A crowd of 378 people today (Fri.) rejected Anglican Bishop John Parkes proposal to merge Alexandra’s Kellock Lodge aged care facility with his troubled St John’s Village at Wangaratta.

Alexandra locals attended a standing-room-only meeting at the Shire Hall to clearly show their opposition to the Bishop’s plans to amalgamate the Alexandra-funded facility with the troubled Wangaratta village, where 10 elderly citizens died last year.

Bishop Parkes, a former barrister, did not attend the public meeting. The crowd laughed loudly when meeting Chairman (Shire CEO Craig Lloyd) announced that Bishop Parkes would not be attending the meeting, due to his attendance at the Church’s Synod. Bishop Parkes apparently did not send a representative to speak to the meeting; nor did the four Kellock directors who – to date – have supported the Bishop’s move to have Kellock Lodge assets incorporated into a new company.

The meeting voted almost unanimously (there was one dissenting vote) to reject “any moves to shift the control and management of Kellock Lodge and its assets out of Alexandra into a new company based at Wangaratta”.

The meeting also voted to request “the Kellock Board to investigate whether any avenues exist for the transfer of the land to an appropriate community based entity”.

The board of Kellock Lodge is due to conduct a special meeting tomorrow (Sat.) morning to vote on the proposal.

• More reports by The Local Paper to follow.