| By Anthony Radford
New chief executive officer Craig Neimann
WHEN Kevin Sheedy was sacked as Essendon’s AFL coach, a lot was made of the search for his replacement.
Big names from across Australia were being thrown up as possible replacements.
After months of looking it was a big surprise that Bendigo Bombers coach Matthew Knights, one of Sheedy’s deputies, was given the job.
The search for the City of Greater Bendigo’s new chief executive officer had a lot of similarities.
While nobody has yet to doubt or criticise the appointment of Craig Neimann, as they did Knights, it did come as a surprise in some circles.
The council vowed to “search the nation” for a
replacement to John McLean, and paid a consulting firm $25,000 to do so.
Of the candidates three stood out – Mr Neimann and two from Queensland with good records and good experience.
The council chose to go with stability and security over taking a punt with someone who could come in with fresh ideas and a big broom.
Despite paying head hunters, they chose someone they knew and were comfortable with, someone who could hit the ground running straight away and someone who was always considered Mr McLean’s deputy.
During his interview, Mr Neimann urged the councillors to chose a candidate that would see the organisation start moving forward from day one.
“We don’t take any steps back, we just keep moving forward, in terms of continuity of business and everything like that,” he said.
“I don’t have to learn new things. I understand Bendigo as a regional city, I understand where streets are and parks are and all that sort of local knowledge you accumulate over time.
“I used that to my advantage. I can start tomorrow. We can move forward straight away and there would be limited disruption to the organisation, the councillors know who I am and my attributes and skills, and we can walk forward together.”
But does that make him a better candidate? Is it better to bring someone in from outside the council, from outside the city?
“That’s a decision for the council to make,” he said.
“They weighed up that. They are the ones who saw all the applicants. They are the ones who looked at who is available, who was putting their hand up for this role, and they have made a conscious
decision about whether a person with local knowledge,
already here, looking to move forward versus someone who might have brought different skills to the organisation.
“That is their call on how they have done that.”
One of the first items on Mr Neimann’s ‘moving forward’ list is major projects.
The council has performed poorly in the past three years on major projects with only one – the Hargreaves Mall redevelopment – likely to have been started and finished in its four-year term.
Mr Neimann acknowledged more work needed to be done in that area but it wasn’t likely to be a quick fix.
“There is a challenge in terms of balancing the number of plans versus the resources and delivery of actions that follow,” he said.
“There is a bit of work around project management and project delivery we still need to work on.
“We have probably jumped in at times, thinking we need to do this, and got to a point and decided, hang on were we on the right track or should we have taken a different direction?
“It is about then being smart up front, doing a full project analysis with a lot of planning behind the process to make sure we get them right for a start and then putting them in place.
“Part of our challenge is around major projects still,
because they are complex.
“The key to all of that is around getting the best information we can to be put on the table so councillors can make the best decision they can.”
Mr Neimann said the key to that was more research and working harder.
“There has been some research, but perhaps we can add more rigour into that in terms of making sure we get the best possible data we can,” he said.
“As a councillor and an officer you love to have all the information at your finger tips before you have to make a decision.
“Perhaps some times we jump a bit before we have all the details we need. There are other pressures that come to bear on that, of course. That is part of the challenge of local government.”
One of the projects that fell over a year or so after being announced was a new tip at Huntly.
After launching it with much fanfare, the site was proven to be unsuitable after lobbying from state politicians Jacinta Allan and Bob Cameron.
“I hope over the next 12 month period council has some good information to make some good decisions around the tip,” Mr Neimann said.
“There is a further review happening over availability of sites. We need to ultimately find land available for a long-term waste management strategy.
“There is work happening around that at the moment to make sure we can choose some sites we can analyse further, and there is a process around making sure we can make a decision about what is the best site for the future.”
Another of the areas Mr Neimann believes could be improved by providing more and better information is community engagement.
“Community engagement is more challenging in a bigger
urban environment,” he said.
“There are lots of different needs and opinions and some people are more involved in whether the council is going well or not.
“We are doing the small town stuff better now, engaging and working together and trying to build better communities and understand the importance of those smaller communities.
“But we also understand the regional role Bendigo plays, not just within Bendigo.
“There will always be decisions we have to make that are challenging, and we won’t be able to satisfy everyone, because of that competing interests and competing needs.
“At the end of the day, if we can get the best information we have we will try and make the best decisions we can.”
Mr Neimann praised Mr McLean and his contribution to the council and the city.
“I want to pay tribute to John McLean, the organisation he has built, the empowerment of staff, making sure staff have a career path and building their contribution to the organisation,” he said. “I think there was a lot of work done by John to that.
“His approach to setting up a new structure, which meant stronger strategic planning and planning for the future, an emphasis on promoting and marketing and selling this region to the broader Melbourne and beyond.
“They have been significant factors that have moved us forward.”
Mr Neimann is, by his very nature, a positive person. As a cricketer, that is almost a prerequisite. He is keen to see the city build on its positives, while still remaining aware of the people who need help.
“We are a growing city and that is always a positive to have. We are attracting people, not just from within the region, but external to the region,” he said.
“That creates a greater variety of culture and extra economic
activity. There are lots of positives around growth. The challenge around growth, however, is to be in front of or up with the game so you can develop infrastructure and meet the community needs.
“You have to be mindful of the fact there are other parts of the community who aren’t growing so strongly and we need to be supportive of the people in the community who aren’t so well off and how we can provide accessible and affordable services to those people.”
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