Warrnambool council's interim chief executive officer Vikki King spent the first day in her new job on Wednesday and says her focus is now on a sustainable future for the city's finances.
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For almost five years Ms King has been the city's director of community development, and she briefly stepped into the CEO role between Bruce Anson's departure and Peter Schneider's arrival.
Mr Schneider was sacked on Monday night in a four-three vote of councillors.
Crs Kylie Gaston, Mike Neoh, David Owen and Sue Cassidy cited the poor showing in recent community and staff surveys as justification for the move as well as neglect of council's 2040 plan.
Ms King said she didn't have a personal view on whether the CEO should have been sacked because she didn't know what the councillors were debating or discussing. "And nor should I. That's the privy of all of them," she said. "When you work in community politics, local government, it's always a challenging environment to have everybody on the same page."
However she said she was happy to take up the role of CEO and promised to regroup and refocus.
"I've worked here for five years and I've seen the councillors put the community and council's interests at the forefront many, many times," Ms King said.
She said she understood people's concerns and while acknowledging that council may "trip up", she assured the community staff were focused on their commitment to Warrnambool, and providing essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ms King previously worked at two metro councils in New South Wales, one of which had been "under administration a couple of times".
"Because I'd grown up in Melbourne and spent a lot of time on this coast, until I broke a few bones surfing, I was interested when a job at Warrnambool came up," she said.
Before moving into local government, she had spent 14 years working for the Victorian AIDS Council from the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic until there were effective treatments.
Ms King said HIV/AIDS was "catastrophic" for the marginalised community. "It was a very, very scary time for many people," she said.
A delay in implementing the findings of an organisational review into council operations raised the ire of one councillor last week.
While Ms King said she had no problem with an organisation review, a "sustainable financial strategy" was needed to address the concerns people had been regularly raising externally and internally.
"Rather than the organisational review actually leading what that looks like, we use our financial sustainability to actually look at what can we afford and what can we do for that money?" she said.
Ms King said she was regularly asked about the council's 2040 plan which was developed after extensive engagement and set the path for where the council needed to take the city in the next 20 years.
She said the top priorities in the 2040 plan were the new library, Reid Oval redevelopment and Lake Pertobe. The council was now planning for the next four years, she said.
Ms King said the council's executive would also drive action plans to address staff concerns and indicated the next staff survey may be done sooner rather than later to see how things were tracking. "It will be an ongoing conversation and item on every agenda. It can't just be let go," she said.
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