Shire of Cuballing to welcome new CEO Chris Paget this September

Cuballing will welcome a new chief executive officer in September, with the new hire promising to bring consistency and stability thanks to his extensive network with political and government agencies. Chris Paget will join the Shire of Cuballing on September 23 for a three-year term, making him the shire’s third CEO in four years following the retirement of Stan Scott. A panel comprising the shire council and former president Mark Conlui voted unanimously to hire the current Lake Grace deputy chief executive for his 24 years of experience in senior management roles in local government. Mr Paget said he was excited to work with another progressive local government after four years at the shire of Lake Grace, and his family were very supportive of this change. “Cuballing has a lot of great ideas and projects happening, they’re a very stable community,” he said. “Knowing that a lot of hard work is being done and now I have to continue with their projects and aims, it’s very exciting. “I was raised not to be afraid of challenges and change, and my family enforces this too. We’re all very adventurous.” Shire of Cuballing president Eliza Dowling said the shire was excited for Mr Paget to bring different ideas and new outlooks to the community. “His financial management is really strong, and that’s so important these days because compliance and government is such a massive burden,” she said. In the last 12 months, Cuballing has developed a Community Builders Action Plan and a Strategic Community Development Plan to boost eco-tourism and develop local facilities and the railway precinct. Further plans for walkways, playgrounds, parking and camping facilities have been hindered by ARC and PTA, which own the land beside the railway. “At the moment there’s no public access from one side of the town to the other across the railway line apart from the road, which is also a freight route,” Cr Dowling said. “We have been working on this for almost a decade but struggle to get ARC and PTA to the table to discuss the project. “Hopefully Chris will be able to get this process started again.”