By Brendan Rees
The Casey community is mourning the loss of former mayor John Hastie, who died from cancer on Monday 2 September, aged 80.
Mr Hastie served the City of Berwick from 1983 to 1994, and became the 15th mayor from 1987-88.
City of Casey councillor Wayne Smith described Mr Hastie as a passionate and dedicated councillor.
“He will be sadly missed by a lot of people,” he said. “There’s a lot of legacies around time that can be attributed to John’s diligence as a councillor in terms of finance.”
Mr Hastie served as a councillor with City of Casey from 1997 to 2003, and was elected as mayor at the old shire offices in Cranbourne from 1998-99.
At the time, Mr Hastie said his key projects were the Cranbourne and Narre Warren streetscape works; a decision on the $14 million Narre Warren Leisure Centre; a preschool in Peel Street, Berwick; and a refurbishment of the Doveton Public Hall, and more.Cr Smith, who served as deputy mayor to Mr Hastie from 1997-98, paid tribute to Mr Hastie during council’s meeting on 3 September, saying he was known as the “money man” and “always looked after the ratepayer dollar.”
“You could always rely on John at budget time and other times,” Cr Smith said.
“One year we were on our budget weekend and all of a sudden John Hastie came up and said ‘I found a million dollars.’ We all sort of joked and said ‘yeah right.’
“The officers went away and had discovered they had made an error … we grabbed it, we snapped it up. We had it spent within seconds of it being discovered,” Cr Smith said.
Cr Smith said Mr Hastie of Endeavour Hills was well regarded for his interest in good financial management of council funds and represented his ward “very successfully.”
He added: “John was good at reading the situation and being able to make a last minute change of mind or decision.”
“To his wife Wilma, our condolences to Wilma and his family on his passing,” Cr Smith said.
A funeral service will be held at Tobin Brothers Berwick on Thursday 12 September at 10am. Members of the public are invited to attend and celebrate Mr Hastie’s life.
