appointed until elections could be held.
"We believe council isn’t providing quality leadership for the community," he said.
"I have brought this together because we get so many people coming into the store and airing their grievances," he said.
"People are already tipping money in and other people are offering their skills where they can.
"It is the administration we are attacking. It is the councillors. It appears they have some sort of agenda. They don’t want to listen and they don’t have the views of the ratepayers at heart.
"There will be a petition circulated on the day that will call for the council to be dismissed."
Mr Ruffell’s agenda can also be questioned. His wife, Lisa, is convenor of the Epsom Huntly Action Group, which is fighting the council over plans to build a supermarket development on recreation land at Epsom.
Mr Ruffell said the campaign was bigger than just the Epsom issue.
"This is not just EHAG," he said.
"People involved include those against the landfill, we have a wildlife group on board, there are those with concerns over Hargreaves Mall, Lake Weeroona as well as the way major projects such as the car park and the Queen Elizabeth Oval facility have been handled."
Mayor Julie Rivendell played the news with a straight bat.
"I do think it is important for people to be able to voice their opinions," she said.
"Clearly when they do we need to try to assess whether there are fair and valid grounds for that.
‘We have been doing our best to improve the information we give out to the community and create more opportunities to talk to people on a one-on-one basis.
"However, there is always room for improvement."
